2022.06.03 – Open Broadband News

’App-y days for service providers as Broadband Forum launches Services Gateway Project

The demand for better network services and faster innovations have presented operators with a distinct opportunity to look towards end-user network gateways such as Wi-Fi routers as a platform to unlock a myriad of third-party applications and services.

The app-enabled services gateway project from Broadband Forum helps service providers effectively deploy, activate and manage third party applications such as parental controls, Wi-Fi analytics, streaming services and security solutions to consumers on a centralized Internet gateway device or other Customer Premises Equipment (CPE).

“Service providers’ customers have confronted them with unprecedented demand on their networks and app-enabled services gateways will help unlock a plethora of third-party applications and services,” said Jason Walls, of QA Cafe, Chair of the Broadband Forum Connected Home Council and BUS Work Area Director. “Our work pulls together industry leaders from multiple Standards Development Organizations and the open-source community to create quality, interoperable, open standards. The adoption of faster access technologies and resulting exponential growth in bandwidth opens up new ARPU opportunities for service providers to capitalize on.”

UK Government Issue Spring 2022 Update on Project Gigabit Broadband Rollout

The Government’s Building Digital UK team has published a Spring 2022 progress update for its £5bn Project Gigabit broadband rollout, which among other things adds new regional procurements in Norfolk and Suffolk and two local supplier procurements in Cornwall, potentially extending 1Gbps speeds to 190,000 premises.

Project Gigabit is designed to extend such download speeds to reach at least 85% of UK premises by the end of 2025, before hopefully nationwide coverage (99%) by around 2030.

The funding released for this will depend on how the industry responds. So far only £1.2bn has been released from the budget up until 2024, but more is expected to be unlocked provided the industry shows it can deliver.

Mind the gap! Is 5G fixed wireless access key to closing the digital divide?

GMSA Intelligence sees substantial cost savings when comparing 5G Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) with Fiber-To-The-Home.

Bridging the digital divide is a focus of governments and operators around the world. The primary stumbling block is finding the right balance between conducive policy and incentivization with economic feasibility and new service revenue generation.

GSMA Intelligence Senior Economist Federico Agnoletto made the case for 5G FWA and said: “First of all, the speeds are comparable to fiber.” Second, FWA can often be more rapidly and more cheaply deployed as compared to aerial or subterranean fiber.  “It is cost-effective in many instances,” he said, “with cost savings up to 80%.” And third, “It’s not just an issue for developing economies [and] it’s not just for rural areas. It’s really key to bridging the digital divide.”

Omdia: Enterprise AI has reached critical mass

In what can only be described as a pivotal moment, a new report from Omdia suggests that the enterprise Artificial Intelligence (AI) market has reached critical mass (adoption is becoming self-sustaining), and the market is now in the early majority phase. The impact of what comes next will be far-reaching.

Omdia estimates 20-25% of enterprises are scaling AI projects across multiple business units. Scaling of AI deployment is a key sign of AI maturity – it shows commitment to AI projects, that budget and resources have been invested, typically over several years. The scaling metric places AI squarely in the early majority phase of market adoption, according to the Diffusion of Innovation Theory (E.M. Rogers, adoption of a new idea, behavior or product accelerates rapidly once a market surpasses 16%).

“The next two years will be a time of explosive growth for enterprise AI as an unprecedented number of enterprises seeking to operationalize AI begin their AI journeys,” said Mark Beccue, Principal Analyst, Omdia. “Live AI deployments will likely double and funding for AI projects will grow exponentially.”