2022.06.10 – Open Broadband News

WT-474: Introducing Subscriber Session Steering and dynamic subscriber placement   

Traditional fixed broadband networks, typically, have relatively static configurations in the access network, with subscribers mapped to specific service gateways. This static mapping restricts a service provider’s ability to offer innovative edge services, and requires pre-planning and modelling to ensure that the network is loaded evenly and can effectively cope with device failures. Essentially, it is an inefficient and time-expensive process for service providers and limits service innovation.

That’s why the Broadband Forum is working on WT-474. WT-474 will deliver an open standards approach to the architecture and data models to enable a network capability for flexible and dynamic real-time decisions about the placement of individual subscribers. This core principle is called Subscriber Session Steering.

Subscriber Session Steering delivers a more flexible access network – allowing dynamic service-aware placement of subscriber sessions and load balancing of sessions across the available service gateways. Read the full blog post from Jonathan Newton, Principal Network Architect at Vodafone’s Fixed Access Centre of Excellence here.

New advanced optical fiber cable hits record speed

A team of network researchers from the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) in Japan has achieved the “world’s first” successful data transmission of 1.02 Petabits per second (Pbs) in a standard cladding diameter (0.125 mm) multi-core fiber cable over a distance of 51.7km.

NICT has a long-running history of setting new transmission records in the field of fiber optic broadband and data communications and have previously hit a speed of 1.01Pbps in December 2020.

The cable being tested is, “thought to be the most likely of the new advanced optical fibers for early commercial adoption”, which makes this demonstration of their record-breaking capabilities even more important.

US Treasury boosts broadband with $583M in Capital Projects Fund awards

Money finally began flowing to state governments from the $10 billion Capital Projects Fund more than a year after it was created as part of the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) in March 2021, as the U.S. Treasury Department approved an initial batch of funding requests from four states.

The awards for Louisiana, New Hampshire, Virginia and West Virginia total $582.8 million and will cover projects designed to deliver connectivity to 200,373 locations.

Virginia was approved to receive the entirety of its $219.8 million Capital Projects Fund allotment, which will allow it to deliver broadband to an estimated 76,873 locations. The money is set to be distributed through the state’s existing Virginia Telecommunication Initiative (VATI) grant program, which requires operators and local government entities to jointly apply for funding.

Nigeria’s Internet Subscription Hits 148m  

Subscriptions for internet across mobile, fixed, and VoIP networks in the country increased to 148 million in April this year.

Statistics obtained from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) reveals that telecom operators recorded 2.5 million new subscriptions in the month.

Broadband subscriptions (high-speed internet service) rose to 81.6 million in April from 80.6 million recorded in March, bringing the country’s broadband penetration to 42.79 per cent.

Ecuador echo struggle to quicken pace of fixed broadband additions   

Ecuador’s telecommunications user base continues to expand, mainly through LTE and HSPA+ mobile technologies.

Albeit growing, fixed broadband advances less than mobile and still has only 14% market penetration, latest statistics from regulator Arcotel show.

Figures show that Ecuador had 2.40 million fixed broadband accesses at the end of the first quarter which translates into a penetration of less than 14%. The country still struggles to quicken the pace of fixed broadband additions, having added around 211,000 in 12 months.