2022.07.15 – Open Broadband News

Greater flexibility and interoperability for operators virtualizing their software defined fiber access networks

Operators can now reduce the time and cost associated with onboarding new Optical Network Unit (ONU) vendors, roll-out services faster, and more easily migrate and evolve their networks by applying new innovations and flexibility thanks to the publication of two new documents from the Broadband Forum.

Broadband Forum’s TR-451 ‘vOMCI Specification’ and MR-451 ‘ONU Management using Virtualized OMCI’ have armed operators with more choice in how they create, activate, and maintain services associated with ONUs. Previously, the management cycle of the ONU was tied to a specific vendor’s Optical Line Terminal (OLT). The latest specification enables operators to de-couple the ONU and OLT from control and management purposes, with the Virtualized ONU Management (vOMCI) being introduced as a solution to centralize operations without relying on each OLT to act as a management entity.

“The latest specification can be used in the evolution of the management of ONUs, not as a replacement for the management processes and data models already in use by operators but to future-proof their infrastructure while maintaining their investment in existing ONU devices,” said Bruno Cornaglia, Co-Director of the SDN/NFV Work Area at Broadband Forum. “Ultimately, ONU management will be more adaptive to changes in operators’ processes and services, as well as less costly to maintain.”

South Korea’s multiplay service revenue to grow to $7.7bn by 2026

Multiplay service revenue in South Korea is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 2.4 per cent from $6.9 billion (€6.8bn) in 2021 to $7.7 billion in 2026, driven by the steady rise in the number of multiplay households and growth in the average monthly multiplay household spending, according to GlobalData, a data and analytics company.

GlobalData’s South Korea Multiplay Services Forecast (Q1 2022) reveals that the number of multiplay service households in the region will increase at a CAGR of 1.1 per cent over the forecast period, supported by fibre-optic network expansion by fixed operators that will enable them to deliver bundled plans built around high-speed internet services.

Pradeepthi Kantipudi, Telecom Analyst at GlobalData, said: “Doubleplay service plans will account for the majority of the multiplay households in South Korea through the forecast period, but its share in the total multiplay households will drop from 46.4 per cent in 2021 to 39.7 per cent in 2026. Tripleplay and quadplay services will see their share in the total multiplay households grow from 35.8 per cent and 17.8 per cent in 2021 to 37.1 per cent and 23.2 per cent, respectively, in 2026.”

Chile hot 5G

5G in Chile reached over half a million users in the first four months of service, official stats show. Chile was the first country in Latin America to activate the technology.

At the end of April, the technology achieved the same number of connections that 4G made in its first 12 months.

5G accesses in Chile grew at an accumulated growth rate of 996% in the first four months of the year to 545,323 in April, according to the watchdog.

Although 5G traffic still represented only 0.7% of total mobile traffic as of that month, growth in the four-month period was 1,359%, exceeding 2G traffic by almost 6 times, according to Subtel.

Overall, Chile had 26.8mn internet connections (fixed, 3G, 4G and 5G) as of the end-April, Subtel said.

Detroit to put $10M toward open-access fiber network

The city has set its sights on building an open-access fiber network that will serve a neighborhood of about 3,200 households. Officials plan to use $10 million in American Rescue Plan funds for the pilot.

After Bruce Patterson’s success designing a network to serve the residents of Ammon, he decided last year to depart and work to help other cities build similar open-access networks.

Perhaps the most significant taker is the city of Detroit, which is planning to use $10 million in funding from the American Rescue Plan Act. And while Detroit city officials have done lots of their own innovation to build a network suited to local needs, they’ve kept their eyes on the system built in the Idaho town of 16,000.

Speed alone is not enough – The challenges and opportunities for network managed latency

While speed is undeniably important aspect in broadband, there   is a continuing recognition that speed alone does not define a broadband subscriber user’s experience. This shift in focus among service providers on Quality of Experience (QoE), leads to reduced churn, new Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) growth opportunities, service differentiation and a decrease in customer support and network planning OPEX.

A crucial factor in QoE is latency, recognized as one of the key user experience bottlenecks. Once a service provider can deliver higher bandwidth that is no longer a restraint on the applications demanded. Latency will become as important or potentially more important to the user experience.

Latency, an expression of how much time it takes for a data packet to travel from one designated point to another, heavily impacts on customer QoE and consumers are becoming more aware of this. Latency is impacted by a number of factors: the physical time it takes for the packet to travel from point A to point B; queuing caused by competing traffic; serialization, which is the time it takes to place the packet’s contents on the transmission channel; and packet processing time. Ideally, latency will be as close to zero as possible all the way to the user device. Too much latency leads to poor application behavior, causing consumers to become frustrated.

Read the full blog from Broadband Forum Managing Director Ken Ko here.

How CSPs can deliver and monetize managed Wi-Fi services

Communications Service Providers (CSPs) have been slowly taking Wi-Fi service share away from retailers for several years. The consumer wants to get the Wi-Fi speed they are paying for throughout their home, meaning the service is driven by demand. Operators want to own the Residential Gateway, the single access or main access point of Wi-Fi in the home, to provide the best customer service.

It is very likely that a CSP already has an installed base of Wi-Fi devices with its customers which impacts a managed Wi-Fi service.

“What is really exciting is a transition that is happening from a standards perspective in the industry which is being driven by the Broadband Forum which is the User Services Platform (USP), otherwise known as the TR-369 protocol. What that allows the industry to do is to have a common open standard that provides all the necessary information and data up to the cloud that is necessary for us to perform a really powerful managed Wi-Fi service,” said Justin Doucette, Head of Nokia WiFi, Residential and Small Business Markets.

Watch the YouTube video here.