2022.09.09 – Open Broadband News

Broadband Forum and HomeGrid Forum come together to unlock G.hn Access certification benefits for operators’ deployments

Collaboration between Broadband Forum and HomeGrid Forum has helped unlock greater interoperability and gigabit plus performance for service providers, as the two leading standards development organizations have jointly developed a GHNA (G.hn Access) Certification Program.

The GHNA Certification Program is designed to combine Broadband Forum-based performance testing with HomeGrid Forum-based compliance and interoperability testing for access equipment implementing the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) G.hn standard (ITU-T G.996x series).

“The new collaboration will have widespread ramifications to benefit broadband players across the industry,” HomeGrid Forum President Livia Rosu said. “Thanks to the new GHNA Certification Program, service providers will have the confidence to undertake and accelerate effective service deployments with highly performant, interoperable and standard-compliant G.hn Access certified systems that have been awarded both the Broadband Forum and HomeGrid Forum stamp of approval.”

The next steps of the collaboration will see the first vendors pass our BBF.GHNA beta trials, to be held at University of New Hampshire Interoperability Laboratory (UNH-IOL) during the week of 26th September 2022, which coupled with GiGAWire testing will lead to GHNA certification.

Fiber push accelerates South Africa’s fixed broadband speeds

South Africa’s fixed broadband speeds have more than doubled over the past three years, boosted by increased market competition and growth in Fiber-To-The-Home (FTTH) subscriptions. This is according to US-based broadband testing diagnostics company Ookla in its latest Speedtest Global Index, which analysed fixed broadband performance in South Africa.

In July, the company ranked South Africa in 95th place, with a median download speed of 35.90 Mbps and a median upload speed of 29.56 Mbps. Comparatively, the report highlighted that the country ranked 112th in July 2019, with fixed median download and upload speeds of 9.95 Mbps and 5.56 Mbps, respectively.

Even though data shows improved fixed broadband speeds, the report highlights that adoption is still relatively low.

“There are 17.4 million households in South Africa, and if we translate the overall number of broadband subscriptions into household adoption, this equates to just 10% of South African households having fixed broadband in September 2021,” the report noted.

Louisiana bags $2.9M for BEAD planning, digital equity

The state of Louisiana secured what appeared to be the first grant from the $42.5 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program, scoring a $2 million planning award.

Created as part of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), BEAD is set to provide each state an initial allocation of $100 million to expand high-speed internet coverage, with additional funding distributed proportionally based on coverage maps due to be released by the Federal Communications Commission.

“Over the coming weeks, every state and territory will have funding in hand as they begin to build grant-making capacity, assess their unique needs, and engage with diverse stakeholders to make sure that no one is left behind,” Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said in a statement.

5G FWA device shipments forecast to reach 7.6 million units in 2022

According to TrendForce research, shipments of 5G Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) devices will reach 7.6 million units in 2022, an annual increase of 111%, due to the expansion of 5G coverage and growing market demand for FWA services.

5G FWA device shipments in 2023 are estimated to reach 13 million units. As installed capacity increases, new demand is created for communication equipment manufacturers and new business opportunities become available to upstream component suppliers.

5G FWA has an opportunity to become a powerful application in the arsenal of telecom operators used to attract broadband users. In addition to improving user experience, customer loyalty can be greatly enhanced through bundling diversified services such as Wi-Fi Mesh, video, and games.

UK jumps to 35th out of 220 Countries for broadband speed

Research firm M-Lab and Cable.co.uk’s annual 2022 global broadband ISP speeds report has revealed that the United Kingdom delivered an average download speed of 72.06Mbps. The UK is ranked the 35th fastest in the world, climbing up from 43rd in 2021.

The research stems from information gathered via 1.1 billion speed tests, which were carried out across the world via 220 countries. The average global broadband download speed was recorded as 34.79 Mbps.

Overall, the top five fastest “countries” in the world this year were found to be Macau (262.74Mbps), Jersey (256.59Mbps), Iceland (216.56Mbps), Liechtenstein (166.22Mbps), and Gibraltar (159.9Mbps). All but one of those are within Western Europe and are either very small or island nations, where Fiber-To-The-Premises (FTTP) networks are usually prevalent and often easier to deploy.

BT eyes savings of £500m by pulling the plug on legacy fixed networks

BT believes plans to shut down a number of legacy fixed networks can save the UK telco approximately £500m, and significantly reduce its power consumption, by the end of this decade.

As part of its infrastructure evolution plans, the telco is set to pull the plug on a long list of networks and services based on legacy technologies by the end of 2025. That list includes: the 3G mobile network layer; copper line-based voice and data services (including PSTN voice and xDSL broadband services for consumer and enterprise customers); and legacy optical transport systems.

According to BT, the move will bring about many benefits, including a “huge amount” of simplification, increased security, and improved Quality of Service for customers.