2022.12.16 – Open Broadband News

Industry collaboration with the ONF unlocks open-source potential

For the first time this year, a CloudCO demo highlighted the interworking between Broadband Forum and the Open Networking Foundation (ONF) to align their architectures to virtualize the access network, enable interoperability and widen the ecosystem.

This work has allowed Optical Line Terminals (OLTs) to be integrated using the established VOLTHA™ framework in a CloudCO environment via Broadband Forum specified APIs. This, in turn, extends the addressable market for suppliers supporting this solution, and for operators looking to adopt standardized open-source solutions, plugging a gap in the industry.

As a now mature industry standard, CloudCO gives service providers and vendors confidence that solutions implemented using its architecture, interfaces and standards are going to live, last and facilitate interoperability. This is critical to service providers as they look to migrate from vertical legacy to multi-vendor environments.

Read the full blog by Dr. Francisco Araujo de Carvalho, Broadband Forum Board Member; ONF Broadband Governing Board Member; Head of Disaggregated Network Solutions Strategy, Net Reply here.

Pantacor announces its industry-first “any device, any manufacturer” containerized app store and joins Broadband Forum

Pantacor has announced its ‘any device, any manufacturer’ containerised app store and services management solution specifically engineered for lightweight edge devices. To reinforce its commitment to align with – and actively contribute its extensive field experience toward – the forthcoming WT-492 Software-Based Architecture for the App-Enabled Services Gateway Design Principles standard, Pantacor has joined Broadband Forum as Principal Member.

Pantacor’s announcement comes in collaboration with industry and Broadband Forum member premise edge device and chipset manufacturers in response to operator demand to break down traditional hardware lifecycle maintenance and extensibility challenges to deliver single solution, modern cloud-native remote management and app store capabilities to every device, legacy to modern – regardless of the manufacturer.

“We are delighted to welcome Pantacor as a Principal Member at Broadband Forum and we look forward to their contributions in our Broadband User Services (BUS) Work Area,” added Craig Thomas, Vice President Strategic Marketing and Business Development at Broadband Forum. “By collaborating with other technology vendors and service and app provider members in the BUS Work Area, it will ensure that Pantacor can implement its innovative solutions to help accelerate the evolution of WT-492 and future app-enabled services standards.”

5G set to dominate in South-east Asia by 2028, driven by global fixed wireless access push

With a near 50% penetration rate by 2028, 5G is set to become the leading mobile technology in South-east Asia and Oceania, while fixed wireless access (FWA) is predicted to rise globally, driven by an accelerated push in the region, according to a new report from Ericsson.

Its Mobility Report November 2022 edition states that most major operators in the region are expected to have begun offering commercial 5G services by the end of 2028. Collectively, operators will have some 620 million subscribers of the next-generation technology, up from forecasts of almost 30 million for 2022.

One particular use case of 5G that is set to boom globally in the coming six years is fixed wireless access (FWA), which serves as an alternative to wireline broadband connectivity.

North America clings to cable as PON spending jumps 27% in Q3

Global PON equipment revenue shot up 27% year on year in Q3 2022, driving overall spending in the broadband equipment market up 17% to $4.7 billion, new data from Dell’Oro Group showed. However, optical technology still was not the primary revenue generator.

Dell’Oro Group VP Jeff Heynen said about $1.4 billion of broadband equipment revenue in Q3 came from North America. Of that, 50% went to cable equipment while 38% was spent on fiber gear, such as optical network and line terminals. The remainder of revenue came from spending on DSL and fixed wireless access kit.

North America’s decision to stick with cable comes as other areas like Europe shift spending elsewhere. In the EMEA (Europe, the Middle East, and Africa) region as a whole, PON accounted for 54% of overall broadband equipment spending with cable contributing just 18%. The former figure was up from 44% in Q3 2021, while the latter was down from 20%. Growth in PON spending as a percentage of overall broadband equipment revenue in North America has been noticeably slower – rising from 32% to the aforementioned 38% over the same period – and the decline in cable less severe.

Full-fiber broadband is now available to more than 12 million homes in the UK

Ofcom’s annual Connected Nations report, which measures the availability of broadband and mobile services across the UK, found that full-fiber connections are now available to 12.4 million households (42%) – an increase of 4.3 million from last year.

Full-fiber connections – along with upgraded cable networks – can deliver download speeds of one gigabit per second (Gbit/s) or higher. In total, gigabit-capable broadband through a range of technologies is now available to 70% of the UK (nearly 21 million homes), up from 47% last year.

With households now using 482 GB of data a month on average, full fiber can better support families who need to stream, work, game, video-call and study online all at the same time.