2023.03.31- Open Broadband News

Broadband Forum recognizes the leaders and key contributors driving pivotal work in the industry

Broadband Forum’s Q1 meeting has taken place this week in Dallas, Texas, and has recognized individuals across the industry who have gone above and beyond to help drive future broadband standards development.

The 2023 Distinguished Fellow award was bestowed upon Joey Boyd, Adtran, and William Lupton, Broadband Forum. This award is given to those who are committed to delivering a distinguished service and show leadership in the advancement of the broadband networking industry, inspiring industry growth.

Samuel Chen of Broadcom received the Leadership award for his leadership in the Fiber Access Networks (FAN) Work Area over the last several years. Over the course of his work in FAN, Sam has been instrumental in the design and development of PON requirements (in key documents including TR-280 ITU-T PON requirements, TR-142 Framework for CWMP and USP enabled PON Devices) and the BBF.247 GPON ONU Certification Program.

Broadband Forum congratulates all the recipients of the awards and those nominated. The ongoing dedication from these individuals continues to shape the future of broadband.

Read the full press release here.

The FCC has added nearly 3 million new locations to its broadband map

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has provided a slew of updates on the progress of its national broadband map. The agency has added 2.96 million new broadband-serviceable locations to the map as a result of its challenge process, though revisions also resulted in some locations being dropped from the map.

According to FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, the map’s updated “location fabric” now reflects over 114 million locations, a net increase of 1.04 million. Some of the most significant location increases came from Alaska, U.S. territories and tribal lands.

At the same time, the FCC removed 1.92 million locations from the first version of the map release last November. Reasons for the removals ranged from “data refreshes to more sophisticated tools to help remove structures like garages and sheds from the total count,” said Rosenworcel in a release.

Last month, Rosenworcel revealed the FCC received 1.1 million location challenges to the first iteration of its map. It has now moved on to availability challenges, with Rosenworcel stating the FCC has processed challenges to availability data for over 4 million locations. “On average, we are addressing availability challenges to tens of thousands of locations every single day,” Rosenworcel said. “Every two weeks, our public map is updated to reflect all availability challenges that have been resolved.”

Fiber broadband investments will hit  $135 billion

A fiber broadband investment forecast from RVA Market Research and Consulting calls for 100 million new fiber passings over the “next ten years or so.” The firm says that investment in fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) from this year to 2027 will be $135 billion.

RVA notes that 63 million homes have fiber broadband available now, including about 5 million that have two or more fiber services available. The additional 100 million passings will include primary homes, homes being passed by two or more providers and second homes and short-term rental properties.

The total investment figure exceeds the total that has been made in FTTH made to date. Construction rates are expected to continue to grow despite reductions that have been announced by some providers this year. Part of the analysis for the projections was made by online surveys of 3,500 consumers done in partnership with the Fiber Broadband Association.

New rules for data speeds in South Africa

Internet service providers (ISPs) in South Africa must provide their customers with average download speeds of at least 5Mbps and average upload speeds of 1.5Mbps. Also, the round-trip time for data delivery — also known as latency — should measure an average of 100 milliseconds or less.

That is according to the End-User and Subscriber Service Charter Fourth Amendment Regulations, that has been gazetted by the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa).

These new regulations amend the Electronic Communications Act, and set out certain minimum service levels and standards for data, voice, and SMS services, whether they are provided by fixed, fixed-wireless, or mobile service providers.

Electronic Communications Network Service (ECNS) licensees must monitor ISPs’ networks “24 hours a day, seven days a week,” the regulations state. “A licensee shall provide raw network performance data post-hoc to the Authority upon request,” Icasa said it would also monitor the quality-of-service performance provided by the licensees at any given time, or on an ad-hoc basis using drive tests, walk tests, probes, or counters.

Colombia proposes neutral networks to provide internet to low-income population

Colombia’s ICT ministry (Mintic) proposes implementing neutral data networks to provide internet connectivity to the low-income population in five departments of the country.

The ministry has published a call for telecommunications and internet service providers to submit offers to supply fixed internet services in Cauca, Nariño, Caquetá, Meta and Chocó departments.

The aim of the tender is to collect the necessary information to conduct a market analysis and does not imply an obligation to enter into contracts, the ministry said in a statement.

Mintic estimates that there is a need for around 60,000 distributed connectivity solutions (home connections) in 83 municipalities of the five departments, including 24,000 connections in Cauca, 12,000 in Nariño, 10,000 in Caquetá, 9,000 in Chocó and 4,000 in Meta,