2022.01.28 – Open Broadband News

Eureka! Gfast interoperability to enable faster technology rollouts

The rollout of Gfast is key to enabling delivery of gigabit services to the end user through fiber-to-the-extension point architectures, avoiding the need to install additional fiber.

The Broadband Forum’s Physical Layer Transmission Work Area has published new revisions of the Gfast interoperability test suite and the Gfast performance test plan in support of the rollout of Gfast over coaxial infrastructures.

By providing multi-vendor interoperability, Broadband Forum is ensuring that new services and technologies are introduced quickly, reliably, and effectively, enabling the broadband industry to deploy equipment that will provide a better quality of experience for their end users while tapping into new revenue streams.

Read the latest blog from Herman Verbueken, Director of Broadband Forum’s Physical Layer Transmission Work Area here.

Report reveals that Open RAN traction is gathering at lightning pace

Open RAN, according to research firm Dell’Oro, is gaining a fair bit of traction. So much so that it has taken Dell’Oro analyst Stefan Pongratz a little by surprise.

“We did not expect open RAN to already comprise a low-single digit share of the overall RAN market,” Pongratz said. Dell’Oro has released its latest open RAN report, which, according to preliminary findings, forecasts that the nascent technology will account for around 15 percent of the overall 2G-5G RAN market by 2026.

“We’ve talked about C-RAN, cloud RAN, virtual RAN, and open interfaces for a long time, so some scepticism about the open RAN movement was clearly warranted and might have impacted the expectations for open RAN,” explained Pongratz as a way of background.

According to Dell’Oro, most of the initial open RAN action can be found in the Asia-Pacific region. This geographical tilt looks set to continue. The research firm reckons the region will account for more than 40 percent of total open RAN revenues through the 2021 to 2026 forecast period.

Robust market opportunities in SD-WAN still abound

Network connections are becoming more complex as more devices require connectivity from infinitely more locations. This proliferation of the Internet of Things (IoT) has driven demand for software-defined solutions to optimize networking costs, improve enterprise agility/scalability, and enable the integration of cloud applications.

Although the emergence of secure access service edge (SASE), which integrates SD-WAN with edge security, has contributed to some players labelling SD-WAN as outdated. However, global technology intelligence firm ABI Research believes that there is still a considerable market opportunity across the entire software-defined portfolio, for innovative suppliers looking to keep up with enterprise vertical demand.

“As enterprises shift toward ‘cloud native’ strategies, it is imperative for suppliers to keep in lock step with enterprise demand by providing universal access to network Points of Presence (PoPs),” explains Reece Hayden, enterprise connectivity and distributed edge computing Research Analyst at ABI Research. “This would provide them with near-immediate global coverage with limited set-up costs.”

Mexican telecoms to shift the tide in 2022!

Mexican telecommunications regulator IFT expects all of the market’s main segments to expand this year. In its latest market forecast report, the regulator said bundled offers will be a key growth driver for fixed internet, fixed broadband and even for fixed telephony.

All these segments saw an expansion last year after a difficult 2020 that was impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the report. “With the results we’re seeing, we understand that the country continues to be attractive for investment,” said Pablo Terrazas, IFT’s strategic planning coordinator.

IFT said the pandemic caused a displacement of traffic from mobile to fixed networks due to the increase in demand for telecommunication services in the home. In addition, morning traffic increased, and traffic demand migrated to suburban residential areas. It also said that the use of applications related to teleworking has increased and resulted in fixed internet seeing the highest growth of all the segments, with an estimated growth of 12.6 percent in 2021 and 10.9 percent this year.

‘Global broadband divide is closing but speed inequalities widen’ – Omdia says

Omdia’s latest Global fiber development index is predicting that by 2026, the percentage of the global population that is connected to the internet will increase from 58 percent to 70 percent, but even with access increasing, there are fears that there will be growing disparities in the types of access that certain users can gain.

Omdia created the Global fiber development index in 2020, to monitor investments in fiber across all parts of the network. It covers 81 territories and is updated annually.

The most recent study found that of the 70 percent connected to the internet, 40 percent will have a home fixed broadband connection. The 2021 full ranking results showed Singapore continues to lead the index, followed by South Korea, United Arab Emirates, China, and Qatar.

Omdia noted that as a broadband access technology, optical fiber provides an optimized, highly sustainable, and future-proof quality service. It stressed that greater investment in advanced, full-fiber broadband networks is essential to closing this digital divide.