2019.06.14 – Open Broadband News

Trust your BASe-ic instincts! Register now for Broadband Forum’s Ultra-Fast Broadband Acceleration Seminar 

The bustling agenda of confirmed presentations continues to grow for Broadband Forum’s Ultra-fast Broadband Acceleration Seminar (UFBB BASe), taking place  June 25-27, 2019 in Den Haag, Netherlands.

Nico Weling, Vice President – Research & Innovation at devolo, is confirmed to speak on “Peaceful Coexistence: an approach to PLC/xDSL interference mitigation”  which will explain different approaches to minimize or avoid frequency overlaps between PLC and xDSL/Gfast and point out the advantages of the dynamic solution versus static ones.

Additionally, Koen Berteloot, Domain Manager Access Technology at Proximus, will join recent additions to the agenda, including: Mr. Jongpil Lee, Vice President at KT Labs, who will speak on “One Giant Leap for G.hn – Unearthing Buried Copper Values”, Dr. Bart Kamphorst, Researcher at TNO, who will present on “PON Traffic Analysis – Insights from the Real World” and Ovum’s Consumer Services Senior Practice Leader Michael Philpott who will present research on “Key Trends in the Smart Home”. GiGA Wire has also joined as a Platinum Global sponsor and will demonstrate its G.hn technology at the event. These luminaries join a world-class line-up of carriers, vendors, and analysts already committed. To see the latest agenda, click here.

UFBB BASe is a conference uniquely constructed by technology innovators for technology leaders and has emerged as THE must-attend event for broadband professionals seeking a conference with the technical depth and real-world insights to bring actionable innovations back to their respective companies.

The registration deadline has almost arrived which is on June 18 – register today!

Influx of new members join Broadband Forum following Connected Home projects

Broadband Forum  revealed that growing momentum around its Connected Home and broadband experience related projects has been the driver behind a spike in new members. This reaffirms the important role standards have to play as connected devices become more mainstream and consumers redefine what constitutes a superior broadband experience.

Since the beginning of the year, more than a dozen innovative companies have joined Broadband Forum, including Benu Networks, dot11 Labs, F-Secure, HUMAX Co Ltd, KAON Media, Metaswitch, Pico VR, Plume, Roqos Inc, SIDN, SUPPORT Robotics Limited, TQ Delta and Telecom Argentina. In addition, AEPONYX, BQ, Domos AS, Easy CWMP, Furukawa Latam, Hybrid Access Technologies, Integrated Silicon Solution Israel, Inteno (Genexis BV), Luster Teraband Photonics Co. Ltd, Predictable Network Solutions, TalkTalk Group PLC and Wistron NeWeb Corp have enrolled in the Forum in the last 12 months.

More than half of these companies have cited Broadband Forum’s growing body of work in the Connected Home area as the reason behind getting involved. Published in April 2018, User Services Platform (USP) – an evolution of the TR-069 standard – is Broadband Forum’s solution for service providers looking for a truly unified, common approach to securely deploy, manage and control network-aware consumer electronics, including home and enterprise Wi-Fi, the Internet of Things (IoT), and more.

Foot down and into fifth gear, as UK climbs EU broadband rankings!

The European Commission has published their 2019 Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI), which uses data from 2018 to reveal how the UK’s fixed line broadband and mobile networks compare with the rest of the EU. This year, the UK jumped in overall rank from 6th to 5th out of 28 countries but is only 10th for connectivity.

As a quick recap, back in 2010 the Digital Agenda for Europe (DAE) set several targets but the main “Connectivity” related goals called for every home to gain access to a 30Mbps+ capable Next Generation Access (NGA) broadband connection by the year 2020. On top of that it also called for 50 percent of consumers to be “subscribed” to a 100Mbps+ service (take-up is not the same as coverage).

The UK coverage of NGA style broadband networks (Fiber-To-The-Cabinet (FTTC), Fiber-To-The-Home (FTTH), DOCSIS, etc) has increased by a single percentage point to 95 percent this year (compared with 83 percent across the EU), which puts the UK ahead of major economies like Germany, France, Italy and Spain but behind several other countries (e.g. Malta, Belgium, Netherlands, Ireland, Denmark and Luxembourg).

No clock watching for Malaysia! As Huawei and TIME sign GPON contract

Huawei and TIME dotCom (TIME) jointly signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on the construction of a pilot 10 Gigabit Passive Optical Network (10G PON), aiming to provide gigabit ultra-broadband for fixed access users in Malaysia.

The demand for network bandwidth will continue increasing with new services such as Virtual Reality (VR)/Augmented Reality (AR), cloud computing, and full-fiber campuses emerging. In anticipation of future developments and requirements, Huawei entered into a MoU with TIME to pilot a 10G PON network to test potential network capabilities.

“Network infrastructure is constantly evolving and we are excited at the prospects that 10G PON would have. An upgrade to a higher capacity network infrastructure is critical to supporting the future bandwidth requirements of our customers,” said Ang Thing Jiun, Chief Technology Officer of TIME.

22 US states to benefit from broadband makeover! Because you’re rurally worth it

The Federal Communications Commission said it has authorized $166.8 million in funding over the next decade to expand broadband to 60,850 unserved rural homes and businesses across 22 US states.

More than two dozen applications have been approved by the FCC with Central Virginia Services, an electric co-op getting $28.6 million to deploy 1-Gig service to nearly 11,000 locations in rural Virginia; and NTUA Wireless, which is getting $28.4 million to serve more than 7,000 homes and small businesses in Tribal areas of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah.

Among major US carriers, Verizon Delaware is getting $148,090 to deliver 1-Gig down by 500 Mbit/s service to 22 locations in the state, and its operations in Maryland is getting $3.05 million to bring the same level of speed to 1,194 locations.

The funding will enable unserved areas to reach “the right side of the digital divide” FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said in a statement. “Providers will be deploying gigabit-speed connections to the majority of locations for which funding is being authorized today, while nearly 8,000 homes and small businesses on Tribal lands will be getting fixed broadband service for the first time.”

UK fixed wireless access has three jumping for glee!

Three UK will offer a Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) service for home broadband access in London.

BT-backed EE has already launched 5G services based on the 5G New Radio non-standalone specification (5G NR NSA) in six cities. Vodafone UK also plans to start offering 5G service in seven cities on July 3.

Three UK is nevertheless aiming to ramp up services fairly quickly with plans to launch 5G mobile and home broadband services in 25 markets by the end of 2019. Its initial focus on 5G FWA is to be expected given its status as a pure-play mobile provider that is competing with converged fixed and mobile heavyweights such as BT/EE, Vodafone UK, and Telefónica-backed O2.

Delivering on the promise of the Connected Home with USP

John Blackford of ARRIS (now part of CommScope via Acquisition), contributed a guest blog on ‘Delivering on the promise of the Connected Home with USP’ in IoT Agenda.

With the advent of IoT, broadband service providers are feeling increasing pressure from consumers to integrate the concept of the smart home, new security challenges and new cloud-based business models into a superior broadband experience, as well as a compelling business strategy for themselves.

As if this wasn’t a big enough challenge, at the same time they are engaged in a war for the heart and wallet of consumers with powerful new competitors — in many cases global consumer electronics firms — for control of the Connected Home.

To read the full article in IoT Agenda, take a look here: https://internetofthingsagenda.techtarget.com/blog/IoT-Agenda/Delivering-on-the-promise-of-the-connected-home-with-USP.

A Series of Fortunate Events – by Broadband Forum

The Broadband Forum’s Q2 2019 Meeting is taking place next week in Seoul, South Korea. The quarterly meeting on June 17-20, follows the successful Q1 meeting in Warsaw, Poland earlier this year and the event promises to provide a platform to discuss the latest developments in Connected Home, 5G and Open Broadband, and more. We look forward to seeing you there!

Broadband Forum will host the 4th XGS-PON Interoperability Test Event with FSAN (Full Service Access Network), from 8-12 July at the LAN labs in Tauxigny, France. To register for the event, please click here – https://www.lanpark.eu/GPON2/registration.php.

We will also be at the Amsterdam RAI, on 15-17 October, at Broadband World Forum, as the global communications’ industry’s biggest event returns after two successful years in Berlin. The event annually welcomes over 4,000 attendees from around the world and is the perfect opportunity to connect with the entire fixed network ecosystem with a large floorspace and three days of curated content.