CloudCO Demo at Network X 2022: Broadband Slicing?

CloudCO Demo at Network X 2022: Broadband Slicing?

Bjørn Ivar Teigen, Head of Research at Domos

The Broadband Forum is reaching new highs in Amsterdam this year, showcasing a very special demo at Network X (Previously Broadband World Forum). As many as 14 companies have come together, using Broadband Forum standards, to build a network where latency is monitored continuously on both sides of the Residential Gateway, and where network slices are automatically configured to adapt to the varying needs of each and every customer.

Network slices? Is this a 5G demo? No! The broadband industry has something to learn from their mobile cousins about naming things. The Network X demo is showcasing dynamic subscriber session steering, which is the broadband version of network slicing. Dynamic subscriber session steering allows an ISP to dynamically re-allocate resources between isolated slices in a running network — just like network slicing in the mobile world. In the broadband case, you can think of it as dynamically increasing a subscriber’s bandwidth on-demand (but you can of course ensure lower latency as well).

The CloudCO Demo 2022 – What to expect?

This year’s demo starts with detecting that a latency sensitive and demanding application is running on an end-user device in the home Wi-Fi network. This event triggers a check: is the current network delivering consistent low latency? If the link latency is too bad or too unreliable, the network connection for that specific user is automatically transferred to a “network slice” that can deliver what the application needs. In this way we can guarantee the performance of latency sensitive application types, such as gaming and video conferencing, even in the presence of significant network congestion.

In the demo network, several different vendors provide network monitoring of different parts of the network using the QED standard. Per Broadband Forum’s Broadband Quality Experience Delivered (Broadband QED) project, probes monitor the network to recognize network performance issues within the subscriber premises and at any location in a provider’s network. The QED project uses Quality Attenuation methods and the initiative looks beyond conventional measurements to improve overall broadband experience and improve management of network latency, consistency, predictability and reliability. The probes cover two crucial parts of the ecosystem, the network itself and inside the home Wi-Fi network.

Each network segment is monitored in real-time, in a running network, without adding significant overhead. The network operator can configure alarms so that if one part of the network behaves below the level expected, then the central office is notified swiftly. This could include, for example, the quality of a 4K video being suboptimal when streamed. These alarms can be configured per end-user device (privacy considerations permitting), per household, per Multi-Dwelling Unit, or for specific segments of the access and core networks. Data is sent to the network owner using the TR-181 data model, so the operator can see an up-to-date red or green status light for each home, network segment or district. The Wi-Fi application embedded in the CPE can take action and perform dynamic subscriber steering on the Wi-Fi layer, which can result in improved quality for a video stream, for example.

So, who’s involved and where can I watch this year’s Demo?

The demo network can be seen at the Broadband Forum Interop Pavilion at Network X, 18th – 20th of October. Participants include Altice Labs, BISDN, Domos, DZS, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, UNH-IOL, Juniper, Nokia, ONF, Outsys, Radisys, Reply, Vodafone and Zyxel.

Thank you to this year’s sponsors that together with all the participating companies have made this demo happen. The sponsors include Altice Labs, Deutsche Telekom, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Juniper Networks, Nokia, Radisys, Reply and Zyxel.

Interested in attending this year’s Network X? Reserve your seat now within the BASe Workshops here. Take a look at last year’s CloudCO Demo here.