2019.01.28 – Open Broadband News

Broadband Forum hits Wi-Fi home run with industry’s first performance standard 

Broadband Forum has released the industry’s first Wi-Fi performance test standard – Technical Report 398 Indoor Wi-Fi Performance Test Standard (TR-398).

TR-398 is the first standard that systematically and quantitatively evaluates home Wi-Fi device performance across six dimensions: receiver sensitivity, throughput, coverage, multiuser support, anti-interference, and stability. By defining Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), such as the Wi-Fi equivalent bandwidth (throughput), rate at different distances, and throughput for multiple online users, the standard helps telecom operators and end users select optimal Wi-Fi solutions.

According to Broadband Forum CEO Robin Mersh, Wi-Fi is the key infrastructure for broadband Internet access in the connected home and for a high-quality ultra HD video experience.

“Wi-Fi performance of single gateways must meet service requirements and comply with standards to accelerate industry development,” said Mersh. “The goal of TR-398 is to define carrier-class home Wi-Fi performance. We are delighted that a critical mass of key industry players has participated in crafting this standard and are excited for the role that this standard will play in enabling a superior broadband experience in the connected home of the future.”

The A(I)-Team: Tech heavyweights join arms to tackle AI, blockchain, 5G, and edge computing 

Telefónica is deepening its relationship with Microsoft to expand the use of Microsoft Azure for Artificial Intelligence (AI) into customers’ homes.

The expanded partnership between Microsoft and Spain-based Telefónica will include a new AI-powered, in-home experience for customer engagement and work to help transform Telefónica’s network by using AI, blockchain, 5G, and edge computing.

Microsoft will work toward helping Telefónica improve its customer engagement and business processes by expanding the use of Azure Cognitive Services closer to the network edge.

“Telefónica is applying cutting-edge technology to its ongoing transformation, pioneering virtualization and softwarization to develop smart, liquid networks ready to be powered by AI,” said Telefónica CEO and Chairman José María Álvarez-Pallete.

Today’s forecast: Cloudy with a chance of virtualization 

Ericsson and VMware have signed a global alliance agreement that will simplify deploying and running a combination of Ericsson applications and VMware’s vCloud NFV platform for Communication Service Providers (CSPs). The alliance agreement solidifies the close cooperation between the two companies, ongoing since 2012, and enables CSPs to accelerate time to revenue for new telco-grade services

The alliance includes technical collaboration and interoperability testing across Ericsson’s portfolio of Virtual Network Functions, Billing and Charging solutions, Automation and Orchestration, with VMware’s vCloud NFV platform to provide CSPs with faster, more cost effective and tested virtualized solutions. These solutions are increasingly critical as CSPs move to multi-cloud strategies to streamline costs and optimize resources.

Matt Beal, Head of Technology, Strategy and Architecture, Vodafone Group, said: “We have worked jointly with Ericsson and VMware for many years, and have implemented Ericsson’s EPC, PCRF, UDC, IMS and MSC Virtual Network Functions on VMware vCloudNFV. The combination of software from both companies, accelerates time to market for new services and enables our customers to fully embrace the opportunities of services like VoLTE and 4G/5G.”

Once NG-PON a time… Verizon’s use of next-gen tech yields fairytale results 

NG-PON2 will give Verizon between 10 and 20 times the speed, latency and automation benefits of earlier passive optical networks, Chief Technology Officer Kyle Malady has told Verizon 2019 Investor Conference attendees.

Huawei looks to problem-free future with its broadband crystal ball 

Huawei has launched the industry’s first premium broadband Predictive Operation and Maintenance (O&M) solution based on the Network Cloud Engine (NCE) platform.

The solution features a three-layer distributed edge computing architecture, Telemetry fast data collection technology, hardware data collection chips and industry-leading AI algorithms – a PON optical path characteristics algorithm, a WiFi channel optimization algorithm and an optical path failure prediction algorithm. In addition, to help operators build future-oriented network O&M, Huawei has proposed many methods such as WiFi quality optimization, intelligent ODN fault diagnosis, proactive rectification of weak light problems, network bottleneck prediction for proactive capacity expansion and identification of users with poor experience.

This will enable operators to visualize home network topologies and real-time connection status, allowing most home network faults, such as WiFi interference, insufficient coverage, connection failures, configuration errors and device faults, to be identified in minutes and remotely rectified by customer service agents. The solution has been launched to address traditional complaint-driven O&M – which Huawei describes as passive and inefficient – as new home broadband services grow in popularity, broadening users’ requirements for home broadband services from solely network speed to multiple dimensions.

AT&T and Verizon wave their SD-WANds

It was all things 5G at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this week, including separate announcements by Verizon and AT&T in regard to gearing up their SD-WAN offerings for 5G.

Not so Gfast! Broadband Forum needs YOU, its valued members

Broadbandtrends which has, since 2015, conducted a yearly survey into Gfast and advanced copper strategies, is again calling on participants to be involved in a survey which provides an invaluable look into the Gfast market.

Tracking the development of Gfast since its infancy, the survey has continuously provided invaluable insights into trends and adoption. This year The Gfast Marketing Council has played a role in shaping some of the questions in this year’s survey, and we’d like to ask you to help us in ensuring that the survey draws from the widest possible sample size.

In return, not only will participants receive a full report when it is published in mid-April, but Broadbandtrends has agreed to share key findings and answer questions during a Broadband Forum Gfast Webinar planned for April.

Here are a few things to note:

• This survey should take about 8-10 minutes to complete. Broadbandtrends is requesting completion by Friday March 22, 2019.
• The purpose of this research is to understand Gfast Deployment Strategies of operators worldwide. Broadbandtrends will not profile individual companies.
• This is a confidential survey. Data will be merged and averaged with the other respondents’ data, and will be reported in aggregate form only, so none of the details provided can be attributed to any individual company in any manner, and company data/results from this survey will not be made available to outside entities.
• Broadbandtrends does not sell or otherwise give out the contact information of its respondents.

Please help by sharing this survey with your customers and/or contacts so we can all benefit from a clear view of the state and direction of the Gfast market.

To take part in the survey, please follow this link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/2019Gfast.

Don’t miss out! Register now for Broadband Forum’s 2019

Broadband service leaders Verizon, Google, SK Broadband, and AIT Greece will be among speakers at the next Broadband Acceleration Seminar (BASe) on March 7, 2019 at OFC in San Diego. This seminar is focused on ‘NG-PON2 Roadmap and Evolution – A Universal Platform for Residential, Business and Wireless/5G?’. For the full detailed agenda of the seminar, please see the link.

Taking place shortly after BASe is Broadband Forum’s next Gfast event. The Gfast Chipset & System Integrator Interoperability Plugfest, hosted by the University of New Hampshire InterOperability Laboratory (UNH-IOL), will run from March 11-15, 2019, with registration available here.