The app-enabled service gateway project revolutionizing business

The app-enabled service gateway project revolutionizing business

By Craig Thomas, Vice President Strategic Marketing and Business Development

Broadband Forum’s new WT-492 ‘Software-Based Architecture for the App-Enabled Services Gateway – Design Principles’ standard promises service providers app-store-like functionality for their subscriber edge platforms. The main goal behind launching this system is to standardize software containerization on the Residential Gateway within the home.

The origins of the Smart Gateway

In peoples’ homes today there are multiple devices being used throughout every room. If you think about all of the Over-The-Top (OTT) services that are being providing into homes, this would be through smart home hubs, firewall gateways, and separate SD-WAN gateways themselves. If there was a way to containerize that software into the service providers’ Residential Gateways, there would be huge ecological benefits, including a reduction in power needed. It also brings value back to the service provider, as it is their Residential Gateway, and they can offer those services to third parties directly instead of simply utilizing OTT services for consumers via the Internet. How great would that be?

The idea behind this revolutionary platform originated from Broadband Forum’s Service Provider Action Council, a group of members who were keen to figure out of how to offer new value-added and containerized services inside the remote Residential Gateway.

A standards approach

The biggest challenge at hand was trying to find a way to keep adding value and new services inside the home across customer broadband; and that’s where it all started.

We wanted to bring a new system to every service provider that would pave the way to having an Apple-like or a Google-like app store where you just tick a box, and it downloads a software container. This is like nothing else in the industry and therefore, it takes a lot of trial and error.

First of all, you need a standards approach. A project like this is revolutionary, and it’s important to not lose sight of the end-goal, which is to build a containerized software gateway that’s app-enabled so that the app stores and the third-party application providers don’t have to do a lot of R&D work.

Bringing it all together

Our aim is to allow the entire industry, including service providers, app providers, Residential Home Gateway product manufacturers and subscriber management solution suppliers to get the most out of this system. Therefore, we made it so that they didn’t have to do a lot of our work as it’s all being standardized. This means that the user knows it will work regardless of whether they’re an OTT provider, the service provider, or the vendor of the Residential Gateway itself.

We started with TR-069, which was all about device management of the basic home gateway, and then we introduced TR-369, also known as USP. This managed not just the home gateway, but plenty of devices behind it.

By containerizing it into software, we eliminated the need for separate hardware, but it’s still fundamentally part of TR-181 and TR-369 itself. An additional benefit is it helps service providers and subscribers alike in meeting their energy sustainability requirements.

The great thing about containerization is no matter whether it’s the Residential Gateway or in the cloud, it’s containerized by nature and it’s stateful. This means that when you update one software container, it doesn’t affect anything else inside that home, such as the gateway or firmware additions. All you’re doing is giving access to that one software container, nothing else.

Revolutionizing the future

This is only the beginning for the project team within our Broadband User Services (BUS) Work Area.

We have many access and software vendors involved and new Residential Gateway providers are coming on board.

We hope that more service providers will get involved and tell us what they think, and then we can all come together as a community along with third parties, such as prpl Foundation, and the Wi-Fi Alliance. This industry collaboration is vital in making this a reality.

The project brings key considerations. Where are the limits? Where is the new service revenue going to come from, from a service provider perspective? Can we therefore containerize it and put it on the Residential Gateway? This new WT-492 standard opens the doors for plenty of new opportunities and we can’t wait to see where it goes.