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Keeping you updated about our activities! Here we highlight our latest work and focus on areas which are most critical.
Q4 2017 Newsletter
As the end of 2017 approaches many of our members will be celebrating Christmas and New Year, and later Chinese New Year too, we should also spare a moment to mark what has been a significant 12 months for the Forum and the work we are doing.
We have seen a major shift in the last year, with the work, processes, tools and focus of the Forum adapting in line with the requirements and expectations of the industry.
During this meeting we took a great step forward in the 5G area by announcing a landmark project with NTT to standardize the virtualization of operators' PON networks to support the delivery of Time Critical Applications (TCAs) in areas such as fronthaul for 5G.
The project was initiated by NTT and will open up new business opportunities for operators and vendors by using technologies like Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) and Software Defined Networking (SDN) to allow them to cost-effectively upgrade their PON networks to enable the rapid introduction of new services – including 5G fronthaul. 5G is of course a very active area in the Forum and that work made great progress both in New Orleans and at the recent interim meeting in Berlin.
In this exciting time of constant change and challenge for our industry, our approach to building holistic broadband services is already making a difference and I firmly believe that our projects will help drive the growth and success we are all striving for. This commitment will see the development of a set of inter-related deliverables which, in turn, will allow providers to offer differentiated services and lead to a truly open broadband era with multiple new and innovative revenue streams.
You, our members, are all playing an important part in this work and helping to shape broadband delivery into the world of 5G, cloud-enhanced broadband and the Internet of Things (IoT), while also encompassing other developments such as Artificial Intelligence (AI).
As our Chairman, Kevin Foster, said during the annual awards evening, it is people who make things work, not equipment, and it is important we remember that it is our people who are at the heart of everything we do. The awards themselves are covered in more detail later in the newsletter but, I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate the recipients – especially Lincoln Lavoie, who was awarded the Distinguished Fellow Award following many years of outstanding contributions and commitment in the world of testing and Certification.
This week’s meeting followed the latest of our BASE events which drew a record number of registrations – more than 300. BASE has proved to be a very successful innovation which we are looking to develop further. Our new Board member, Bernd Hesse, deserves to be congratulated for the way that he has turned this idea into such a popular and thought-provoking event.
On the core work front, we are about to tell the world about the arrival of the User Services Platform (USP). This is very much about helping operators implement, deploy and manage all aspects of IoT in the home. It will enable a vast number of devices from different suppliers to be integrated into service provider offerings, which will give them the chance to offer new revenue-generating services.
A powerful evolution of the popular TR-069 standard for which the Forum is well known, USP has the potential to substantially outgrow even the success of its predecessor and will make its mark in the IoT-focused markets to come.
- Robin Mersh, Broadband Forum CEO
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Broadband Forum forges ahead with holistic approach to broadband network development
A new conception of broadband is on target to be achieved as the industry experiences an era of unparalleled change and challenge, and networks transform to meet the opportunities of 5G, ‘cloudification,’ the IoT, gigabit access, open source solutions and the growing influence of AI.
That was the message delivered at our sell-out BASE Athens event which brought together more than 300 delegates from operators, service providers, system integrators, vendors, academia and industry bodies to discuss the entire broadband ecosystem and the technology developments needed to deliver future broadband networks.
“Like all the countries across Europe, my members are facing multiple challenges and opportunities as we look forward to 5G and IoT possibilities, allied to how they will interwork with new technologies such as Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) and even AI,” said George Stefanopoulos, General Manager of Greek Mobile Operators Association (EEKT). “Whatever the technologies, the choice is always going to be finding the right balance between investment capability, generating demand for services and supporting this with a friendly regulatory and licensing environment.”
“BASE gave Greece the chance to host this truly international gathering and share our thoughts, ideas and experiences with colleagues from across the entire ecosystem. I was delighted to give our views and listen to what others had to say – I’m sure we have all learnt a lot during the two days of the event,” added Stefanopoulos.
Stefanopoulos was joined on the stage by a host of operators and vendors, with subjects covered including virtualized broadband, cloud services, the managed home, 5G, wireless/wireline convergence, Wi-Fi performance and high-speed access, including NG-PON2, XGS-PON, MoCA and Gfast.
“This latest BASE event brought together a vast array of speakers, covering an unparalleled range of topics, from NG-PON2 and Gfast to virtualization and converged networks for 5G,” said Bernd Hesse, Chairman of BASE and the Broadband Forum’s NG-PON2 Council, and Sen. Director Technology Development at Calix. “This ongoing discussion and collaboration, looked holistically at the broadband access network and this is absolutely vital if we are to deliver the ubiquitous next-generation access for many consumers who are already seeing broadband as the fourth utility. We couldn’t have achieved such a successful event without our sponsors – Huawei, Intracom Telecom, Go Foton, Lightron, Hisense Broadband and Calix – thank you.”
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Latest achievements on next-generation broadband networks honored as Broadband Forum holds annual awards and elections
Pioneering work around Gfast, Open Broadband, in-premises broadband technologies and Fixed Access Network Sharing (FANS) has been recognized by the Broadband Forum, with three top accolades presented during its quarterly meeting.
Lincoln Lavoie, senior engineer and industry lead for the executive steering body at the University of New Hampshire InterOperability Laboratory (UNH-IOL) received a Distinguished Fellow Award for his substantial contributions to a wide range of successful Broadband Forum projects. These include the G-PON Certification Test Plan, the TR-069 Certification Testing Program, the Gfast Certification Testing Program, the formation of the Open Broadband Labs projects, and countless plugfest testing activities.
“As we develop broadband networks for future generations, these awards highlight some of the true innovation happening within the Forum and the personal achievements that go alongside,” said Kevin Foster, Chairman of the Broadband Forum. “Since we launched our Broadband 20/20 vision, the rate of progress has been incredible with the Gfast certification program and FANS specification among the significant developments. The dedication and commitment of our members is vital to our success. These latest achievements reinforce the importance of standardization in a rapidly evolving broadband ecosystem.”
Two Circle of Excellence awards were also presented. One went to Bruno Cornaglia, of Vodafone, who edited the groundbreaking TR-370 Fixed Access Network Sharing specification, which was completed last November, providing a revolutionary business model for the broadband industry. Cornaglia is currently editing the follow up WT-370 to add Software Defined Networking (SDN) capabilities.
The second Circle of Excellence accolade was presented to Marcos Martinez, of Maxlinear, in recognition of his work on the first industry test plan to apply across various in-premises broadband technologies (TR-208 – Performance Test Plan for In-premises Powerline Communications Systems). Martinez has also been integral to all projects around in-premises technologies, covering areas such as G.hn to MoCA and Wi-Fi.
There were also numerous recipients of the Outstanding Contributor award which is made to individuals who have gone above and beyond the call of duty to make valuable contributions within the Forum’s Work Areas. The full list of recipients was:
- Marco Spini, of Huawei, for work on a number of complex topics and providing an important liaison between the Forum and 3GPP.
- Ludwig Pauwels, of Nokia, and Nick Hancock, of ADTRAN, for their contributions to the Common YANG project.
- Yuanlong Jiang, of Huawei, for key contributions to Mobile Transport and Routing work.
- Georgios Karagiannis, of Huawei, for work on the Cloud-based Central Office Reference Architecture Framework, now known as TR-384 CloudCO.
The Athens meeting also saw the annual elections take place, with Bernd Hesse, of Calix, and John Blackford, of Arris, voted on to the board. David Sinicrope, of Ericsson, Frank Van der Putten, of Nokia, Kevin Foster, of BT, and Mauro Tilocca, of Telecom Italia, will also continue to hold their positions on the board after they were re-elected.
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Work Area Updates from Athens
Architecture and Migration Group continues to drive new testing initiative
New work within the Architecture and Migration group on the Generation of Application Test Traffic (WT-421) is picking up a fast pace. As a new concept within the Work Area, a tutorial on the subject was given at the quarterly meeting, which attracted a large audience and prompted a lot of interesting debate.
Work on three of the four deliverables has begun. The initial four projects include architecture and requirements, definition of the associated models, am implementers’ guide and a software reference implementation. This work has brought forward a need for more participants and a number of editorial opportunities. The ultimate goal of this project aims to specify the generation of test traffic at the application layer, to create an open source traffic generation tool that will allow networking equipment manufacturers to generate aggregated traffic patterns, in order to validate equipment performance under a variety of conditions, to improve scheduling algorithms.
The joint study with the Physical Transmission Layer Work Area on use cases for the repurposing of existing premises infrastructure - such as coax and twisted pair to distribute highspeed fiber access throughout a building - also made great progress and the initial collecting of use cases is nearly complete.
Discussion on a possible future edition of the Fiber to the Distribution Point (FTTdp) (Gfast) specification (WT-301) is also hotting up. This involves using multipair bonded Gfast itself as the backhaul for Gfast customer connections. Work on a second edition of a performance monitoring specification has also been given the green light.
Finally, work on efficient multicast delivery carried out in conjunction with DVB has also taken a significant step forward, following the availability and sharing of their architecture with the Forum.
Broadband User Services completes version 1.0 of USP
The Broadband User Services (BUS) group celebrated the completion of version 1.0 of the USP, the evolution of the Forum's flagship TR-069 protocol that opens new revenue streams for service providers providing Wi-Fi, IoT, and other services to both home and business subscribers. The work continues with writing best practices, finalizing the conformance test plan, and incorporating standardized IoT objects into the Device:2 data model, working with external organizations.
Work on WT-398, a set of performance metrics for Wi-Fi in different scenarios, will allow providers to benchmark Wi-Fi Customer Premises Equipment (CPE) to ensure it meets user expectations. The Wi-Fi in-premises project stream also started work on SD-410, defining performance requirements to meet the needs of video in the home.
The group also continued to expand the Device:2 data model, entertaining new objects for new Wi-Fi technologies and the ability to manage mesh networks and other whole-home Wi-Fi deployments.
Version 1.0 of USP is now live and can be found at http://usp.technology. For more information on the Forum’s work on USP, visit: https://www.broadband-forum.org/standards-and-software/major-projects/user-services-platform.
YANG 1.1, YANG 1.2 and beyond
The Broadband Forum Common YANG Work Area maintained its fast working pace at the Athens meeting. The group completed the review of the technical Straw Ballot comments on Amendment 1 of the Common YANG model defined in TR-383. Remaining non-technical comments will be addressed during an interim conference call. TR-383 Amendment 1 is scheduled for publication in June 2018. In addition, work on Amendment 2 is well under way, with several new accepted proposals covering alarm management, Internet Protocol Flow Information Export (IPFIX), Access Network Control Protocol (ANCP) and Multicast Router Discovery (MRD). The resulting YANG models enable the management of ultrafast broadband access networks based on copper and fiber technology.
The Work Area continues to closely interface with other standards organizations, notably the IETF, IEEE and ITU-T, addressing YANG modules for troubleshooting of Ethernet access/aggregation networks and alarm management, as well as sharing knowledge based on the expertise and experience within the Forum.
Several proposals were accepted in preparation of Amendment 1 of TR-355, enabling the improved management of FTTdp networks. This work is planned for publication by Q3 2018. Furthermore, the group will be completing Straw Ballot comment resolution for the new YANG model to manage G.hn home networks. This work is captured in WT-374 and is expected to be published in the next months.
Last but not least, focus remains on interop testing related to the NETCONF/YANG communication between the Persistent Management Agent (PMA) and the Distribution Point Unit (DPU). An additional testcase was brought forward and accepted for inclusion in OD-379, covering the interop test plan for the PMA-DPU interface. With this work, the goal is to target multi-vendor deployments that can fully leverage the key assets of NETCONF/YANG.
2018 is a big year in BBF Fiber Access
The Fiber Access Network group is excited to announce the publication of TR-331, which addresses the “Architecture and Technical Requirements for Passive Optical Network (PON) Based Mobile Backhaul Networks.” It focuses on PON specific access node requirements for Mobile Backhaul Networks fostering multi-vendor interoperability, leading to faster time to revenue and reduced capital costs for operators.
Responding quickly to the needs of operators, the Fiber Access Networks Work Area is expanding the BBF-247 certification program through the preparation of Amendment 2 of IR-247i3. This amendment defines the requirements and test specifications of a new Optical Networking Units (ONU) type, “TR-301 Model 2 Gfast DPU/ONU (TR-156 112 Backhaul).” The deployment of PON-based Gfast services continues to serve the Multi Dwelling Unit (MDU) market, now emerging as a major market for Gfast worldwide as operators look to service customer demand.
There will also be announcements on the BBF-247 certification programs for XGS-PON and NG-PON2. Later this year, the first beta certification test for next-generation ITU-T technologies is expected to be launched. These new technologies will be game changers for the service provider community because it will give them faster time to revenue, which in turn means the faster adoption of new services.
The third FSAN/BBF XGS-PON/NG-PON2 interoperability test session is anticipated to occur during the 2Q or 3Q 2018. The primary purpose of this event is to drive technology maturity through multi-vendor testing, reducing the operational and capital cost of residential and enterprise fiber access deployment for service providers. Vendors interested in staying involved should respond to a recent survey sent by the Work Area. We look forward to another successful event.
The Project Stream for “PON Abstraction Interfaces for Time Critical Applications” continues to make excellent progress. This work is needed because operators are interested in providing additional value or differentiated services to meet the trend towards more diversified network requirements, particularly where the network is used as business infrastructure. These include dynamic bandwidth allocation, energy-efficient Optical Network Terminal (ONT) sleep mode, dynamic wavelength allocation and network protection. The WT-402 is expected to enter Straw Ballot over the next few months.
Innovation Group hosts key presentations on CloudCO, 5G and IoT
The Innovation Group hosted a Birds of a Feather (BoF) session about orchestration in CloudCO, allowing views to be obtained from a number of angles, including vendor-specific products to an open source approach. The first part of this process took place in Athens, with speakers from ETSI Opensource MANO and RIFT.IO. Part two will take place in Osaka at the quarterly meeting, with a confirmed speaker from the Open Network Automation Platform (ONAP). The goal of these BOF sessions is to foster discussion on the next steps of the CloudCO work.
The Group also hosted two presentations in Athens - held jointly with other groups within the Forum – to provide the view of operators, including Deutsche Telekom who spoke about 5G service-based architecture. The second talk gave the perspective of CenturyLink on IoT.
Physical Layer Transmission continues Gfast progress
The group continued to work on issue 2 of ID-337 (Gfast certification), with the goal of going to Straw Ballot during an April conference call. Issue 2 addresses 212Mhz operation, Gfast over coax (106c/212c) and increases the performance requirements.
Issue 1 of the reverse power feed draft is now in Final Ballot (WT-338) and work has already started on issue 2. Issue 1 ensures that the Power Supply Equipment (PSE) complies with the necessary specification for the connected devices to operate safely.
At the Q1 meeting, progress was made on Long Reach VDSL2 (VDSL2-LR), including the WT-114i3a3 (Performance), WT-115i3a2 (Functionality) and WT-249i2 (Vectoring).
Joint collaboration with BUS continued on test set-ups and test cases for Wi-Fi performance (WT-398).
Work continued jointly with the Architecture and Migration group on SD-419, which addresses use cases for extending fiber access over existing in-premises infrastructure. Multiple use cases were addressed and added to the document.
Several documents have now passed Final Ballot. They include TR-400 (Gfast bonding) which is particularly important as it allows service providers to validate Gfast bonding performance to push higher speeds over longer distances. Others passed were TR-114i3a2 (35b performance) and TR-115i3a1 (35b functionality). Two other documents which will be sent to Final Ballot after the Q1 meeting are WT-114i3a4 (re-transmission performance) and WT-347 (CPE SELT Operation Guidelines).
Work was initiated on the “Infrastructure for testing mitigation of interference between Power Line Communications (PLC) and Digital Line Subscriber (DLS)”, also known as WT-425, at the meeting. Work on the SD-415 (MGfast) was also launched, with the addition of initial service provider requirements.
Gfast plugfest dates for the remainder of 2018 have now been set. They are located at the UNH-IOL laboratories in New Hampshire and are as follows:
- May 7th-11th
- August 20th-24th
- November 5th-9th
Wrapping up Cloud Interconnect and ramping up 5G Transport
Substantial progress was made on the Flex Ethernet / Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) work, (SD.FlexEMPLS45G) in particular highlighting the market drivers and motivation not only for Flex Ethernet, but also for all deterministic transport technologies, including IEEE 802.1 Time Sensitive Networking (TSN) and IETF Deterministic Networking. The latter add enhancements to traditional packet switching technologies, including Ethernet and MPLS, to allow them to be used for applications that require predictable and consistent delay, delay variation and loss characteristics. These are mostly used for industrial applications and smart devices, which are enabled by the IoT and mobile networking. These will be essential in 5G networks.
In addition to deterministic networking, the Work Area made significant progress on its 5G Transport work (SD.5GTransport). There was substantial contribution to the architecture and scope, continuing the work from the Forum's established TR.221 architecture. The market drivers will be used to form a short white paper, which will be distributed at MPLS+SDN+NFV World Congress, in Paris, in April. A 5G tutorial will also be held at the conference.
WT-350i2 - the Ethernet Virtual Private Network (EVPN) architecture and requirements (TR-350) - Phase 2 Straw Ballot comment resolution continues. Many comments were resolved at the meeting and the remainder will be resolved in a post meeting conference call. Publication is anticipated for later this year.
The group continues to work to transform transport and IP networks to efficiently support 5G and the innovative services brought about by 2020 mobile networks. These new services, through the development of applications that they enable, generate new revenues both for the provider and their customers. The network requirements of the anticipated services, are driving activity on use cases, architecture and technology enhancement. These include:
- Work on integration of Flexible Ethernet into IP/MPLS networks - This gives TDM-like characteristics to packet networks to deliver the performance and isolation needed for network slicing.
- Deterministic transport - based on IETF DetNet and IEEE TSN, provides packet networks with a predictable and stable performance that can be used to serve applications and services demanding ultra-low latency, high reliability and high scalability.
- Continued work with our partner organizations (3GPP, IETF, ITU-T, IEEE, MEF, and others) to coordinate activities.
Those interested in the details of the projects and progress are encouraged to contact the Area Director and/or Project Stream Leads for suggestions on how to get involved and contribute.
SDN and NFV Work Area publishes first CloudCO document as TR
In the area of CloudCO, the overriding framework document has passed Final Ballot, becoming TR-384. This is a major step for the SDN/NFV work area - being the keystone document which holds the ecosystem of CloudCO together.
The group reviewed and agreed several new application notes that will help drive WT-411 (Interfaces), providing new use cases to enable test cases and scripts to be generated, allowing end-to-end service assurance. This will enable the Forum’s Open Broadband Labs to advance the testing of CloudCO infrastructure and services.
Joint sessions were held with the SDN/NFV group and other Work Areas, with presentations from newly created ETSI Industry Specification Groups (ISGs) which were soliciting the collaboration of the Forum to progress important new work on autonomic and intelligent network management. The intelligent “low touch” network management that was common to all of the presentations is at the heart of what a SDN/NFV network enables. These documents will be reviewed to formulate a proposal of how best to co-operate with the ETSI groups before the next face-to-face meeting.
At the Q1 meeting, a review of the OB-BAA (Open Broadband – Broadband Access Abstraction) project was provided to the group to encourage feedback on their progress. OB-BAA is closely interlinked with the CloudCO work, providing an Access Abstraction layer to enable the smooth migration of legacy network equipment into an SDN/NFV ecosystem. The OB-BAA group has started coding for the provided use cases and will have the first deliverable in July this year to provide the initial “Actuator” functionality. This is the first step in providing the translation from a common Northbound Interface (NBI) command to a vendor device specific one. New content integrating the OB-BAA system description into the WT-413 document was also added.
Work on the following documents not explicitly mentioned above continues, including the WT-408 (Migration), WT-412 (Testing) and the WT-386 (FANS interface), which was agreed to progress to Straw Ballot at the Q1 meeting.
Wireline-Wireless Convergence Work Area in significant 5G work
Other areas that have seen momentum are the Cloud Central Office project, where the baseline document will soon be finalized and the associated interface and testing documents are starting, as well as the User Services Platform specification, which is also completing and moving onto the exciting prospect of plugfests in January.
The Open Broadband - User Managed Objects Framework project also debuted, where we will be starting work following our alliance with the Distributed Management Task Force Inc. (DMTF). This project has a great potential for service providers looking to create an application marketplace that leverages resource information on their current home gateways. Another Open Broadband project, Broadband Access Abstraction was also approved to begin work, and will see practical work starting in January.
You can read more about some of these announcements elsewhere in this newsletter, but a further significant development is that projects like these have already seen a number of new companies join us to support the work and play a part in its progress. I am tremendously encouraged by seeing these new companies coming on board and 2017 has been one of the most successful for several years in attracting additional organizations from around the world, and many have new skill-sets to bring. Rhonda Heier, has done a great job at connecting the Forum to the wider broadband community.
Also new this year was the announcement and development of the Gfast and NG-PON2 Councils and our Broadband Access Summit Events (BASE). The summits in Berlin and Las Vegas were so successful that we have just announced plans to stage a second series, with the first one just prior to the quarterly meeting in Athens, Greece, next March. Further details will be announced soon.
Internally, I would like to thank William Lupton, Mark Fishburn and the member team supporting them, for the work they have been doing around the tools we use within the Forum to get the work recorded and completed. As a result, some 18,000 contributions now sit safely in JIRA and soon the Forum's mailing lists will be moving to Google Suite, while calendars will be moving from ARO to the Wiki. This – and more – all takes time and can be a real hard slog, but I appreciate what is being achieved to ensure we have robust systems in place. I was also like to welcome April Nowicki to our team who comes to the Forum to help support the new tools and helping the membership in getting the full benefits of some software which will help collaborate even more effectively.
Enjoy this newsletter and thank you for your contributions to a great 2017. I look forward to sharing more achievements with you all next year.
Robin Mersh
December 2017
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Landmark project to virtualize operators' PON networks for 5G FronthaulA new project with NTT has been launched within the Forum to standardize the virtualization of operators' PON Networks to support the delivery of TCAs, such as 5G fronthaul. The project looks to open up new business opportunities for operators and vendors by using network virtualization technologies such as NFV and SDN to cost-effectively upgrade their PON networks and enable the rapid introduction of new services. This includes the key issue of fronthaul for 5G services, adding to the Forum's ongoing work on the convergence of fixed and mobile networks. "As users' usage changes, both in regard to the different services required and the amount of data coursing through fiber networks, operators need to update their PON networks, including by adding TCAs," said Akihiro Otaka, Executive Manager at NTT Access Network Service Systems Laboratories. "This used to require the remake of PON equipment for each service, but should be done via a software upgrade in the near future to improve cost-effectiveness. With demand for this increasing, it is important we ensure there are standards in place to achieve a vendor-agnostic system and ensure mass deployment of this new system architecture, which is essential if we are to deliver agile and flexible next-generation broadband networks for emerging services." The project – PON Abstraction Interface for TCAs – looks at how NFV and SDN can be applied to Optical Line Terminals to disaggregate PON functions to functional modules with open interfaces. The first phase will define the disaggregation policy and functional requirements of interfaces to disaggregate PON functions which need time-critical processing, while the second phase will define the detailed specifications of the interfaces as Application Programming Interface (API) sets. The project has already attracted a number of new members to the Forum, as the industry becomes more focused on how the fixed network can help deliver 5G. |
BASE 2018: Call for papers opens
The workshop's call for speaker proposals is now open, with subjects including virtualized broadband, cloud, the managed home, 5G wireless/wireline convergence and high-speed access.
The summit aims to provide attendees with a whole new perspective on what is being made available for broadband providers and users alike, delivered by the leaders in the industry, many of whom are active participants in the Forum's work.
Those who are interested in applying to speak are encouraged to address the impact next-generation technologies have on broadband by highlighting use cases, technology solutions, technology trends, best practices and contributions in standards development. If you are interested in applying, please click here. To register to attend, please click here.
As the telco industry continues to transition to software-driven cloud-based services, the Broadband Forum has provided its expertise for Cartesian's latest report, which addresses the current play of NFV, SDN and next-generation network architectures.
Cartesian's report The Future of Networks: Dealing with Transformation in a Virtualized World, produced in association with the Forum, addresses the prevalent industry hurdles on the path to digital transformation, including operational challenges, an industry-wide skills gap and the cultural transformation for networks and IT departments.
The report - which draws on more than 40 interviews and an online survey with more than 100 respondents, including telecom vendors, system integrators and Communication Service Providers (CSPs) – highlights that 73% of respondents believe their companies are behind schedule in their NFV/SDN deployments.
Robin Mersh, CEO of the Broadband Forum, was presented as one of the key industry decision-makers in the report, discussing the status of digital transformation and approaches to overcome the industry challenges being faced. Reflecting on the results, Mersh stated: "Whether through recruitment drives, a greater focus on standardization, or the provision of educational programs, the research shows we know where changes need to be made."
For the full report, please see: https://goo.gl/w8993y
Broadband Forum forms alliance with the DMTF
The DMTF's Redfish® API is an open industry standard specification which aims to publish a standard API to meet customer demand for simple and secure management in modern Software Defined Data Center (SDDC) environments.
Under the agreement, the Broadband Forum will have access to Redfish® manageability expertise within the DMTF and it will have the authorization to refer to the established DMTF Redfish® technologies for specifying compute and networking domain manageability of platforms.
The Broadband Forum and the DMTF aim to collaborate closely wherever possible in advancing relevant interoperability standards for broadband operators to deploy cloud services and applications.
For more information on what the alliance means for the industry, watch this video interview with Michael Bugenhagen, Chief Architect, NFV, at CenturyLink: https://youtu.be/8VadMp7Wggs
Testing gets reality check in new Broadband Forum global testing initiative
During the New Orleans meeting, a new project stream was formed to specify the generation of test traffic at the application layer – a critical phase of work – to increase the level of realism of test conditions in the laboratory to better reflect actual conditions out in the field.
Key industry stakeholders will benefit including service providers, vendors and laboratories, by fundamentally allowing them to manage the complex traffic of subscribers on the network.
The work will be carried out within the Architecture and Migration Work Area and will involve four initial projects – architecture and requirements, definition of the associated models, an implementers' guide and a software reference implementation.
"We expect this work to be immediately useful to projects like Open Broadband, as well as other work both in and outside the Broadband Forum," said Project Stream Leader and Board Member Ken Ko. "The work will allow us to formally define complex traffic behavior at the application level in a way that is unambiguous and repeatable, making it extremely valuable in a wide range of lab test scenarios."
Work Area Updates from New Orleans
Virtualize that: Architecture and Migration Work Area looks at NFV and SDN
The Architecture and Migration Work Area has continued to work on the development of TR-359 Issue 2. Building on the momentum of the NFV-enhanced architecture foundations defined by Issue 1, Issue 2 introduces SDN and greater management and will reflect work done in the Cloud CO project. This will increase the applicability of virtualization to the wider multi-service broadband network. Work is progressing well and is expected to go to straw ballot in Q2/2018.
A new project on Generation of Application Test Traffic kicked off. The goal of this project is to ultimately produce an open source traffic generation tool that will allow networking equipment manufacturers to generate aggregated traffic patterns in order to validate equipment performance under a variety of conditions, improve scheduling algorithms, etc. The project is scoped to have four key deliverables, the ultimate one being the tool itself.
A study of use cases for the repurposing of existing premises infrastructure such as coax was also initiated.
Broadband User Services finalizes USP changes and plans Plugfest
The Broadband User Services (BUS) Work Area is finalizing recent changes to its highly anticipated User Services Platform (USP). The evolution of its flagship protocol, TR-069, is set to continue, with the release of version 1.0 expected at the end of Q1 2018. Just ahead of this release will be the first USP Plugfest, which will be held in Atlanta, Georgia, from February 20-22. Details of the Plugfest will be available soon
The BUS Work Area is working in conjunction with the Physical Layer Transmission Work Area to push forward the development of real metrics for Wi-Fi performance testing. These can be used to qualify devices for service provider home deployments. This work came as a result of a perceived gap in standards from providers and is on track to provide some real value to the chaotic world of in-home networking
Common YANG project moves forward
Finally, the group has nearly completed the Straw Ballot comment resolution for the new YANG model to manage G.hn home networks. This work is captured in WT-374 and is expected to be published by Spring 2018.
Moving into the new year, the group expects to kick off an interop testing activity related to the NETCONF/YANG communication between the Persistent Management Agent (PMA) and the Distribution Point Unit (DPU). With this work, the goal is to target multi-vendor deployments that can fully leverage the key assets of NETCONF/YANG.
For more on why the Common YANG Work Area is so important, watch this interview with Sven Ooghe, Product Line Manager, Fixed Networks, at Nokia: https://youtu.be/DDisz3mELgw|
NETCONF/YANG management solutions set for 2018 and beyond
The second FSAN/BBF XGS-PON/NG-PON2 interoperability test session on October 9-13, 2017 was a complete success. The primary purpose of this event was to drive technology maturity through multi-vendor testing, reducing the operational and capital cost of residential and enterprise fiber access deployment for service providers. This event test report showed a significant increase in the number of test cases passed, proving the market is moving quickly to a matured state.
The Project Stream for "Passive Optical Network (PON) Abstraction Interfaces for Time Critical Applications" continues to make excellent progress. This work is needed because operators are interested in providing more additional value or differentiated services to meet the trend towards more diversified network requirements, particularly where the network is used as business infrastructure. These include dynamic bandwidth allocation, energy-efficient Optical Network Terminal (ONT) sleep mode, dynamic wavelength allocation and network protection.
Stay tuned for upcoming announcements on the BBF-247 certification programs for XGS-PON and NG-PON2. In 2018, the first beta certification test for next-generation ITU-T technologies is expected to be launched. These new technologies will be game changers for the service provider community.
Innovation Group explores Fixed Wireless Access in the context of 5G
There will be several key topics covered in the BoF sessions in 2018, including the Internet of Things (IoT), 5G, CloudCO and orchestration, and network slicing in Fixed Mobile Convergence (FMC).
Physical Layer Transmission continues Gfast progress
Work with BUS continued on test setups for Wi-Fi performance (WT-398).
It was also agreed to start work on SD-419, which addresses use cases for extending fiber access over existing in-premises infrastructure. This will be done jointly with the Architecture and Migration Group.
The Work Area was also busily engaged resolving straw ballot comments on the following four documents going to final ballot in Q1, following a mid-meeting conference call. They are: WT-114i3a2 (35b performance), WT-115i3a1 (35b functional), WT-338i1 (reverse power feed) and WT-400 (Gfast bonding). Two other documents which will be sent to straw ballot after the conference call are WT-114i3a4 (re-transmission Performance) and WT-347 (CPE SELT Operation Guidelines).
Routing and Transport Work Area focuses on 5G transport
Following its long history of providing mobile backhaul architecture and nodal requirements, the Routing & Transport Work Area continues with 5G, progressing several activities.
The group continues to work to transform transport and IP networks to efficiently support 5G and the innovative services brought about by 2020 mobil.e networks. These new services, through the development of applications that they enable, generate new revenues both for the provider and their customers. The network requirements for the anticipated services is driving activity on use cases, architecture and technology enhancement. Included in these are:
- Work to integrate Flexible Ethernet into IP/MPLS networks. This gives TDM-like characteristics to packet networks for performance and isolation needed for network slicing.
- Deterministic transport, based on IETF DetNet and IEEE Time Sensitive Networking (TSN). This gives packet networks predictable and stable performance that can be used to serve applications and services demanding ultra-low latency, high reliability and high scalability.
- Continued work with our partner organizations (3GPP, IETF, ITU-T, IEEE, MEF, and others) to coordinate activities.
Those interested in the details of the projects and progress are encouraged to contact the Area Director and/or Project Stream Leads for suggestions on how to get involved and contribute
SDN and NFV Work Area send first Cloud-based Central Office Technical Report to final ballot
The overriding framework Cloud Central Office project (CloudCO) document, WT-384, has completed Straw Ballot and has been progressed to Final Ballot as a result of this meeting. The group spent some significant time reviewing the results of the service provider survey, which was authored at the previous meeting, in order to gain insight into the specific migration use case scenarios.
The first issue of Fixed Access Network Sharing (FANS) is now approved and published as TR-370. This important work provides the framework for the sharing of physical infrastructure between Virtual Network Operators (VNOs) and gives them the possibility to manage the equipment as if it were their own.
Beginning in 2018, we will be driving forward the completion of our work program for CloudCO with WT-408 (CloudCO Migration), WT-411 (CloudCO Interfaces), WT-412 (CloudCO Testing), WT-413 (Migration to SDN enabled management and control) & WT-416 (CloudCO Scenarios & Use Cases). We will also complete the FANS suite with WT-386 (FANS Interfaces) – which was featured in a recent report by Ovum researchers. The Open Broadband – Broadband Access Abstraction (OB-BAA) project should also be full steam ahead. This project will be open to external contributors, and separately organized to the Forum's Technical Committee, but is still linked to the work of the CloudCO project.
New Broadband Forum tools delivering increased agility and faster working
The Forum's way of working has shifted to fast interactive discussions through the Atlassian Tools: the BBF Wiki, JIRA, Confluence and Bitbucket.
All new contributions are now posted to JIRA - see the link below
Questions? Contact April Nowicki, Member Support Manager anowicki@broadband-forum.org|
Broadband Forum in the news
Since the Q3 meeting, the Broadband Forum has received media interest from a variety of top tier publications.Contact information:
Questions about Membership?
Rhonda Heier
Membership Development Manager
Questions about BBF Tools?
April Nowicki
Member Support Manager
Questions or ideas? Contact the Broadband Forum +1 510.492.4020 or email