Focus shifts to Quality of Experience and service-orientated ecosystem at SPAC session

A productive Service Provider Action Council (SPAC) session during the first day of the quarterly meeting sparked debate and garnered key insights from many in the audience, both face-to-face and virtually. The session focused on what value can be derived from a services-led approach to standards work for the service provider community. This would, of course, have to be reviewed and refreshed in alignment with other Standards Development Organizations (SDOs). Broadband Forum outlined its desire for agile network service delivery from Proof of Concept to real-world deployments, monetization and differentiation of services and a multi-service broadband network.

When broadband speed and bandwidth is no longer an inhibitor, Quality of Experience (QoE) will be regarded with equal importance or even as more important, was the message from the Broadband Forum leadership team. It was observed that traditional revenue was declining with the majority of employers willing to adopt home working and harness new revenue models that keep residential broadband and the home worker separate. Broadband Forum outlined its strategic approach to shift from typically connection-based broadband to a service-orientated ecosystem, and the requirements across the network to deliver an end-to-end QoE service model.

The session, which was opened to all those in attendance, including members and guests, covered an array of topics and pinpointed notable areas that the organization can focus on moving forward. This included the requirement for recognized, defined and appropriate QoE metrics and the need to actively engage with global regulators as regulations can have an impact on price and implementation. How to offer differentiated service offerings to each customer was another discussion point, as well as delivering improved monitoring that enables autonomous networks.

The common conversation was that the Forum needed to collaborate with other SDOs, as well as recognize the digital divide and understand that not everyone has the same QoE. In the future, Broadband Forum must highlight how it can support and educate the whole industry to deliver broadband growth to all of those underserved locations and communities. Another area of discussion revolved around addressing niche markets, such as gaming, with improved QoE and consistent latency. With the average consumer not understanding what latency is, marketing teams will have to simplify to express this coherently to their customers.

Moving forward for future quarterly meetings, there will be an open discussion session for guest keynote speakers to address hot topics or analyst insights, and we invite guests that might be interested in discussing a trending topic to contact the team at info@broadband-forum.org.

BASe industry education and events continues at full steam ahead 

The BASe series continues at a breakneck pace in its mission to inform and educate the industry. During 2022, there will be a total of 14 vBASe Webinars, seven BASe Knowledge Webinars, a vBASe State of Broadband Summit, vBASe APAC, and seven face-to-face events. A special thank you goes out to all participants at our UFBB 2022 in Den Haag, The Netherlands, with 33 panelist sessions across three days and a great turnout of 100 service provider and vendor technologists. UFBB was a great precursor ahead of welcoming our members back to in-person quarterly meetings.

Across the three days, we attracted a number of insightful panelists, and the interaction during the workshops and the breaks proved yet again that nothing can replace the success of in-person return. It goes without saying that the whole BASe team would like to thank our sponsors, trade associations and attendees who travelled and participated in the event.

BASe sponsorship is at an all-time high with 20 current platinum and gold sponsors. We are excited by the number of returning and new sponsors, and the high level of thought leadership they bring to our events.

Through our virtual BASe (vBASe) events and Knowledge vBASe events, it is exciting that we continue to drive such a high number of attendee registrations and experience a significant amount of post event downloads, as well as live attendees. If you have ever missed any of our vBASe webinars, you can always download recordings of them at https://www.broadband-forum.org/category_meetings_and_events/past-base-events.

To find out more information on BASe events, sponsorship, and speaker opportunities, visit here. If you want to catch up on the latest Broadband Forum webinars, download the respective recording and slide decks here.

Thank you to our BASe 2022 sponsors!

Thank you to our Q3 Meeting sponsor, Nokia!

Nokia’s General Manager, Broadband Networks’ Geert Heyninck highlighted that there is a long history of fixed networks in Antwerp. Geert advised that Broadband Forum’s work has played an instrumental role in defining universal specifications and increasing the number of overall global broadband subscribers.

The insightful presentation also outlined the change in thinking from Fiber-To-The-Home to Fiber-To-Everything. This disruption is being enabled by the technology evolution, according to Geert, such as infinite capacity that can serve many applications, to the transition to Software Defined Networking, the need for low-latency and more sustainability. These are key factors behind this shift in the need for Fiber-To-Everything.

The audience was informed of another important trend, which was the introduction of new and smaller players through investment, government funding and infrastructure builders.

Geert informed the attendees that the industry needs to play an increasingly important role to accelerate smaller fiber rollouts by new players, through reference implementations, deployment guidelines, simplified configurations and align with non-telco industry bodies.

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Work Area Updates

For a full list of all Technical Reports approved by the Broadband Forum, click here. Please feel free to share this information with your colleagues, so they are engaged and aware of the developments of this work. For additional insight and to get involved, sign up for the members-only Broadband Forum tools and access your account using your company email address.

ATA - Goin' Mobile (Transport & Routing)

Target: The Access & Transport Architecture Work Area maintains primary architectural work of the Broadband Forum. This work reflects the control, management and data plane aspects of the Broadband Forum’s defined and new architectures. These architectures are augmented to leverage new industry practices, while protecting the investment in broadband networks already deployed.

Outcomes: 

• Mobile Transport & Routing Project Stream - WT-521 5G Transport Architecture and Requirements - passed Final Ballot! Document to be posted shortly on the Broadband Forum website.
• Mobile Transport & Routing Project Stream - WT-522 MMI - passed Final Ballot! Document to be posted shortly on the Broadband Forum website.

Progress:   

• Q1-Q2 2022 conference calls abbreviated over the summer. Two for PEAT PS and MT&R PS, one for the AA PS. Stay tuned to the ATA email list and calendar for the call details.
• Mobile Transport & Routing Project Stream - MD-522 MMI - in Straw Ballot! Comments to be resolved after the Q2 2022 meeting.
• Access Architecture Project Stream - Progress on all DBNG projects between Q1 and Q2 2022. WT-459i2 nearing Straw Ballot. Overflow continues via interim calls.
• Access Architecture Project Stream - Subscriber Session Steering project continuing YANG data modeling project (YMSSS) for the entities and relationships defined in WT-474 offline via BitBucket.  
• Performance, Experience, Application Testing Project Stream - Work continues on Quality Attenuation with WT-452.2 nearing Straw Ballot after Q2 2022.
• ATA Marketing Group - See Join or Leave BBF Groups and Email Lists to subscribe.

For more information on the ATA Work Area’s ongoing work, visit: Access and Transport Architecture home page.

Key projects continue to progress at pace for BUS Work Area

Target: Progress on standards that enable a containerized, app-enabled subscriber network and subscriber network devices for operators to quickly realize and deploy new revenue generating services. More progress on enabling the ‘App-Enabled Services Gateway’. 

Outcomes: WT-181 Device:2.16 and WT-369 are on track to be released by Q4 2022. Look for publication dates for WT-488 and WT-492 soon.

The Broadband User Services Work Area has aligned all of its work around enabling the ‘App-Enabled Services Gateway’ and the fully Operator Managed End-User Network. WT-181 Device:2.16 and WT-369 Amendment 3 (USP 1.3) will include improvements to well-developed features like Software Module Management (SMM) and new features that allow USP to be used as a platform for deploying applications and microservices within end-user network devices. Work progressed on key architecture definition documents including WT-488, ‘Architecture and Requirements for End-User Networks’, and WT-492, ‘Software-Based Architecture for an App-Enabled Services Gateway’, both are targeted for operators, manufacturers, and even app developers looking to build interoperable solutions in this space.

WT-124 Issue 8, which defines requirements for Residential Gateways, will be published by Q3, collecting requirements specified by the Fiber Access Network (FAN) Work Area for GPON ONT CPE and further 5G fixed wireless updates.

In addition, the next version of WT-398, which defines performance metrics for the BBF.398 Certification Program, is on target for publication in Q1 2023. More devices are getting this certification every day that prove their products qualify as "carrier-grade" for operator's end-user networks.

Take a look at the BUS Work Area’s latest work: Broadband User Services home page.

Fiber to the Distribution Point (FTTdp) management capabilities upgraded with TR-355 Amendment 4

Target: Specify YANG modules that are applicable to multiple Work Areas, provide support to those same Work Areas for their specific YANG projects, and maintain YANG Best Current Practices, processes, procedures, and tools.

Progress: Feedback from the community driving the next Amendment of WT-383 via enhancements for existing YANG models, as well as providing new modeled methods for solving the scale puzzle.

Outcomes: Enhancements for VLAN sub-interface profiles and transceivers were agreed with proposed YANG changes now under review for inclusion in the next Amendment. A new project was initiated working with the MoCA Alliance on YANG Modules for MoCA Access 2.5.

The Common YANG Work Area continued to make good progress on its key project deliverables.

TR-355 Amendment 4 ‘YANG Modules for Fiber to the Distribution Point (FTTdp) Management’ was published in late May 2022. This amendment adds management of new features provided by ITU-T G.997.2 Amendment 3 ‘Physical Layer Management of G.fast Transceivers’. Additionally, all YANG modules were reviewed and modified to better align with OD-360 ‘BBF YANG Best Practices’. This provides a more consistent user experience across the YANG data models provided by the various Broadband Forum YANG projects.

Work on Amendment 6 continues to move forward, with several contributions accepted. This focuses on two key areas, the continued development of VLAN sub-interface profiles that address scale in large networks and resolving issues found in the hardware transceiver model. Both areas are sourced from the practical deployment of the TR-383 YANG modules and are indicative of the feedback loop that is essential to ensure our work is properly aligned across various use cases and operator deployments.

A joint review was held with the SDN/NFV Work Area to review the updated proposal for YANG modules for Northbound Interface (NBI) abstraction. Agreed to pursue a new project to develop this work within Common YANG with support from other Work Areas.

Finally, a New Project Initiation Form (NPIF) for YANG Modules for MoCA Access 2.5 was reviewed. The Work Area approved moving forward with the project, which will be WT-496.

For an overview of the Common YANG Work Area’s current activities, please visit: Common YANG home page.

Key progress across the Project Streams rounds off FAN-tastic quarter

Target: The Fiber Access Networks (FAN) Work Area specifies and maintains PON architecture and nodal requirements, PON abstraction and mobile backhaul requirements. It is also responsible for PON test suites related to ITU-T PON Conformance and Interoperability, and compliance Test Plans related to XGS-PON, NG-PON2 and PMD/TC Layer. Lastly, it is responsible for ITU and IEEE PON YANG data model specifications.

In Progress:

Unassigned Project Stream

In the last quarter, the Unassigned Project Stream continued with:

• Working Text development of WT-142 Issue 4 Framework for CPE WAN Management Protocol (CWMP) and USP enabled PON devices. Work is progressing well on aligning WT-142 Issue 4 with relevant technical specifications. Past contributions have included updating WT-142 to align with the latest PON specifications (e.g., adding EPON/SIEPON requirements and migrating RG specific requirements to TR-124).
• Working Text development of WT-489 Issue 1 ONU Authentication and Selection of eOMCI or vOMCI. Contributions included D-OLT ONU authentication, support of LOID authentication and requirements for all scenarios related to ONU authentication.
• Multi-management study on how to manage multiple management domains (e.g., OMCI and USP).
• The impacts of High Speed PON on existing Broadband Forum Technical Reports and Test Plans. The impact study has been concluded.

During the virtual meeting, the Unassigned Project stream reviewed additional contributions: 

• WT-142 contributions related to handling of shared resources between multi-management domains (discussions have led to noting how bootstrapping a multi-management domain is desirable and this will be further studied in the multi-management domain study and WT-142).
• WT-489 contribution included one that finetuned past contributions. The FAN group discussed relaxing WT-489 and WT-385 requirements for physical OLTs that perform ONU authentication locally.

Interoperability Project Stream

In the last quarter, the Interoperability Project Stream started:

• DTP-255 Issue 2 GPON Interoperability Test Plan which updates TR-255 test cases with more recent TP-247 Issue 4 test cases.

During the virtual meeting, the Interoperability Project Stream reviewed additional contributions: 

• DTP-247 Issue 4 candidate test cases to include in DTP-255 Issue 2.
• DTP-247 Issue 4 Corrigendum 1 status of test cases. It was decided at the virtual meeting that DTP-247 Issue 4 Corrigendum 1 test cases would be prepared for Straw Ballot. OMCI script update impacts will be studied while DTP-247 is prepared for Straw Ballot.

PON Management Project Stream

In the last quarter, the PON Management Project Stream continued with:

• WT-385 ITU-PON YANG Management Issue 2 Amendment 1 work. Contributions included support of WT-489 ONU authentication.

Outcome:

• DTP-247 Issue 4 Corrigendum 1 PON Conformance Test Plan will be prepared for Straw Ballot at the Q3 meeting.
• High Speed PON study impact was concluded and the impacted Broadband Forum FAN areas were identified.

For more on the FAN Work Area’s ongoing work, please see: Fiber Access Networks home page.

PHYtx Work Area publishes TR-419 Issue 2 and TP-337 Issue 4

Target: To help service providers deploy equipment that will provide a better Quality of Experience (QoE) for their end-users.

Progress: Resolved the technical Straw Ballot comments on the Working Text of 'Reverse Power Feed Testing Issue 3' (WT-338i3).

Outcome: Published the next issues of ‘Fiber Access Extension over Existing Copper Infrastructure' (TR-419i2) and 'G.fast Certification Test Plan' (TP-337i4).

The PHYtx Work Area published the next issues of ‘Fiber Access Extension over Existing Copper Infrastructure' (TR-419i2) and 'G.fast Certification Test Plan' (TP-337i4).

TR-419i2 brings new use cases addressing bonded G.fast backhaul and G.hn Access in Multi-Dwelling Unit (MDU) environments for living units where crosstalk between lines may exist.

These additional use cases give operators more choice to roll out high bitrate services quickly, without the need to bring fiber into the home.

TP-337i4 brings increased certification coverage on the 'HLOG Accuracy’ test parameter, the ‘Robust Management Channel (RMC) tone masking configuration' and ‘RMC recovery (RMCR)’. The certification now also includes verifying the correct reporting of the used G.fast profile and use of the 106b profile.

All technical comments provided during the Straw Ballot review of “WT-338i3 Reverse Power Feed Test Plan” were addressed this meeting. The remaining editorial updates will be handled in the coming weeks, as the document is prepared for Final Ballot approval at the Q3 Broadband Forum Meeting. This issue adds testing of reverse power feeding over coaxial cable deployments, according to ETSI TS101 548-2.

The Plugfest to obtain the WT-476 ‘G.hn Access Performance Test Plan’ pass/fail metrics has been moved out to the third quarter of this year. The goal is to align with the Beta-test of the GHNA Certification Program from the HomeGrid Forum (HGF). This ensures that the Test Plan is ready for Straw ballot review by the Q4 meeting.

For further insight into the current work of the Physical Layer Transmission Work Area, visit: Physical Layer Transmission home page.

SDN/NFV publishes TR-451, MR-451 and MR-477 in last quarter

Target: Define the Cloud Central Office (CloudCO) architecture using SDN, NFV, and cloud technologies to support network functions fundamentally redefining the architecture of access and aggregation networks and support the migration of SDN and NFV into all aspects of broadband networks facilitating the agile deployment of new distributed broadband services and applications for operators with greater operational efficiency and lower cost. 

Progress: The SDN/NFV Work Area continues to progress the Cloud-based-Central Office (CloudCO) project for virtualized network functions, SDN management and control and CloudCO domain orchestration capabilities in Broadband Network. The main activities currently ongoing are related to the disaggregation of the access node and to define the related interfaces. The “Cloud Component” Project Stream is continuing work Metro Compute Networking and Automated Intelligence Management.

Outcomes: The SDN/NFV Work Area published the following documents since the 2022 Q1 meeting:

• MR-477: Access Node Disaggregation
• MR-451: ONU Management using Virtualized OMCI
• TR-451: vOMCI Specification

The SDN/NFV Work Area also continued to progress work to Straw Ballot comment resolution related to WT-484 on ‘Access Node Abstraction’.

Phase 2 of ‘Metro Compute Networking Architecture and Functional Modules’ has been started with a first proposal regarding the reference architecture to be included as starting point of WT-491 on ‘Metro Compute Networking Architecture, Functional Modules and Interface Definitions’.

Straw Ballot of WT-477 on ‘CloudCO Enhancement - Access Node Hardware Disaggregation’ has been completed. The publication will be finalized once all the missing data models are created and approved by the Common YANG Work Area. The finalization of WT-477 will lead to inputs to WT-413 Issue 2 on ‘SDN Management and Control Interfaces for CloudCO Network Functions’ to complete the part related to disaggregated access node and flow control interfaces.

On the Artificial Intelligence and automation fronts, work continues on WT-486, which specifies the interfaces for the Automated Intelligent Management Framework specification TR-436 previously approved. The activity continued by specifying some relevant interfaces to connect the Decision Element with network elements and with the SDN Management and Control. While this is a different Project Stream within the SDN/NFV Work Area, network automation and low-maintenance operations are imperative for simplifying network validation and engineering, streamlining network deployment and upgrades, and improving operations with less error-prone and automated OAM in the CloudCO environment. This will also automate some management functions and help realize rapid troubleshooting and pre-emptive maintenance.

A joint meeting between the SDN/NFV, FAN and Common YANG Work Areas dealt with a new proposal for the abstraction of northbound interfaces on a normalized YANG mount interface for disaggregated functions.

More information about the SDN/NFV Work Area can be found at: SDN and NFV home page.

WWC continues Phase 3 specification work

Target: Address the needs of operators, which have wireline or mobile networks deployed so they can leverage their assets with combined subscriber offerings with a converged core.

Progress: The WWC Work Area is progressing work on the third phase of specification development. It currently has two active Project Streams, the 5G Project Stream and IMS for 5G-RG Project Stream. With this work, the group continues to subsume more of the capabilities of the 5G architecture.

Outcomes: Work continues on a new set of capabilities and enhancements with the latest specifications in progress for subsequent publication.

Work in the WWC Work Area has transitioned from improving the basic set of specifications in Phase 2 to focusing on topics that bring more value to 5G for wireline and provide operators with increased flexibility, revenue potential and deployment options. The goal is to increase the service capabilities of the network to allow operators to fully leverage convergence of their networks while at the same time giving them more paths to transition their networks to a single 5G Core.

The group continues to incorporate capabilities from the 5G Toolkit into our specifications to realize a variety of use cases. These range across a broad spectrum and include topics such as hybrid access, enhanced work from home, access sharing scenarios and convergence of voice with the mobile system. This work will allow converged operators to provide a uniform experience to their customers irrespective of the access or appliance they are using, supported by a common and streamlined back office and control plane.

The 5G Project Stream continues to progress two specifications, WT-457 (FMIF Functional Requirements) and WT-458 (CUPS for 5G Fixed Mobile Convergence), both of which expand the deployment options for 5G WWC. The new Project Stream addresses 5G-RG IMS Voice support, starting with work on the architecture and a profile for residential voice. Work is moving forward on WT-493 (IMS for 5G-RG Architecture) and WT-494 (IMS for 5G-RG Residential Voice Requirements). This key piece of work will converge legacy voice services onto the 5G system. With these two key baseline texts established, there is now an opportunity for all interested parties to contribute to this important work.

5G-RG Hybrid Access enhancements was also agreed as a Phase 3 study item. A joint session on 3GPP and non-3GPP device management requirements was held together with the BUS Work Area in the context of the Broadband Forum cooperation with 3GPP on the subject.

The group continues to expose the industry to the latest WWC work and supports the ongoing education and marketing activities, including the continued development of its webinar series. Catch up on the Quality of Experience in an Wireless Wireline Converged Network webinar that took place on March 17. The WWC Work Area has an upcoming webinar on September 27 to update the broadband industry on the IMS for 5G-RG progress.

Broadband Forum is taking an important role in developing 5G, continuing the productive cooperation with 3GPP, and making recommendations for the connection points between the fixed and 5G mobile core networks in order to drive core convergence.

For more on the WWC Work Area, please see: Wireless-Wireline Convergence home page.

OB-BAA – Ongoing collaboration between Open Source and Open Standards continues to advance and accelerate the adoption of interoperable, standardized solutions across the industry

The Open Broadband – Broadband Access Abstraction (OB-BAA) project team published the Essex Skipper 5.0 release in April 2022. The latest release is another step that enables service providers to welcome the benefits of cloudification to their networks, but just as importantly, it offers a migration plan from their existing network investments. The release includes work on policy-based authentication within the operator’s cloud network of Optical Network Units (ONUs) as operators seek to deliver a seamless customer experience. This encompasses the ability to automatically discover and maintain virtualized network functions used by the BAA layer by interfacing with the environments that host the virtualized functions.

Release 5.0 also enhances the functionality for disaggregating the management of ONUs from the OLT into the operator's network with new features to handle ONU alarms. The additional enhancements to the virtual ONU Management Control Interface (vOMCI) solution were made in support of future Broadband Forum vOMCI Plugfests. The latest work provides enhancements and fixes to the existing OB-BAA software that scale testing for a single Optical Line Terminal (OLT) device, and has created more than 512 ONUs and connected and aligned 127 ONUs.

The OB-BAA project team is currently working towards Release 5.1 as we prepare for the Broadband World Forum demo later this year. This will encompass microservice discovery and integration with shared datastores and scale testing of 10,000 ONUs. 

For more information on the OB-BAA project’s latest work, see: Open Broadband-Broadband Access Abstraction Project Home

OB-MAP and prpl Foundation continue promising collaboration

The Open Broadband – Multi Access Point (OB-MAP) project and the prpl Foundation’s prplMesh project have completed a baseline vision of how data and control commands will be represented in TR-181. This will influence the design of the APIs presented by prplMesh. The data model (and prplMesh APIs) will meet the diagnostics and management needs of service providers that use multiple physical layer networking technologies to deliver ever-increasing broadband bandwidth and innovative services through increasingly complex home networks to end-user devices.

The OB-MAP project team has continued to collaborate with prpl team on requirements and feature prioritization, and data modelling of multiple devices and services in a mesh network. Progress has also been made on prplMesh’s Northbound API (NAPI), and the group has been assisting with the use and definition of Broadband Forum’s USP internal Messaging Transport Protocol (iMTP) in the context of prplOS.

For more on the OB-MAP project’s ongoing work, please see: OBMAP Home

Finishing touches on Falcon Release by OB-USP-Agent team

Current Efforts: The OB-USP-Agent team has been putting the final touches on its Falcon Release (Release 6) with a release date targeted for the end of June. This release incorporates key features related to the initial support for USP End-to-End Session Contexts. These features cover the USP Record Segmentation and Reassembly mechanism, USP Connect records, and the USP Disconnect record. This latest release also incorporates enhancements introduced in Version 1.2 of USP, the ones specifically related to the Get and GetSupportedDM message updates.

Future Plans: The team plans to begin scoping work for Release 7 in July.

For more on the OB-USP-Agent project’s ongoing work, please see: OB-USP-Agent Home

Eighth release from the OB-UDPST project team adds new measurement algorithm for faster and reliable measurements

Current Progress: The OB-UDP Speed Test (OB-UDPST) project team delivered its eighth public release (7.5.0) on-time on May 6, 2022. This release introduces a new/optional Load Adjustment Algorithm for challenging circumstances, such as persistent competing traffic and non-congestion-related Loss.

The major new feature in this release, was anticipated by the version 9 protocol in release 7.4.0:

• Optional Load Adjustment (Search) Algorithm, Type C, briefly described as "Multiply and Retry"
• The "fast" ramp-up is now a multiplicative rate increase to congestion, reaching 1 Gbps in less than 1 second
• The "fast" ramp-up can be re-tried when conditions warrant to ensure that the Max IP-Layer Capacity is reached
• This algorithm supports a search over the full range of rates, even if the subscribed rate is more than 1 Gbps
• The Type B algorithm remains the default for testing that does not benefit from "Multiply and Retry" aspects

The new Type C Algorithm satisfies requests to support test durations of less than 10 seconds, and permits measuring the Maximum IP-Layer Capacity more reliably, even on Mobile access with more variability than Fixed access.

This release also includes an extended Sending Rate Table, which allows testing of access rates up to 40 Gbps.

Future Plans: Next steps likely include a supplemental release, 7.5.1, coming soon. This release will pick-up feedback from users of one of the earlier releases. Issue 3 of TR-471 plans to incorporate all of the improvements and features deemed useful in the OB-UDPST project.

Now that the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) has published RFC 9097: ‘Metrics and Methods for One-way IP Capacity’, the IP Performance Metrics Working Group has adopted the OB-UDPST protocol specification. The OB-UDPST project team will follow the IETF IP Performance Measurement (IPPM) development and comments closely.

For more information on the OB-UDPST project team’s ongoing progress, please visit: OB UDP Speed Test Home

OB-5WWC project defines high-level software architecture in Q2

Open Broadband-5WWC (OB-5WWC) is an Open-Source project focused on bringing the full benefits of the 5G ecosystem to fixed-line services and offering a full end-to-end solution to operators. The aim is to create a reference implementation of the Broadband Forum specified Wireless Wireline Convergence solution for 5G capable Residential Gateways (5G-RGs). There are already key Broadband Forum and 3GPP specifications available to help fulfill the need for 5G and fixed-line convergence, and a 5G-RG reference implementation will be of great benefit to operators, providing shorter time-to-market for products and reduced development times and cycles.

OB-5WWC also seeks to provide a production grade 5G solution stack capable of integration with OpenWRT/RDK-B frameworks and to provide a reference for testing Access Gateway Function (AGF) and RG test tool development.

Current Progress: A number of achievements have been made this quarter, including high-level software architecture being defined with key components and their roles identified. This includes developments on Control Plane Transport and the Wireshark enhancements for the specifications from the Broadband Forum. Wireshark is the industry-standard tool that is continually used by implementers.

High-level design for OpenWRT integration was completed, this includes the design for Unified Configuration Interface (UCI), ubus configuration and mapping configuration to TR-181. A formal development environment was defined, and exploration took place of the components for the end-to-end test environment, including AGF and 5G Core.

Next steps: The detailed design including WWCd as a key component will be addressed in the months ahead. The project team are hopeful that development will soon begin. This includes the solution design of the Control and User Plane transport including the Stubbed AGF test tool, and 5G Wireless Wireline Convergence User Plane Encapsulation (5WE), and the 5G controller providing registration and session management.

There is now an opportunity for interested parties to offer contributions to implement the architecture and component design already established. The project remains open to all interested parties, including candidates with software development experience in the C programming language, and radio module and mobile experience. 

For any interested parties (including non-Broadband Forum members) that wish to be part of the project, please sign the project participation agreement online here.

For more on the OB-5WWC project’s current work, please see: OB-5WWC Home

Welcome to our new and returning members! 

There were 229 Registered Attendees at the Q2 Meeting, with more than 11 first-time attendees welcomed. Our new members included Airtel, Beegol, Elisa, Excentis, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, NetCologne, United Cloud and Wistron NeWeb.

Guest companies at the meeting were 1&1, Alachua County Florida, CityFibre, Elysian Fiber, Frontier Communications, Fibocom, GQG Consulting, Greenlight Community Broadband, Grupo Backbone, Int6tech, IPLAN, The Kingdom of Bahrain, Lamda Developments, National Chiao Tung University, Pocket Internet, Shentel, Veego, Vtal and Washington State Broadband Office.

Are you interested in becoming the next member of the industry’s leading standards body in defining broadband networks? Broadband Forum membership will not only accelerate your company’s progress but enable you to become a key influencer in developing 5G, the Cloud, the Connected Home and Access Networks.

We have a range of membership options for companies of all sizes, from startup companies to large corporations and not-for-profit organizations. Our new Regional Operator Membership category has further opened participation, take a look for further details of the access level privileges, benefits and requirements.

To learn more about the benefits of membership, watch the video interview with Rhonda Heier, Director of Membership Development, as Rhonda discusses the value of the Broadband Forum membership here or email rheier@broadband-forum.org for more information.

We welcome all BBF members to highlight their membership on their websites using this Member Company logo:

YANG, USP 1.2, vBASe and multi-vendor interoperability were all topics for discussion in Q2

Joey Boyd and Sven Ooghe, Co-Directors of Broadband Forum’s Common YANG Work Area teamed up to inform Broadband Forum readers how the Common YANG Work Area work is delivering greater interoperability to the broadband industry. They concluded that operators can deploy new technologies with renewed confidence and improved interoperability, thanks to YANG.

One of our latest blogs also explored one of fastest-growing standards for connected device management and control in the connected home industry. A blog by Jason Walls, QA Cafe, Chair of the Broadband Forum Connected Home Council and BUS Work Area Director discussed how USP 1.2 is unlocking the full potential of the connected home market.

Tiffany Groves, Marketing Coordinator at Broadband Forum and Rhonda Heier, Director of Membership Development at Broadband Forum revealed that Broadband Forum is hosting a combination of in-person and virtual BASe events, due to our growing number of BASe sponsors. The Broadband Acceleration Seminar (BASe) series will continue to focus on three main broadband ecosystem elements.

What is QoE and why does it matter? was the blog from Craig Thomas, VP Marketing & Business Development at Broadband Forum that outlined what we are doing for Quality of Experience and how it is different to Quality of Service. Wrapping up Q2 was a blog from Jonathan Newton, Principal Network Architect at Vodafone’s Fixed Access Centre of Excellence. Jonathan told readers that WT-474 will deliver an open standards approach to the architecture and data models to enable network capability for flexible and dynamic real-time decisions about the placement of individual subscribers. Broadband Forum is currently working on WT-474, which is introducing Subscriber Session Steering and dynamic subscriber placement.

Events Calendar 

Broadband Forum Meetings and BASe Events

Q2 2022

• June 28, 2022, Fiber Access State of Play vBASe series, Virtual

Q3 2022

• July 7, 2022, Broadband Access vBASe, Virtual
• July 14, 2022, Connected User State of Play vBASe series, Virtual
• August 9-10, 2022, vBASe Asia, Virtual
• September 7-8, 2022, UFBB
• September 13-16, 2022, Broadband Forum Q3 Meeting, Location TBD
• September 22, 2022, Managed the Customer Service Experience/Connected User vBASe, Virtual

Q4 2022

• October 6, 2022, Network and Service Delivery State of Play vBASe series, Virtual
• October 18-20, 2022, BBWF
• November 3, 2022, Connected User State of Play vBASe series, Virtual
• December 5-8, 2022, Broadband Forum Q4 Meeting, Location TBD
• December 13, 2022, Broadband Access State of Play vBASe series, Virtual

To register for our latest events, visit: https://www.broadband-forum.org/meetings-and-events.

Sponsorship opportunities are available for Broadband Forum’s 2021 quarterly meetings and BASe events. Sponsoring Broadband Forum events is a great way to highlight your company and exhibit your company’s innovation in the broadband industry – including demonstrations or prototypes – while showing your support of Broadband Forum. Opportunities vary and can be customized to accommodate a variety of budgets.

Please view the list of our standard sponsorship packages and benefits at: https://wiki.broadband-forum.org/display/BBF/Sponsorship+Opportunities.

If you are interested in sponsoring a meeting, please contact Rhonda Heier at rheier@broadband-forum.org.

Contact information

Questions or ideas? Contact the Broadband Forum at +1 510.492.4020 or email info@broadband-forum.org.