Broadband Forum News - March 2024

The Headlines

Network disaggregation principles extended onto access nodes
Standards based operator CloudCO demonstration and more
New automated framework makes broadband networks more resilient

CEO's Note

We look forward to welcoming you to our Spring Member Meeting starting Monday, March 4th in Mainz, Germany, our highest attended meeting in over 15 years. Our members will get to hear more about the latest AI and ML breakthroughs during our Town Hall Innovation Series at the meeting. The BASe and USP Summits follow our Member Meeting on March 7th and 8th. Virtual registration is available for those who cannot join us in person. This month’s newsletter focuses on cloud technologies, Artificial intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML), specifically the Broadband Forum-led CloudCO demonstrations from 2023 and the planned 2024 demonstrations. We would like to say a big thank you to Deutsche Telekom for sponsoring this year’s Spring Member Meeting. Make sure you stay tuned for more details of our Summer Member Meeting 2024 in Asia.

- Craig Thomas, CEO at Broadband Forum

Submissions Ideas for 2024 Demos Extended

The deadline to submit ideas for Broadband Forum’s 2024 technology demonstrations has been extended to close of business on Monday 4th March 2024. We are open to various kinds of demonstrations, beyond the planned demo at Network X in Paris, October 8-10. If there are any demonstrations that you would like to see the Broadband Forum lead, learn more and submit your ideas here.

News and Updates

At last year’s Network X event in Paris, Broadband Forum and its members demonstrated the power of a standards-based operator cloud (CloudCO) and the news was captured in App Developer Magazine. The demonstration highlighted how broadband services are evolving from not just delivering connectivity but focusing on delivering the right QoE that subscribers demand.
TelecomTV covered Broadband Forum’s release of two new standards that are helping service providers further improve the quality of network services delivered to customers thanks to AI, as well as solve or anticipate network faults. TR-436 and TR-486 complement the cloudified network automation, low-maintenance operations, and streamlined deployments provided by the CloudCO suite of standards.
Broadband Forum announced a new standard that is enabling greater choice for operators, OpEx and CapEx savings, and reduced time to market of new products. The release of the TR-477 and MR-477 standards accelerate the migration of control and management plane functions in the Access Node to virtualized functions within the CloudCO. This news was covered by eeNews Europe.
Broadband Forum CEO Craig Thomas and SDN/NFV Work Area Co-Director Bruno Cornaglia spoke with Diana Goovaerts at Fierce Telecom to discuss the latest TR-477 and MR-477 standards for disaggregating network OLTs. You can find the full article here and the full FAQs on the subject from Craig and Bruno have been added to the Broadband Forum website.
As we await next week’s Spring Member Meeting in Mainz, Germany, you can hear about the great work of the forum in Broadband Forum Technical Chair, Lincoln Lavoie’s recap of our Q4 2023 Meeting here.
Nominations for the Broadband Forum's Board of Directors and Technical Committee Chair elections will open on March 18th, 2024.

Technology Spotlight

CloudCO

The CloudCO (Central Office) approach disaggregates and virtualizes network functions, allowing service providers to respond to market demands efficiently and quickly. The inherent interoperability of CloudCO means service providers can mix and match elements to optimize their networks. Those elements can reside anywhere there is satisfactory connectivity and computing power. You can find the demonstration of CloudCO below. The Broadband Forum published a video of its 2023 CloudCO demonstration, providing an overview of its importance to network operators, vendors, and consumers. Demonstrations of applications included clientless secure Work from Home, parental controls, and virtualized OMCI. You can watch the full video insight here.

Thank you to all of the participating companies who made the 2023 Demonstration possible. Last year, over ten companies participated in a demonstration of multi-service interoperability for CloudCO. This included Ciena, Nokia, Radisys, AlticeLabs, BISDN, Capgemini, University of New Hampshire InterOperability Laboratory (UNH-IOL), Netsia, OutSys, UfiSpace, and Zyxel. You can hear from our platinum sponsors on the CloudCO demonstration below:

CIena’s Phil Fine emphasizes the open nature of the CloudCO demonstration.
Nokia’s Tom van Caenegem talks about the importance of the CloudCO demo for bringing relevant solutions to market.
Radisys’s Rajesh Chundury reinforces how the CloudCO demonstration reflects the shift to a software centric approach to the access and home networks, respectively.

Upcoming Events

• BBF Spring Member Meeting March 4th-8th 2024 - Virtual Registration Is Still Open • BASe & USP Summit 2024, March 7th & 8th • March, 26th - Connected User Omdia Survey Webinar, 3:00PM - 5:00 PM CET • March 28th - BASe at OFC - Meeting Rural Broadband Needs with High Capacity PON • April 11th - PON Interoperability vBASe Webinar • May 14th, BASe at ANGA COM 2024 - Converging the Access to true Multi-Service Fiber • June 17th -20th – BBF Summer Member Annual Meeting

New Projects and Straw Ballots

The following is a list of the most recently projects that have passed Final Ballot. ATA:

TR-390.2a1: Performance Measurement between Customer Equipment and IP Edge

WWC:

TR-493: IMS for 5G-RG Architecture
TR-494: IMS for 5G-RG Residential Voice Requirements
TR-458c1: Wireless and Wireline Convergence with Control and User Plane Separation. Reference Architecture, Interface, and Protocol Specification

BUS:

TR-398i3: Wi-Fi Residential & SOHO Performance Testing

Welcome to New BBF Members

Alethea Communications Technologies and Evolution Digital

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