Advanced Television

Broadband Forum new initiatives

June 9, 2010

Broadband Forum, the global consortium of approximately 200 leading telecommunications service providers, network equipment manufacturers and software companies driving broadband solutions around the world, has announced a comprehensive range of initiatives aimed at empowering next generation access solutions in a variety of technologies, including ADSL2plus, VDSL2 and GPON.

Robin Mersh, COO of the Broadband Forum, highlighted the extension of the Broadband Forum's testing and conformance efforts, encouraging the evolution of access technologies. This work includes:

– Recent enhancements to the ADSL2plus functionality test plan (TR-105 Corrigendum 2)

– Introduction of the new VDSL2 test suite (TR-114/TR-115 and TR-138)

– Development of a new Vectoring best practices white paper (MD-257)

-Recently added GPON interoperability abstract test development and testing being performed in conjunction with Full Service Access Network (FSAN). This work includes ongoing

– Plugfest events, open to all FSAN and Broadband Forum equipment and chipset vendors. Click here for a list of upcoming events.

– Additional fiber-related work is also moving forward addressing EPON

Another critical new area of the Broadband Forum’s work includes specifications addressing end-to-end architecture evolution requirements. With a focus on establishing the global bar for multi-service architectures, a body of work has been launched to help service providers migrate to a more flexible, IP and MPLS-based mesh network approach aimed at facilitating efficient and cost effective delivery of multimedia services, assuring new levels of excellence in end-user quality of experience. This pending release will be based on TR-144 “Broadband Multi-Service Architecture & Framework Requirements” and anchored by key work in progress, such as WT-145 “Broadband Architecture Requirements” and WT-223 “Requirements for MPLS over Aggregated Interfaces”. A new white paper associated with this work is also in development titled “Unified MPLS: Enabling next generation transport and services using MPLS-TP”.

“Our role is to ensure that the industry has all the specifications and tools it needs to optimize networks, advance interoperability, and ultimately to capture the full potential of broadband worldwide,” says Robin Mersh, COO of the Broadband Forum. “These new initiatives and joint efforts will provide those tools needed to expedite the migration to the next generation broadband network.”

Categories: Articles, Broadband