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Transforming the access network with gigabit capable broadband technologies

Straw Ballot Progress and Sustainability Opportunity – FAN at the Q4 2023

Marta Seda, Work Area Director for the Broadband Forum’s Fiber Access Network (FAN) Work Area discusses some of their progress from the Q4 2023 Meeting. She points out that there are three major straw ballot documents that will move forward in the new year:

  • DTP-247 Issue 4 ‘PON Conformance Test Plan’.
  • DTP-255 Issue 2 ‘GPON Interoperability Test Plan’.
  • WT-309 ‘PON TC (Transmission Convergence) Layer Interoperability Test Plan Collaboration, which is important for future Plugfests.

FAN also initiated a work study area on the topic of sustainability. Topics of interest include:

  • Informal study on power gain
  • Power Consumption gain measurement methods
  • How to test OMCI Power saving MEs

The FAN Work Area welcomes participation regarding the sustainability work study area whether through the Wiki or via contributions.

Access | Next – Preparing the Access Network to Deliver the Gigabit Experience

The broadband industry is experiencing an unprecedented and exciting period of technological upheaval. Subscriber demand for traffic continues to grow, as streaming video, cloud storage, and other applications have turned anytime, anywhere connectivity from a marketing catchphrase into reality. Access technologies such as Passive Optical Networks (PON), Gfast, and wireless continue to evolve to deliver higher and higher levels of performance over different media types into the home and business like fiber, copper, coaxial cable, and radio frequency.

Although the Broadband Forum is agnostic to transport technologies used in access networks, it plays a major role in encouraging the work that accelerates large scale deployment of access technologies. This includes the BBF Certification Programs education in the form of webinars and events (like BASe) to catalyze ecosystem development, and reference architectures and models that foster a superior broadband experience.

Fiber – Leveraging the Power of Light to Deliver the Ultimate Broadband Experience

Fiber can act as a virtually unlimited wave-guide. New technologies are emerging to take advantage of its performance advantages.

Copper/Coaxial Cable – Leveraging New Technologies Over Existing Infrastructure to Deliver a Gigabit Experience to All

Copper and coaxial cable are virtually ubiquitous in homes and businesses around the world. despite major initiatives to rapidly upgrade broadband infrastructures to fiber, the reality is that the majority of the world’s premises will still be served by existing copper and coaxial infrastructure for a long time to come. New technologies like Gfast are paving the way to deliver gigabit experiences of these legacy infrastructures.

Application Layer Testing – Introducing Standardized Quality of Experience (QoE) Testing to Broadband Networks

The variety of technologies and services delivered over the broadband network are creating challenges in understanding the Quality of Experience that end users are receiving when services are delivered across these technologies. Initiatives like Application Layer Testing (ALT) at the BBF are introducing new ways of service providers to understand their subscriber experience.

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