Broadband Forum accelerates progress on CloudCO, 5G and Open Broadband

The Broadband Forum has announced it is making significant progress on five projects relating to the realization and implementation of Cloud Central Office (CloudCO), which is scheduled for later this year.

Preparations to stage and test the implementations are also under way at the first Open Broadband Lab, in Asia, announced earlier this month.

The CloudCO projects encompass architecture and hardware, as well as software implementation and migration. They represent one of the first use cases for the recently launched Open Broadband initiative, which provides a new platform for the integration and testing of broadband-related services.

The Forum is also focusing on the most promising use cases in 5G networking, such as hybrid wireless wireline networking in access and home networking, network slicing and projects for backhaul and fronthaul transport.

Several other aspects of the Forum’s Broadband 20/20 vision have seen excellent participation and momentum, including the evolution of TR-069 into a User Services Platform for premises’ networks and compute resources – for example, entertainment and the Internet of Things (IoT) for home workers – which remains on track for release later this year.

Broadband Forum CEO Robin Mersh said: “Perhaps the most important contribution we can provide to the industry is to keep an unwavering focus on the implementations of new technologies that have the most promising business cases. From this, we can bring our technical innovation to show how each can be introduced into the market and holistically managed to the benefit of all stakeholders. This quarter’s meeting is a great example of the energy behind the member contributions which drive our work.”

The meeting’s opening plenary also featured a keynote presentation from Dr. Rong-Syh Lin, Vice President of Telecommunication Laboratories, at Chunghwa Telecom.

Dr. Lin said: “With the advent of 5G and the ever-growing IoT, broadband technology is having to evolve rapidly. Operators must find ways to deliver ultra-fast speeds at a faster time-to-market, while still keeping costs low. We applaud the Broadband Forum’s commitment to defining the architecture, interfaces and protocols that are crucial to the network evolution that will enable next-generation services for all.”

During the meeting, the Broadband Forum actively participated in the Broadband and Narrowband Convergence for IoT Realization Symposium, organized by the Institute for Information Industry (III) and the Industrial Development Bureau of Taiwan’s Ministry of Economic Affairs.

Several specifications were approved at the meeting, including TR-390, which defines standardized mechanisms for performance measurement, giving service providers greater insight on how their access network is performing.