Chaired by Vodafone and Telefónica, the Fixed Broadband (FiBr) Project Group will initially focus on the development of Broadband Network Gateways (BNG) and technologies for FTTH access networks with a view to enhancing speeds and enabling new uses cases, for example small cell densification and long-tail deployments into rural and MDU environments.
“The new Fixed Broadband project group will fill an important gap in the TIP portfolio,” said David Hutton, chief engineer of TIP.
“Similarly, we believe that our test and validation framework will also fill an important gap in the broader industry, helping to accelerate the development, hardening and deployment of these new and exciting fixed broadband technologies.”
TIP said its participants have been building, testing and deploying open and disaggregated technologies for many years, and fixed line operators are already benefiting from a "vibrant and diverse ecosystem of solutions" in the IP/MPLS and optical domains.
“Recently we have seen a huge level of effort and investment in the development of new standards in this area”, said Bruno Cornaglia, fixed access senior manager from Vodafone. “We believe that this new group from TIP will play an important role in consolidating operator demand behind open standards. This will ensure supplier products are built in a truly open way, and will help to identify the use cases that are most needed for the industry”.
Rafael Canto, Transport Sr. Manager from Telefónica added: “Openness is a key principle that we apply at every segment of our networks. Open and disaggregated technologies are extremely relevant for us to build more diverse and cost-effective networks, and to operate them in a more efficient way.
“TIP’s work so far to disaggregate the transport network has already led to the creation of a new vibrant and diverse ecosystem, and we’re proud to be a part of this new group helping to unlock the same opportunities in the fixed broadband domain, extending the work already done on IP technologies and SDN management and control,” Canto added.
TIP is inviting operators, suppliers and other industry players to join and contribute.
