Broadband Forum Delivers Fiber Solution Set

SHANGHAI, Sept. 21, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Broadband Forum has brought widespread deployment of superfast broadband a step closer with the launch today of its comprehensive fiber resource – BroadbandSuite™ 5.0 at the Forum's quarterly meeting, held in Shanghai.

The new release brings together into one suite the range of fiber-related work that the Broadband Forum has been carrying out in its Fiber Access Networks working group, working closely with FSAN, the Full Service Access Network, with the aim of enabling multi-vendor interoperability. This will increasingly allow operators and service providers to build their fiber networks with confidence in product conformance and interoperability, allowing for greater flexibility in product selection and empowering more feature rich deployments.  At the same time, these new specifications provide equipment manufacturers with the measure and means to verify and promote products that meet market-driven global standards.

Robin Mersh, CEO of the Broadband Forum, said: "Fiber rollouts, especially hybrid DSL/PON deployments are growing faster than ever.  We expect to see fiber figures continue to rise in our mid-year report due next week.  BroadbandSuite 5.0 is a major resource for the industry to facilitate and accelerate the deployment of PON and it paves the way for next generation fiber technologies, including XG-PON1 and beyond."

Speaking on behalf of China Telecom at the Broadband Forum's keynote address, Mr Leping Wei said: "G-PON interoperability is critical for mass deployment in the Chinese market and China is already the largest and fastest growing market for broadband. The G-PON Certification will certainly enable us to accelerate the widespread availability of faster broadband. With the Chinese market moving towards an estimated 250 million subscriber lines by 2015 and a household penetration of 50%, China Telecom sees G-PON and the advent of certified G-PON products as an important step in making this a reality."

BroadbandSuite™ 5.0 encompasses a number of architecture, management and market requirement specifications addressing PON that include:

TR-142  Framework for TR-069-enabled PON devices (EPON)
TR-155  G-PON ONU Requirements for CPE
TR-156  Using G-PON Access in the Context of TR-101
TR-167  G-PON-fed TR-101 Ethernet Access Node
TR-200  Using EPON in the context of TR-101

It also includes two white papers and a tutorial that provide valuable additional information and background on G-PON:

MR-185  White Paper: Next Generation Broadband Access
MR-229  White Paper: Leveraging Standards for Next Generation Broadband Wholesale Access
MR-246  G-PON Tutorial

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, there are two specifications that are in final approval, which define the test plans for G-PON ONU Conformance:
WT-247 G-PON ONU Abstract Test Plan
OD-247 G-PON ONU Conformance Test Plan

With fiber being one of the major themes at this quarter's Broadband Forum meeting in Shanghai, delegates are participating in a PON workshop on the subject of PON Optical Layer Management. The focus of the workshop is on how to improve physical layer performance monitoring and fault isolation capabilities.    

For more information and to review the technical reports and white papers included in this release, please check out www.broadband-forum.org.

For further information please contact Brian Dolby on +44 7899 914168 or Sheila Lashford on +44 (0) 7986 514240 or by email to [email protected] or [email protected]

About the Broadband Forum

Broadband Forum, a non-profit industry organization, is focused on engineering smarter and faster broadband connections. Our work defines best practices for global networks, enables service and content delivery, establishes technology migration strategies, engineers critical device & service management tools, and is key to redefining broadband.  Our technical reports and free white papers can be found at www.broadband-forum.org.

SOURCE Broadband Forum