Broadband Forum Launches First Ever Certification Program

PARIS, Feb. 9 /PRNewswire/ -- At the MPLS & Ethernet World Congress today, the Broadband Forum announced its first ever certification program as a crucial component in its drive to develop the full potential of broadband and support the smooth broadband architecture convergence around the world.

The Broadband Forum has long been a globally recognized leader in driving broadband and multi-service network architecture and equipment interoperability testing.  Through fifteen years of test plan development and interoperability test events, the Forum has helped the industry establish common standards, reduce the burden of service provider testing and expedite network deployments around the world.  

To advance the goal of faster and more cost effective service rollouts, the Broadband Forum is launching a groundbreaking certification program, the Broadband Forum Certification Program, designed to verify adherence to critical IP/MPLS, broadband and digital home/business specifications. These technical specifications address areas of vital importance to the networking industry.  These newly released as well as future certifications offered through the Broadband Forum Certification Program are driven by market requirements.

Overall the Broadband Forum Certification Program provides:

• Assurance to service providers that different vendor products conform to the Broadband Forum's globally recognized and adopted technology standards
• Cost savings to both equipment vendors and service providers by offering a single industry-approved test and certification process that significantly reduces testing time and resources
• The vehicle to expedite multi-vendor interoperability

The first certifications of the Broadband Forum Certification Program are designed to demonstrate our commitment and dedication to advancing implementations of compliant MPLS based solutions and services.  

What makes these Broadband Forum MPLS Certifications so important?

• First of their kind -- there is no other comprehensive certification program offered today for global standards based MPLS  
• The MPLS Certifications provide comprehensive testing that verifies conformance to architectures and protocols required to implement MPLS
• MPLS is a widely deployed technology in every Service Provider network around the globe and continues to evolve from the core to the edge, and now into the access realm
• The Broadband Forum works very closely with other standards development organizations where complementary work is being developed; i.e. IETF, IEEE, ITU-T and MEF, thus ensuring collaboration and industry alignment
• Last but not least, the Broadband Forum's mission is to develop an end-to-end architecture, ensuring critical technologies come together effectively and seamlessly

As mentioned above the Broadband Forum Certification Program, initially piloted in the IP/MPLS Forum prior to their Broadband Forum union, currently includes three MPLS Certifications:

• Circuit Emulation Services (Time Division Multiplexing),
• ATM  
• IP & Ethernet (coming soon)  

There is now open enrollment for Broadband Forum members in this certification program. We are pleased to announce that five companies have already participated and their products have passed the BBF.248 test suite:  

This program is also groundbreaking in that the global service provider community has been a driving influence within the Broadband Forum on this project, assisting in defining test requirements and test suites.

"The Broadband Forum Certification program will provide assurance that technologies meet industry specifications through an independent testing service. Certification demonstrates that businesses are forming the correct partnerships to deliver an industry-accepted service," said Christopher Mayer, Vice President, Systems Integration & Testing at Verizon Communications.

"The increase of mobile data traffic is putting a lot of challenges on mobile backhaul to provide the required capacity in a cost-effective way. We see MPLS as a viable option for meeting this challenge, and believe this certification program will advance the deployment of MPLS-based backhaul solutions in the market," said Alain Maloberti, VP, Network Architecture & Design for Orange.

As mentioned, the Broadband Forum Certification Program is now open to all of the Forum's approximately 200 members, which range from operators and vendors to software developers and testing organizations. The Broadband Forum has authorized Iometrix, a testing authority, to carry out the testing against the Forum's requirements and test suites.

Bob Mandeville, President and Founder of Iometrix, said:  "The new Broadband Forum Certification Program will provide a critical new standardized element of RFPs, thereby reducing service provider testing expense.  For vendors, the key is the ability to verify conformance in a single round of tests that is recognized by service providers worldwide.  We really see this adding value to the industry as a whole."

For further information about the new Broadband Forum Certification Program visit http://www.broadband-forum.org/technical/certification.php

To see a list of the currently certified products, visit Broadband Forum Certified Products

To learn more about MPLS in LTE, check out the Broadband Forum's newly released white paper "Use of MPLS in LTE".

For further information or to set up an officer interview, please contact Chrissie Walker or Brian Dolby on +44 (0) 115 948 6901 or by email to [email protected] or [email protected].

About the Broadband Forum

The Broadband Forum mission is to develop the full potential of broadband.  Following its union with the IP/MPLS Forum, the Broadband Forum is now the central body for next generation IP network specifications. This organization, comprising around 200 members of most of the world's leading service providers, equipment manufacturers, chip vendors and other key organizations, defines and facilitates next generation networks for local broadband access, mobile backhaul, business services, IPTV, gaming and other applications, and is poised to address further developments as they arise.  The Broadband Forum's formal BroadbandSuite™ Release Program, Technical Reports and specifications are publicly available at www.broadband-forum.org.

SOURCE Broadband Forum