First six Gfast certified products announced by Broadband Forum and UNH-IOL

THE HAGUE, Netherlands, June 13, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Broadband Forum today announced the first six products to have successfully completed the Gfast certification program from the Forum and the University of New Hampshire InterOperability Laboratory (UNH-IOL) – representing the next important industry milestone by signalling market readiness for multi-vendor deployment.

The Gfast certification – carried out by the Broadband Forum's approved Gfast test laboratory at the UNH-IOL – is in accordance with the Forum's IR-337 certification test specification, reducing costs and accelerating time-to-revenue.

"Interoperable standardized Gfast technology is key because it underpins an ability to deliver next generation ultrafast broadband at scale," said Kevin Foster, General Manager, Architecture and Innovation for BT. "Certification to the Broadband Forum's Gfast requirements provides a known level of confidence and will reduce test time for both network operators and their communication provider customers."

Listed alphabetically, ARRIS, Calix, Huawei, Metanoia, Nokia and Technicolor have worked with the Broadband Forum and UNH-IOL to achieve the Gfast Device Certification.

The first set of certifications include products based on chipsets from Broadcom, Metanoia and Sckipio, ensuring service providers will have choice of products, form factors, and features. The full list of certified devices is available on the Forum's public site Gfast certification page, which will grow over the coming months, as additional certifications are achieved.

Lincoln Lavoie, Senior Engineer, Broadband Technologies at UNH-IOL, said: "The certification represents an outstanding technical achievement with hundreds of rigorous tests of the stability, functionality, control, and performance of Gfast systems and thousands of hours of close technical collaboration over many months between the lab and all of the companies involved. The program's certification of these products has played a significant role in understanding and improving the implementation of Gfast."

Additionally, the UNH-IOL has made the Gfast test automation software commercially available, which controls the Telebyte test and measurement equipment, enabling device manufacturers to easily pre-test in their own labs and service providers to easily regression test software updates from their suppliers.

Service providers worldwide are deploying Gfast to deliver gigabit faster over existing wiring, bringing ultrafast broadband to more users, significantly reducing the cost of the final connection into a home or business in comparison to an all-fiber deployment. The high throughput of Gfast also increases customer satisfaction, reducing churn and driving revenue by opening new markets where fiber delivery is impractical.

The announcement of the certification follows the continued success of UNH-IOL's Gfast Chipset & System Integrator Interoperability Plugfests – held in conjunction with the Broadband Forum – where engineers from 12 member companies continued testing the latest advancements to the ITU-T specifications and their Gfast products.

For more information on the Broadband Forum's work, visit: broadband-forum.org.

For more information on the UNH-IOL's work, visit: https://www.iol.unh.edu.

About the Broadband Forum
Broadband Forum, a non-profit industry organization, is focused on engineering smarter and faster broadband networks. 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 free technical reports and white papers can be found at broadband-forum.org. Twitter @Broadband_Forum.

For more information about the Broadband Forum, please go to broadband-forum.org or follow @Broadband_Forum on Twitter. For further information please contact Brian Dolby on +44 (0) 7899 914168 or [email protected] or Jayne Garfitt on +44 (0) 1636 812152 or [email protected].

About the UNH-IOL
The UNH-IOL is dedicated to being the world's premier data networking resource. Beginning in 1988, the UNH-IOL has built a multimillion dollar testbed and developed testing solutions to help companies efficiently and cost effectively deliver products to market. UNH-IOL's services fit the needs of the market, while maintaining broad, comprehensive interoperability and conformance testing of networking, data, telecommunications, and storage products. The industry relies on UNH-IOL's extensive staff experience, standards-bodies participation, 28,000+ square foot facility, and 100+ students who represent the future of interoperability testing and verification.

Contacts
UNH-IOL Organization Contact:
UNH-IOL
Mara Bernazzani, +1-603-862-0901
Communications Coordinator
[email protected]
www.iol.unh.edu

or

Media Contact:
Interprose for UNH-IOL
Melissa Power, +1-401-454-1314
[email protected]
www.interprosepr.com

SOURCE The Broadband Forum