Vodafone and PNSol champion new Broadband Forum "quality of experience" project focused on creating the "invisible" network

Operators and vendors collaborate to elevate broadband experience by improving management of network latency, consistency, predictability and reliability

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Broadband Forum

Jan 16, 2019, 12:46 ET

FREMONT, Calif., Jan. 16, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Broadband Forum has launched a new project – Broadband Quality Experience Delivered (Broadband QED) – which will be led by Vodafone and Predictable Network Solutions (PNSol). The initiative brings together one of the Broadband Forum's oldest members with one of its newest to create an "invisible" network that will greatly enhance the quality of experience broadband networks provide.

Focused on addressing factors such as latency, consistency, predictability and reliability, Broadband QED will use Quality Attenuation to look beyond just data rate and deliver greater insight into quality of experience and application outcomes. Quality Attenuation is a framework for capturing, measuring, managing and manipulating the performance aspects of networks, as well as the services they enable.

Vodafone and PNSol will take the lead on the work after initiating the project at the Broadband Forum's latest quarterly meeting in Glasgow, Scotland, and will be joined by a variety of other Forum members who are global leaders in the access and testing domains. Vodafone has already trialed Quality Attenuation over a range of fixed access technologies in its own network and has successfully used it to identify broadband performance characteristics that "traditional" packet layer performance techniques and tools failed to reveal.

"As an industry we've increased the speed of broadband to one gigabit and beyond, which is a remarkable achievement, but we now have to look beyond speed," said Gavin Young, Head of Fixed Access Centre of Excellence at Vodafone. "Historically, we have looked at data rate and ping time but now, as new applications place more strain on networks, we need to make the network invisible so users don't even know it is there – we want to get to a place where everything just works. That means we need to improve other aspects of quality such as latency, consistency, predictability and reliability, ultimately moving from a fast network to an invisible network."

The project will deliver a study document giving a comprehensive overview of Broadband QED and its applicability to broadband networks. This will cover the theory, measurement technique, use-cases and benefits of the approach. The second phase will consider specific applicability to the various Broadband Forum Work Areas.

The Broadband QED project is just one part of Broadband Forum's focus on quality of experience. A recently published Market Report on Application Layer Testing (ALT) highlighted that the confluence of new networking technologies, architectures, and applications is creating an urgent need for standards in ALT. The ultimate goal of this would be to enable operators to deliver better, more consistent quality of experience to end-users.

"Our renewed focus on network quality of experience emphasizes Broadband Forum's commitment to ensuring the whole network – from the Cloud Central Office to the Connected Home – is prepared for growing technologies and trends such as 5G and proliferation of connected devices," said Geoff Burke, Broadband Forum CMO. "Broadband QED is an excellent initiative which marks a significant turning point for broadband as operators begin to turn their attention from speed to other elements of connectivity to create a world-class broadband experience for their customers."

A video interview with Gavin Young, Vodafone's Head of Fixed Access Centre of Excellence, on why the Broadband QED project is important can be found here. A video interview reviewing the market and business drivers of the Broadband QED project, featuring PNSol CEO Neil Davies and Gavin Young, can also be found here.

Operators, vendors, and analysts interested in participating in this project can find information on Broadband Forum membership here.

About the Broadband Forum
Broadband Forum is the communications industry's leading organization focused on accelerating broadband innovation, standards, and ecosystem development. Our members' passion – delivering on the promise of broadband by enabling smarter and faster broadband networks and a thriving broadband ecosystem.

A non-profit industry organization composed of the industry's leading broadband operators, vendors, and thought leaders, our work to date has been the foundation for broadband's global proliferation and innovation. For example, the Forum's flagship TR-069 CPE WAN Management Protocol has nearly 1 billion installations worldwide.

Broadband Forum working groups collaborate to define best practices for global networks, enable new revenue-generating service and content delivery, establish technology migration strategies, and engineer critical device, service & development management tools in the home and business IP networking infrastructure. We develop multi-service broadband packet networking specifications addressing architecture, device and service management, software data models, interoperability and certification in the broadband market.

Our free technical reports and white papers can be found at https://www.broadband-forum.org/.

For more information about the Broadband Forum, please go to https://www.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 Brooks on +44 (0) 1636 704 888 or [email protected].

SOURCE Broadband Forum