The Broadband Forum announced its Wholesale Access project designed to equip global broadband service providers (BSPs) with clearer guidance on sharing network infrastructure for wholesale use, drive innovation and open more diverse service choices for customers.
The project will define service requirements, best practices and technical solutions needed to advance wholesale access in broadband networks in an era of fiber-to-the-premises (FTTP) and cloud networks. This is intended to spur technical innovation, efficiency and automation, while maintaining high quality of service across the shared infrastructure for existing and new deployments, officials said.
The initiative will also outline how access network owners can offer their existing access infrastructure to retail service providers, as well as content, application and cloud service providers. This approach is designed to help established BSPs generate new revenue from their unused network capacity, while giving new providers a faster route to market their services, officials said.
“Wholesale access has been inherently supported by the Broadband Forum’s network architecture over the past 20 years, and this project takes the best practices from copper‑based broadband to reshape and evolve them for fiber and cloud networks” said Daniele Franceschini, head of technology and innovation at FiberCop. “The project will identify and define the best innovations, solutions and practices for service providers, covering topics from innovative line testing to domain monitoring, service differentiation and far-edge computing. Besides serving as co-editor of this new BBF project, FiberCop is coordinating a collaborative team of BBF members committed to contributing on these subjects.”
Focusing on widespread deployment types, the initiative addresses wholesale access deployment models applicable to different regulations across the globe. As part of the project, Broadband Forum members can collaborate and share insight on their own experiences and advise on the lessons learned and challenges with real-world deployments, officials said.
“The project will prove incredibly insightful and help to present opportunities in implementing ‘open’ access within an ecosystem where the network is provided by a wholesale network operator, while the subscriber relationship is owned by a separate retail service provider,” said Daniel Willis, general manager, advanced access technologies, at NBN Co.
“Bringing together real-world insights from established wholesale operators represents a significant milestone for the broadband industry,” Willis said. “Our aim is to use this information to empower service and network providers of all sizes to help deliver broadband over shared infrastructure more efficiently, while importantly maintaining a high standard of quality and service.”
Driven by BSP requirements, the initiative’s first stage of work is intended to establish a “holistic framework” for wholesale service models, use cases, requirements and best practices. The project will provide an opportunity to collaborate with other standard development organizations for a “harmonized and globally applicable framework,” officials said.
Those interested in joining the project should contact info@broadband-forum.org.
