The first-of-its-kind demonstration is sponsored by Swisscom, BT, and TIM and will showcase zero touch service provisioning of a multi-vendor access network

AMSTERDAM–(BUSINESS WIRE)–#Cloud–As service providers look to introduce new network technologies to accelerate new services deployment with minimal risk, Broadband Forum will demonstrate the latest developments in its Cloud Central Office (CloudCO) and Open Broadband – Broadband Access Abstraction (OB-BAA) initiatives at Broadband World Forum (BBWF) 2019.

CloudCO is a recasting of the Central Office hosting infrastructure that utilizes Software Defined Networking (SDN), Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) and Cloud technologies to support network functions for broadband services. Within this, OB-BAA specifies Northbound Interfaces (NBI), Core Components and Southbound Adaptation Interfaces (SAI) for functions associated with access network devices that have been virtualized, facilitating co-existence and seamless migration.

The first-of-its-kind demonstration of both initiatives at BBWF 2019 will leverage a combination of SDN automation and virtualization, open source innovation and Broadband Forum’s Open Broadband Labs (OB-Labs) infrastructure. This will show zero touch service provisioning of a multi-vendor access network containing NETCONF/YANG and SNMP access nodes via standard and vendor specific adapters, all through a single portal. It will also take advantage of major enhancements to Broadband Forum’s OB-BAA open source project and a soon-to-be-released new Application Note, APPN-446 – ONAP and CloudCO integration for Residential Broadband HSIA Service.

“The CloudCO and OB-BAA demonstration will represent a radical recasting of services deployment and orchestration to the benefit of the industry,” said Geoff Burke, Chief Marketing Officer at Broadband Forum. “CloudCO and OB-BAA are among our Open Broadband initiatives which aim to advance network migration to cloud-based broadband infrastructures and help service providers realize the possibilities of SDN and NFV. This demonstration will highlight the innovative work of the global Open Broadband Labs and the benefits of industry-wide collaboration and interoperability.”

Specifically, the demo illustrates a multi-vendor network use case in which a customer making a service request has the service created and activated by the service provider, only then to relocate to a new location and find the service seamlessly reactivated. This will show a plethora of benefits which are available to service providers through CloudCO, including reductions in the costs of validating, engineering, and improving operation of services.

BT, Swisscom, and TIM will sponsor the demonstration, reinforcing the important role open standards have to play in operators’ future networks.

Kevin Foster, Head of Broadband Technical Standards for BT, said: “CloudCO and OB-BAA will underpin an ability to create a ‘pick & mix’ access network constructed from different technologies and vendors thereby improving operational effectiveness, customer experience, and ensuring easier migration from legacy technologies and services.”

David Pérez Caparrós, Lead DevOps Engineer at Swisscom, said: “With CloudCO and OB-BAA, we will be able to evolve our access network with new technologies at a faster pace, with lower integration costs and higher customer satisfaction through faster response.”

Mauro Tilocca, Access Network Automation expert and Broadband Forum delegate at TIM, added: “CloudCO and OB-BAA, will improve the agility of net ops and maintenance, and enable open programmable interfaces to improve our service portfolio. This demonstration will show zero touch service provisioning of a multi-vendor access network containing NETCONF/YANG and SNMP access nodes via standard and vendor specific adapters, all through a single portal and ONAP operating as CloudCO Orchestrator as well as End-to-End Service Orchestrator.”

Access vendors participating in the demonstration include Nokia, Altice Labs, and DZS which will all leverage an OB-Labs infrastructure enabled by The European Advanced Networking Test Center (EANTC), The University of New Hampshire InterOperability Laboratory (UNH-IOL) and VMware. The demonstration will take place during exhibition hours in the Broadband Forum / Open Broadband Interop Pavilion (A40). In addition, a one-hour session – “Deep Dive on OB-BAA: Managing Multi-Vendor SDN Broadband Networks” – will be hosted by Ovum Principal Analyst Julie Kunstler in the Broadband World News Theater on the exhibition floor starting at 11.15am on 16 October. Participants will include service provider TIM, access vendors Altice Labs, DZS, and Nokia, and OB-Lab enablers EANTC, UNH-IOL, and VMware.

Broadband World Forum 2019 takes place from Tuesday, October 15 to Thursday, October 17, at the RAI, Amsterdam, the Netherlands. For more information, please visit: https://tmt.knect365.com/bbwf/.

About Broadband Forum

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

Broadband Forum is an open, non-profit industry organization composed of the industry’s leading broadband operators, vendors, thought leaders who are shaping the future of broadband, and observers who closely track our progress. Its 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’s projects span across 5G, Connected Home, Cloud, and Access. Its 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/.

Follow us on Twitter @Broadband_Forum and LinkedIn.

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 brian.dolby@proactive-pr.com or Jayne Brooks on +44 (0) 1636 704 888 or jayne.brooks@proactive-pr.com

Contacts

Brian Dolby on +44 (0) 7899 914168 or brian.dolby@proactive-pr.com or Jayne Brooks on +44 (0) 1636 704 888 or jayne.brooks@proactive-pr.com