Broadband Forum new work areas to enable broadband services & apps
The Broadband Forum has realigned its work areas to ensure every new project and specification focuses on enabling services-led and intelligent broadband that provides the applications and services most demanded by users.
The Forum’s five work areas will cover topics including access networks, connected users and subscriber networks, network architecture, cloud and autonomous networks, and most importantly service requirements helping to direct that work. They will be supported by an advisory group providing the necessary expertise to produce high-quality YANG data models and management specifications.
The work areas and advisory group will be led by directors from Adtran, Calix, China Mobile, Deutsche Telekom, Huawei, Nokia, QA Cafe, Vantiva, and Vodafone.
Overview of the New Work Areas:
- Access Work Area – Focuses on delivering multi-vendor interoperability for last-mile broadband deployments across fiber, copper, and wireless networks.
- Connected User Work Area – Develops specifications for the deployment, management, and consumption of services by end-users.
- Network Architecture Work Area – Develops the architecture and nodal requirements for end-to-end broadband deployments across traditional and converged networks to ensure the best possible quality of experience for users.
- Provider Cloud Work Area – Develops frameworks and specifications to enable broadband services and networks to utilize cloud-based deployment approaches, including automation and autonomous systems that leverage machine learning and AI.
- Service Requirements Work Area – Defines user-centric, actionable service requirements and specifications for subscriber, access, and Broadband Service Providers’ (BSPs’) core networks.
The first official meetings of the new work areas will take place at the Broadband Forum’s Spring Meeting in Hong Kong on March 11-14, 2025.
Quotes:
“The broadband industry’s focus remains firmly on delivering a richer, more tailored broadband experience for the end-user rather than fast speeds alone,” said Broadband Forum CEO Craig Thomas. “Our new work areas reflect this, giving members from across the globe the opportunity to come together and develop the most relevant readily-adoptable broadband specifications. The intention is to simplify the organization and how our members can integrate in standards work to deliver a more effective and services driven broadband user experience. We invite companies, small and large, to join our efforts.”
Manual Paul (BBF Board President, Service Requirements Work Area Director, and Squad Lead Network Convergence at Deutsche Telekom) from his blog post about the importance of this new Work Area aligning with the Services-led focus of the Broadband Forum:
“Broadband Forum’s Service Requirements Work Area has been established to identify user needs and the technical innovation required to address them, to ultimately help BSPs deliver greater value to their customers. Aligned with the Broadband Forum’s strong focus on services-led broadband, the work area aims to guide the industry in driving innovation and adapting to evolving needs – such as a move away from the speed-first approach and place greater focus on QoE.”
At the bottom of that post, there is a link to the webinar that he led where he talks about the Service Requirements Work Area
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About the Broadband Forum:
The Broadband Forum is an industry-driven global standards development organization helping operators, application providers, and vendors deliver better, services-led broadband.
As the industry-recognized center of competence, the Broadband Forum provides an accessible, efficient, and effective community where all broadband stakeholders can collaborate on, develop, and promote open standards and open software. This provides the basis for deployable solutions for the global broadband industry.
The forum publishes interoperable standards and open software, has launched certification programs, and promotes industry education. These best practices and models can be adopted to help realize an effective broadband ecosystem that drives a thriving, services-led broadband industry based on global collaboration, open standards, and open source, maximizing value for all stakeholders.
For more information, visit https://www.broadband-forum.org/
References:
2025.02.19 – Broadband Forum renews commitment to services-led broadband with new work areas
Bridging the gap between user needs and technical innovation for services-led broadband
https://broadband-forum.org/download/2025_02_18_BBF%20Service%20Requirements%20WA_webinar.pdf
https://wiki.broadband-forum.org/display/RESOURCES/Broadband+Forum+Published+Resources