The Broadband Forum is striving to better inform ISPs of the work it’s doing in technical standards, with the help of the Fiber Broadband Association (FBA).
In July, Broadband Forum and FBA announced a partnership focused on developing and educating the broadband industry on best practices. They said the agreement will also broaden support for “ubiquitous broadband service delivery.”
What that means is leveraging a combination of technologies to close the digital divide – not just fiber – according to Craig Thomas, Broadband Forum’s VP of Strategic Marketing and Business Development.
“The last connection doesn’t have to be strictly just fiber,” he told Fierce, noting fixed wireless access, satellite or even copper can suffice as “that last drop.”
The other side of ubiquitous broadband service is broadening the customer base.
“We’re building networks now with a path to be truly multi-service. So it’s meeting business needs, residential, community services, industrial IoT, even mobile backhaul,” Thomas said.
He described the agreement with FBA as a “good marriage” in that FBA is well-versed in advocacy and can help “bring other partners in,” while Broadband Forum is “great at teaching where the technology is going.”
Broadband Forum plans to increase awareness of its standards among Tier 1, 2 and 3 operators alike. What’s interesting, Thomas said, is Tier 2 and Tier 3 ISPs “are really interested in standards but they don’t have the expertise.”
Some operators for instance aim to become a competitive local exchange carrier (CLEC) for a local area, while others “may be looking at a business model that means they will consolidate other operators in their network in the future.”
“And unless that network is standards-driven, those two networks when they start consolidating won’t be able to talk to each other,” he said.
Broadband Forum develops deployable industry standards, with over 500 that are published and currently being developed. One of the “cornerstones” is the TR-369 [USP] specification, which outlines how telcos can manage and provision customer equipment and services.
Services-led broadband
One industry trend Broadband Forum has noticed is providers are transitioning to a services-led broadband model, in which ISPs are including more value-added services on top of the standard broadband connection.
“Fixed voice is declining dramatically…Netflix, Amazon over-the-top video providers are taking revenue away from traditional IPTV,” Thomas explained. “The network operators have to find different ways to monetize.”
He added while there’s “nothing wrong” with a utility model where the network operators just want to sell a connection, “the business model for a lot of operators is changing.”
ISPs are now leaning toward providing “service aware and application appropriate Quality of Experience” for different customers, such as remote workers, video gamers and enterprises.
“You’re now looking at people’s applications that need to have a guaranteed latency, round-trip delay things like that,” he said. “Then you look at business and teleworkers, they need to have security, traffic prioritization.”
Latency has become “just as important” as speed. For instance, an 8-gig service with poor latency is “just not as fit for purpose” as a 100-meg service with the same latency.
Thomas added when ISPs offer broadband with multi-gig speeds, it’s challenging for the average customer “to use up all that bandwidth.”
Gamers in particular will value the latency over the speed of a connection, because they “have enough speed anyway.”
“You aren’t just going to buy one service for 24 months,” he said. Customers are looking to buy value-added services for gaming, virtual reality (VR) experiences and “home working environments.”
“Maybe something as easy as Wi-Fi management or parental controls,” Thomas added. “The broadband network has to be ready to be dynamic in that…how can I be agile and offer you the services you want when you want [them].”
This story has been updated to clarify Thomas' comment that ISPs are now focusing on providing “service aware and application appropriate Quality of Experience."