As AT&T, CenturyLink and other providers ramp up their Gfast plans, the Broadband Forum reported that the number of certified interoperable platforms has risen from 7 to 24 in less than three months.
Adtran, Exfo and Viavi are amongst the latest vendors that have completed the Gfast certification program developed by the Broadband Forum and University of New Hampshire InterOperability Laboratory (UNH-IOL).
These three companies join ARRIS, Calix, Huawei, Metanoia, Nokia and Technicolor, which were the first companies to achieve device certification supported by chip manufacturers Broadcom, Metanoia and Sckipio.
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The Gfast certification is in accordance with the Forum’s IR-337 certification test specification. Testing is carried out at the Forum’s approved Gfast test laboratory at the UNH-IOL.
In June, the Broadband Forum created the Gfast Council, a group focused on facilitating rapid deployment of G.fast implementations in service provider networks.
One of the missions of the Gfast Council is to promote the Gfast Certification program, which has announced the first interoperable products, with the aim of helping accelerate the availability of interoperable solutions and expedite timely integration with service providers’ networks.
The certification comes at an interesting time for Gfast deployments, particularly in the United States. AT&T, for one, recently began rolling out Gfast-based services in 22 metro markets across the U.S. with a focus on serving multi-tenant units (MTUs).
After conducting a Gfast trial in Minneapolis, AT&T has named eight initial cities that have properties equipped with the hybrid fiber/copper and coax technology.
What’s interesting about AT&T’s rollout is that a number of these cities, including Boston and New York City, are outside of AT&T’s traditional 21-state wireline internet serving area.