FBA partners with Broadband Forum to explore technical Connected Home concepts that will improve the fiber broadband subscriber experience

The Fiber Broadband Association (FBA) today announced the call for Proof of Concept (PoC) demonstrations at Fiber Connect 2024 in Nashville, Tenn., July 28-31. This year, FBA has partnered with Broadband Forum (BBF) to focus demonstrations on the applications and services that will be leveraged within the Connected Home and are best delivered over fiber broadband. Each PoC demonstration must leverage one of two BBF interoperability certifications and showcase how innovative Connected Home services improve subscriber experience by leveraging the capacity, scale, latency, and/or security that only fiber broadband provides.

“As more homes are connected to fiber broadband, it is important to ensure that the equipment and devices used to connect the home can interoperate. When this ecosystem of connected services and applications is seamless, subscribers will connect to new opportunities for economic development, employment, education, and more,” said Evann Freeman, Vice President, Government & Community Relations, EPB of Chattanooga and the Fiber Broadband Association’s Conference Committee Chair. “This year’s PoC demonstrations will serve as a stimulating exercise to witness the power of the fiber broadband ecosystem on the subscriber experience.”

Fiber Connect 2024 PoCs will be collaborative projects involving up to three companies, one of which must be a member company of FBA or BBF. Each PoC must include one of two BBF Connected Home specifications, either BBF.247 GPON ONU, which focuses on multi-vendor interoperability between OLTs (Optical Line Terminals) and ONUs (Optical Network Units), or BBF.369 User Services Platform (USP), which represents a fully realized managed services ecosystem for adding value to the connected home. PoCs can demonstrate one or more services and applications that support the conference theme of “Accelerating our Fiber Future” and could include innovative IoT, artificial intelligence, security, and other Smart Home options.

To submit a PoC, please download the complete PoC Showcase instructions and the PoC Submission Form & Agreement here. PoC demonstrations must adhere to BBF-certified test plans: BBF.247 GPON ONU Test Plan and BBF369. USP Test Plan. All PoC submissions are due Monday, April 15, 2024.

“Proof of Concept demonstrations are a vital step in determining new possibilities. They provide exciting evolutions for industry specifications, and we’re pleased to work with the Fiber Broadband Association to create the Fiber Connect 2024 PoC Showcase,” said Ken Pyle, Director of Marketing, at the Broadband Forum. “As the fiber broadband ecosystem looks to connect every American to reliable internet, the Connected Home is the next step in ensuring high-quality subscriber experiences. This is an important arena for our industry, and we’re eager to learn from our PoC teams.”

PoC submissions will be reviewed by the Fiber Broadband Association’s Technical and Conference Committees and Broadband Forum prior to approval for inclusion in the Fiber Connect 2024 PoC Showcase. PoCs will be evaluated during the Fiber Connect 2024 event by leading industry analysts, and awards will be presented in the following categories: Most Innovative PoC, Best Community Impact, and Game Changer.

About the Fiber Broadband Association

The Fiber Broadband Association is the largest and only trade association that represents the complete fiber ecosystem of service providers, manufacturers, industry experts, and deployment specialists dedicated to the advancement of fiber broadband deployment and the pursuit of a world where communications are limitless, advancing quality of life and digital equity anywhere and everywhere. The Fiber Broadband Association helps providers, communities, and policymakers make informed decisions about how, where, and why to build better fiber broadband networks. Since 2001, these companies, organizations, and members have worked with communities and consumers in mind to build the critical infrastructure that provides the economic and societal benefits that only fiber can deliver. The Fiber Broadband Association is part of the Fibre Council Global Alliance, which is a platform of six global FTTH Councils in North America, LATAM, Europe, MEA, APAC, and South Africa. Learn more at fiberbroadband.org.

About the Broadband Forum

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

The 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-369 (User Services Platform) and TR-069 CPE WAN Management Protocols have over 1 billion installations worldwide.

The 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.

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