Vodafone and partners such as Benu Networks, Casa Systems, Cisco and Nokia, have tested an innovative technology to deliver faster fixed broadband to customers across Europe.
The companies applied a new open architecture to the Broadband Network Gateway (BNG) – a component for connecting multiple users to the Internet – to enable it to work using separate software and hardware from multiple vendors.
Disaggregated BNG technology will change the way broadband networks are built. Using the global TR-459 standard devised by the Broadband Forum, the test allowed the core control functions of the gateway, such as authenticating a user and increasing bandwidth to support streaming services, to be separated and managed efficiently in the cloud whilst ensuring multi-vendor interoperability.
Vodafone can upgrade, scale and deploy new features and add more capacity, enabling greater agility and faster time to market when making enhancements across its pan-European broadband network.
Johan Wibergh, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) for Vodafone, said: “We are already driving a more diverse and open mobile ecosystem with Open RAN, and now we are targeting fixed broadband.”
Disaggregated BNG will lower development costs for existing and new ecosystem partners and allow deeper integration with 5G.
The test used Control and User Plane Separation technologies defined by both the Broadband Forum and the global mobile standard 3GPP, which means there will be more opportunity for converged fixed and mobile service delivery.
It was conducted between test labs in Belgium (Nokia), Ireland (Casa Systems), India (Cisco) and the United States (Benu Networks).
