Broadband Forum has revealed its latest project, Open Broadband – WWC Reference Implementation for 5G-RG (OB-5WWC).
This project is designed to help vendors and operators bring products to market more quickly, with reduced development times and cycles. The organisation says that the project will bring the benefits of the 5G ecosystem to fixed-line services and offer a full end-to-end solution to operators.
OB-5WWC aims to create a reference implementation of the Broadband Forum specified Wireless Wireline Convergence solution for 5G capable residential gateways (5G-RGs), and builds on the Broadband Forum and 3GPP specifications already available. The founding members from BT, Deutsche Telekom, Telecom Italia, Telstra, Verizon and Vodafone UK held a formal kick off meeting in September.
The project seeks to provide a production grade 5G solution stack capable of integration with OpenWRT/RDK-B frameworks, and aims to provide a reference for testing access gateway function (AGF) and RG test tool development. Integrating the 5G quality-of-service model to the home, 5G-RG can natively support 5G signalling protocols and capabilities, as well as help connect services and opportunities.
David Woolley, project leader for OB-5WWC at Broadband Forum said: ‘The formation of the OB-5WWC project will help to fulfil the need for 5G and fixed-line convergence that is now viewed as a fundamental need, and will ensure the full benefits of the 5G ecosystem can be realised. We have already received strong support from the service provider community and are calling for all interested parties across the industry, including customer premises equipment (CPE) manufacturers, end-to-end integrators, and hardware and software vendors, to join the project and share ideas.’
Added Broadband Forum vice president, OB-5WWC project leader and Deutsche Telekom senior expert technology and innovation, Manuel Paul: ‘With key 5G specifications already available, the project is an opportunity for industry players to work together and collaborate on implementations that create the best reference implementation for 5G-RG.’
