Broadband Forum

Last updated
Broadband Forum
PredecessorDSL Forum
Formation1994
TypeNon profit industry organization
PurposeDeveloping broadband standards and specifications
HeadquartersFremont, California

The Broadband Forum is a non-profit industry consortium dedicated to developing broadband network specifications. Members include telecommunications networking and service provider companies, broadband device and equipment vendors, consultants and independent testing labs (ITLs). Service provider members are primarily wire-line service providers (non-mobile) telephone companies.

Contents

History

The DSL Forum was founded in 1994 with about 200 member companies in different divisions of the telecommunication and information technology sector. It is used as a platform for companies that operate in the broadband market. Its initial main purpose was the establishment of new standards around digital subscriber line communication products such as provisioning. This cooperation has brought different standardizations for ADSL, SHDSL, VDSL, ADSL2+ and VDSL2.

The group was established in 1994 as the ADSL Forum, but became the DSL Forum in 1999. [1] It was renamed after the digital subscriber line (DSL) family of technology, also known collectively as xDSL.

Among its early design documents, the Forum created TR-001 (1996) system reference model, which together with later TR-012 (1999) core network architecture, recommended PPP over an ATM transport layer as the best practice for a DSL ISP. This was subsequently refined in TR-025 and TR-059. [2]

Starting in 2004, the Forum expanded its work into other last mile technologies including optical fiber. On 17 June 2008 it changed its name to "Broadband Forum". [3] DSL-related specifications, while still a key part of the forum's work, are no longer its only work. For instance, the forum produced work specific to passive optical networking (PON). Its Auto-Configuration Server specification TR-069, originally published in 2004, [4] was adapted for use with set-top box and Network Attached Storage units.

The Forum's TR-101 specification (2006) documents migration toward an Ethernet-based DSL aggregation model (Ethernet DSLAMs). [2]

In May 2009, IP/MPLS Forum merged with the Broadband Forum. It had promoted the Frame Relay and Multiprotocol Label Switching technologies. [1] Technical work of IP/MPLS Forum continued in a newly created "IP/MPLS and Core" Working Group of the Broadband Forum. The historical specifications from the IP/MPLS Forum's predecessors, ATM Forum, Frame Relay Forum, MFA Forum, and MPLS Forum, are archived on the Broadband Forum's website, under IP/MPLS Forum specifications.

Broadband Forum issued Femto Access Point Service Data Model TR-196 during April 2009 and version 2 released during November 2011.

Broadband Forum specified in TR-348 [5] for Hybrid Access Networks an architecture that enables network operators to efficiently combine XDSL and LTE.

See also

Related Research Articles

Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) is a routing technique in telecommunications networks that directs data from one node to the next based on labels rather than network addresses. Whereas network addresses identify endpoints the labels identify established paths between endpoints. MPLS can encapsulate packets of various network protocols, hence the multiprotocol component of the name. MPLS supports a range of access technologies, including T1/E1, ATM, Frame Relay, and DSL.

Digital subscriber line is a family of technologies that are used to transmit digital data over telephone lines. In telecommunications marketing, the term DSL is widely understood to mean asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL), the most commonly installed DSL technology, for Internet access.

Very high-speed digital subscriber line (VDSL) and very high-speed digital subscriber line 2 (VDSL2) are digital subscriber line (DSL) technologies providing data transmission faster than the earlier standards of asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL) G.992.1, G.992.3 (ADSL2) and G.992.5 (ADSL2+).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Digital subscriber line access multiplexer</span> Network device that connects DSL interfaces to a digital communications channel

A digital subscriber line access multiplexer is a network device, often located in telephone exchanges, that connects multiple customer digital subscriber line (DSL) interfaces to a high-speed digital communications channel using multiplexing techniques. Its cable internet (DOCSIS) counterpart is the Cable modem termination system.

The Point-to-Point Protocol over Ethernet (PPPoE) is a network protocol for encapsulating Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP) frames inside Ethernet frames. It appeared in 1999, in the context of the boom of DSL as the solution for tunneling packets over the DSL connection to the ISP's IP network, and from there to the rest of the Internet. A 2005 networking book noted that "Most DSL providers use PPPoE, which provides authentication, encryption, and compression." Typical use of PPPoE involves leveraging the PPP facilities for authenticating the user with a username and password, predominately via the PAP protocol and less often via CHAP. Around 2000, PPPoE was also starting to become a replacement method for talking to a modem connected to a computer or router over an Ethernet LAN displacing the older method, which had been USB. This use-case, connecting routers to modems over Ethernet is still extremely common today.

A leased line is a private telecommunications circuit between two or more locations provided according to a commercial contract. It is sometimes also known as a private circuit, and as a data line in the UK. Typically, leased lines are used by businesses to connect geographically distant offices.


In computer networking and telecommunications, a pseudowire is an emulation of a point-to-point connection over a packet-switched network (PSN).

A naked DSL, also known as standalone or dry loop DSL, is a digital subscriber line (DSL) without a PSTN service — or the associated dial tone. In other words, only a standalone DSL Internet service is provided on the local loop.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Broadband remote access server</span>

A broadband remote access server routes traffic to and from broadband remote access devices such as digital subscriber line access multiplexers (DSLAM) on an Internet service provider's (ISP) network. BRAS can also be referred to as a broadband network gateway or border network gateway (BNG).

The 21st Century Network (21CN) programme is the data and voice network transformation project, under way since 2004, of the UK telecommunications company BT Group plc. It was intended to move BT's telephone network from the AXE/System X Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) to an Internet Protocol (IP) system. As well as switching over the PSTN, BT planned to deliver many additional services over their new data network, such as on-demand interactive TV services.

The next-generation network (NGN) is a body of key architectural changes in telecommunication core and access networks. The general idea behind the NGN is that one network transports all information and services by encapsulating these into IP packets, similar to those used on the Internet. NGNs are commonly built around the Internet Protocol, and therefore the term all IP is also sometimes used to describe the transformation of formerly telephone-centric networks toward NGN.

TransACT is the trading name of TransACT Capital Communications, an Australian telecommunications company based in Canberra which provides broadband internet access, fixed telephony, cable television services, and mobile phone services in Canberra and a subset of these services in Queanbeyan, throughout South-east New South Wales and in Victoria.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Metro Ethernet</span> Metropolitan area network based on Ethernet standards

A metropolitan-area Ethernet, Ethernet MAN, or metro Ethernet network is a metropolitan area network (MAN) that is based on Ethernet standards. It is commonly used to connect subscribers to a larger service network or for internet access. Businesses can also use metropolitan-area Ethernet to connect their own offices to each other.

In a hierarchical telecommunications network, the backhaul portion of the network comprises the intermediate links between the core network, or backbone network, and the small subnetworks at the edge of the network.

Ethernet in the first mile (EFM) refers to using one of the Ethernet family of computer network technologies between a telecommunications company and a customer's premises. From the customer's point of view, it is their first mile, although from the access network's point of view it is known as the last mile.

The Internet in Switzerland has one of the highest penetration rates in Europe.

2Wire, Inc., was a home networking Customer Premises Equipment (CPE) manufacturer that provided telecommunications companies with hardware, software, service platforms, and remote CPE management systems. The company was headquartered in San Jose, California, in the Silicon Valley. The company had employed approximately 1,600 employees globally, including 550 in R&D, sales and administration, 450 in customer care and 600 agency employees in five U.S. offices and an additional nine offices around the world by July 2010. The 2Wire HomePortal residential gateways were distributed by broadband service providers such as AT&T, Embarq, windstream and Qwest in the United States, Bell in Canada, Telmex in Mexico, BT Group in the United Kingdom, Telstra in Australia and SingTel in Singapore. In July 2010, Pace plc of the United Kingdom agreed to buy 2Wire for $475m (£307m).

Sonic is a telecommunications company and internet service provider based in Santa Rosa, California, acting as a competitive local exchange carrier in the San Francisco Bay Area, Sacramento, and Los Angeles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Axerra Networks</span>

Axerra Networks is a leading provider of circuit emulation and service emulation solutions over packet access networks for mobile backhaul and business service delivery.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">G.fast</span> ITU-T Recommendation

G.fast is a digital subscriber line (DSL) protocol standard for local loops shorter than 500 meters, with performance targets between 100 Mbit/s and 1 Gbit/s, depending on loop length. High speeds are only achieved over very short loops. Although G.fast was initially designed for loops shorter than 250 meters, Sckipio in early 2015 demonstrated G.fast delivering speeds over 100 Mbit/s at nearly 500 meters and the EU announced a research project.

References

  1. 1 2 "About the Broadband Forum: Forum History". Archived from the original on October 9, 2011. Retrieved September 24, 2011.
  2. 1 2 Chris Hellberg; Truman Boyes; Dylan Greene (2007). Broadband Network Architectures: Designing and Deploying Triple-Play Services. Pearson Education. pp. 19–20. ISBN   978-0-13-270451-9.
  3. "Q1 2006 Report" (PDF). March 12, 2006. Retrieved September 24, 2011.
  4. "CPE WAN Management Protocol" (PDF). TR-069 Amendment 3. Broadband Forum. November 2010. Retrieved September 24, 2011.
  5. Broadband Forum (2016-07-01). "TR-348 Hybrid Access Broadband Network Architecture" (PDF). Retrieved 2018-07-01.