The growth of the connected home market has been stratospheric, but it still has significant room to grow. These opportunities rely, in large part, on interoperability. By bringing together broadband players from across the industry to work together, operators worldwide benefit from new standards, helping unlock the full potential of the connected home market.
To this end, the Broadband Forum recently announced it has successfully integrated advanced capabilities from Wi-Fi Data Elements from Wi-Fi Alliance and published the next versions of the Broadband Forum suite of standards for managed services.
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. The Wi-Fi Alliance is a non-profit organization that owns the Wi-Fi trademark. Manufacturers may use the trademark to brand products certified for Wi-Fi interoperability.
Wi-Fi Data Elements establishes a standardized model for delivering a group of specific key network performance indicators such as the data speed, airtime necessary for devices to perform as expected, and retry rates between a Wi-Fi device and an access point.
The publication of the 1.2 version of User Services Platform (USP/TR-369), and 2.15 version of the widely adopted TR-181 Device Data Model will ensure that operators can deploy interoperable customer Wi-Fi optimization and management services and help reduce customer churn and increase average revenue per user (ARPU).
The new standards were developed with collaboration amongst a cross-spectrum of operators, chipset manufacturers, vendors, and management application companies. The publication of the 1.2 version of USP delivers a multi-vendor multi-application environment that sets it apart from other solutions. The 2.15 version of TR-181 was developed with input from members of both Wi-Fi Alliance and the Broadband Forum, enabling efficient communication combined with extensive telemetry and configuration options that are synchronized with the latest advanced features from Wi-Fi Data Elements with an increased number of Wi-Fi KPIs now available. Various Wi-Fi data model fragments are now consolidated under the 2.15 version of TR-181 Wi-Fi Data Elements interface.
“The Broadband User Services Work Area has completed the final steps towards publishing the next versions of its suite of standards for managed services, including the ever-present need for Wi-Fi optimization and management,” said Jason Walls of QA Cafe and Chair of the Broadband Forum Connected Home Council in a statement.
To learn more about the connected home marketplace, plan to attend MSPEXPO, part of the #TECHSUPERSHOW series. MSPEXPO has been designed to help service providers understand how they can drive more recurring revenue, increase the valuation of their companies, grow, and protect their networks and deliver better customer service. It will also help companies looking for MSP partners to understand how MSPs can help them grow. The show will take place from February 8-11, 2022, at the Broward County Convention Center in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. For more information or to register, visit the show website.
Edited by
Luke Bellos
