FWA gets its own Open Fixed Access sub-group at TIP
The Telecom Infra Project (TIP) Fixed Broadband Project Group has formed a new task force with one of the toughest assignments in telecoms: uniting the clashing cultures of fixed and wireless communications and instilling universal harmony through one common language. To this end it has recruited some of the communication’s industry’s world leaders in protocols, syntaxes and languages, including Spain’s Telefónica, Telecom Italia and the UK-based Vodafone Group.
“This project will play a critical role in the adoption of new technologies and new services,” said Jose Torrijos Gijon, Telefónica GCTIO’s Technology Expert.
The sub-group’s joint mission is to create an open culture of disaggregated and interoperable access technologies. In Army team-building terms, they are breaking down the technologies and building them up again into a collective with a team spirit. There are three objectives that must be achieved in order to meet this brief: these are make all systems interoperable, to totally liberalise all hardware and software and to achieve the best of all possible outcomes from each combination of components.
The focus for multi-supplier systems will be on interworking between optical line and network terminals and units and the subsequent management of these OLT/ONT/ONU junctions with SDN (software defined networking). The breaking down of hardware and software into their core components is a lot harder in practice, as many vendors understandably view disaggregation as an ugly word. “Disaggregation can help us build cheaper and better networks,” said Paolo Pellegrino, Access Innovation Project Manager at TIM.
The advocates of new operating paradigms also need a reality check, according to the telco delegates, who say that while the outcome is highly desirable there a lot of work involved in creating the new technical architectures that will support effective and efficient devices.
The operators will now move to develop the technical requirements for their first use case, a ‘pizza box’ OLT that can be installed in a local exchange environment. They expect to issue a request for information (RFI) to establish the technical capability and readiness of suppliers to deliver such a solution later in 2022, with tests and validations of the most suitable proposals to follow.
“Openness and disaggregation [have been our] key principles and this project will help realise those benefits in the fixed access network too,” said Bruno Cornaglia, Fixed Access Senior Manager at Vodafone.