broadband

Respondents to a major new study into the future of the connected home commissioned by the Broadband Forum predicted that a big increase in the number of smart home devices installed in homes would be a key driver for the continued growth of the connected device market over the next five years. The number of installed connected devices is expected to rise by a further 70% by 2025.  The report also found that More than three out of every four (76%) broadband service providers have either started to implement the Broadband Forum’s User Services Platform (USP) or plan to do so in the next year.

After last year’s success in China, the HomePlug Alliance is going back this year to host the Connected Home Summits. Unlike last year Chinese Technology Summits where they did two shows, this year they are doing three from November 11 to 15 in the cities of Beijing, Shanghai and Shenshen.   Exclusive to the Beijing summit there will be a panel which include China’s Government Officials and moderated by CWW's Editor-in-Chief Yang Hai-Feng.

More and more services are moving online, which before would come to us physically or we would go where it is. This increase in digital services has put a lot of pressure on broadband service providers to offer better internet speed to download and upload data. It does not matter where we live we want the same quality of service.  The challenge some of these service providers face is it is not feasible possible to have the same quality service in every area they serve. This is where VDSL and LTE come in useful, both increasing internet speed for wired and wireless internet users.

For a long time supporters of Fibre-To-The-Home (FTTH), me included, have been shouting that service providers need to bite the bullet and invest in FTTH. Seeing the news coming out of this year’s Broadband World Forum, there is still life left in the good old copper. This week, Huawei announced that they are working with BT, the UK’s leading broadband supplier to trial the use of G.fast broadband solution for the UK.

FTTH (Fibre-to-the-Home) is the ultimate in broadband connection, but despite its possible benefit establish/old economics are slow to roll out the technology.  Reasons for their lack lustre approach is: its cost too much;  it will take too long to see the return on investment; it’s not needed, these and many other reasons are sighted for the low penetration of Fibre in the UK. Based on data from the FTTH Council Europe the UK  is far away from those countries leading in rolling out fibre-to-the-Home broadband.

The Broadband Forum and the University of New Hampshire-InterOperability Laboratory (UNH-IOL) have issueed their first set of BBF-069 Certificates to Broadcom, Cisco, D-Link, Huawei and Lantiq. The certificate signifies that the device is TR-069 protocol compliant, which means it can be remotely manage. With TR-069 devices service providers have a easier job of managing remote base devices, removing the need to send out service engineers for common faults.

After launching the “AT&T Digital Life” for service provider in February they have now announced trials of the product for this summer.  The AT&T Digital Life services will give users control and security of their homes and appliances using any web-enabled device, PCs, tablets and smartphones, regardless of wireless carrier.

With the Olympics coming to the UK this summer Virgin is gearing to launch its TiVo and ‘superfast as standard’ broadband this April. As they go through their infrastructure upgrade Virgin Media is now offering its customers speeds of up to 30Mb, 60Mb and 100Mb (which will soon be 120Mb). According to Virgin the different categories of digital TV services coming will help its customers take advantage of the new speeds being offered.

Lantiq has introduced a new set of XWAY ARX300 device family for new ADSL2/2+ Broadband Home Gateways.  The XWAY ARX300 family includes four System-on-Chip (SoC) derivatives to address different system configurations, ranging from cost-optimized fast Ethernet to feature-rich high-performance Gigabit Ethernet systems.

Telstra is in the process of upgrading its infrastructure to introduce Australians to next generation connected home services.  As connected home services begin to take shape in the country Telstra wants to be the key provider of these services.  Telstra is proposing a host of services such as content streaming from ABC’s iView catch up TV and AFL Live, home monitoring, gaming and in home support.