The University of New Hampshire InterOperability Laboratory (UNH-IOL) will host a multi-vendor G.fast interoperability demonstration with six vendors during next week’s Broadband World Forum (BBWF) in London with an aim to accelerate network rollouts and service delivery.
Calix, Digital Lightwave, Huawei, Metanoia Communications, Technicolor and Telebyte are among the vendors taking part in the demonstration.
During the event, UNH-IOL’s demo will show cross-chipset interoperability among solutions from multiple demarcation point unit (DPU) and customer premises equipment (CPE) vendors, based on different chipsets.
Specifically, Telebyte and Digital Lightwave will provide the test gear for the demonstration, while Broadcom and Sckipio will showcase their chipsets. Show attendees will see additional demonstrations of the latest developments in G.fast, GPON, VDSL2, device management/control, and virtualization.
Gaining cross-chipset interoperability is important because provides a guarantee that CPE and DPU devices from multiple vendors will interoperate correctly, lowering testing, rollout and troubleshooting costs. Additionally, it will help service providers from becoming “locked into” solutions provided by a single chipset supplier, expanding the choices of devices they can deploy in their network. Since the interoperability creates a more flexible, harmonious network, service providers will gain cost savings and accelerate service delivery to meet the demands of their customers.
In tandem with the demonstration, UNH-IOL will be showing some live testing during the demo, based upon the forthcoming G.fast certification program.
BT, which has been an advocate of G.fast as a way to deliver higher speed services over their sets of hybrid fiber/copper networks, says vendor interoperability could enable customers to light up services themselves in their residences without the need for a technician.
“Communication Providers need attractive in-home and standards-based solutions that their end customers can self-install,” said Kevin Foster, general manager CPE and access for BT, in a statement.