Dear Readers,

As we enter 2012, we have identified some exciting industry trends in access networks for the coming year.  In this edition of BroadNews, we will share some of them with you and expand on how BroadLight’s solutions address these service trends.

It has been documented that annual global IP traffic will reach the zettabyte threshold and global Broadband penetration will surpass 1 billion households by CY15. “Everything everywhere” is rapidly making way as increasing demand for content and connectivity drives relentless bandwidth consumption and meaningful  year-on-year growth. These markers create opportunities for service providers to capitalize on providing consumers with information, entertainment and value-added services; an intelligent access network or ‘Smart access’ will serve as an enabler for service providers in increasing their average revenue per user (ARPU) through delivery of rich media content, online gaming, home automation and additional advance services.

Whereas the best-effort dumb bit-pipe was once commonplace in enabling broadband internet access, on-demand applications and services migrating from offline to online (cloud based) are now  driving service delivery via an intelligent, personalized and service centric ‘smart pipe’.  This trend depicts a shift towards media based user centric services shaping the way end-users live, communicate and work.  Intelligent CPEs are becoming essential points-of-presence in enablement of higher ARPU service packages by delivering a richer and a personalized end-user experience. 

Below in our BroadLight editorial, From Dumb Pipe to Smart Pipe - New Fiber Access CPE Silicon Architecture Enables Advanced Services, we describe how our DPI, IPSec and Virtual Machine technologies are already being implemented in the field with our global customer footprint who share our vision of access trends.

Also in this edition, featured analyst and Chief Technology/Business Officer at Home Gateway Initiative (HGI), Duncan Bees, reflects on the role of Home Gateway today in his article, HGI – Connecting Home, Enabling Services for the Home.

If you have missed any of our updates this quarter, just scroll down to view our other product, news & events and blog highlights.

Enjoy!
Doron Tal
VP Business Development & Product Marketing

As fiber access continues to spread globally, ‘smart’ fiber access is gaining more track as a higher value service to the end customer, while creating a way to significantly increase ROI for telecom operators.  Smart access refers to the operator’s ability to offer service quality beyond that of data connectivity, bandwidth or network speed (aka ‘dumb pipe’).   In contrast, a ‘smart’ pipe offers differentiated and often unique types of services and content.   Even ‘fat’ pipes, which simply refer to larger network volume capacities, are not of equal par to smart pipes that can actually offer ‘smart services’.  Smart services can  vary from usage based billing - meaning differential billing based on usage patterns, to differential QoS based on different content, to  text based  URL filtering/parental control or special attention for OTT (over the top) content and personalized services. 

All of these aforementioned services need to know the user’s surfing patterns without interfering with the quality of traffic.  This can be easily achieved through a fiber grade based chip. Fiber grade architecture which integrates a strong control processor with a dedicated data path network processor provides both the flexibility to meet unknown service requirements and performance of the fat fiber pipe.   It also provides the infrastructure for DPI-awareness and policy control based on user behavior.  

Home Gateway Initiative (HGI) brings together about 65 companies – service providers and manufacturers of chips, software, home gateways, home network devices, services, and consumer electronics from around the world. HGI’s role is to determine current requirements for home network features and testing approaches. While other standards forums also focus on the home network from a consumer electronics perspective, HGI was formed to specify the elements the service providers need to deploy in the home to support residential internet service. 

Of these elements, first and foremost is the home gateway (HG), which is the interconnect hub among home and the access network
(see figure).

• FTTH Conference, 2012, Feb 14-16, 2012, Munich, Germany
  Workshop - Smart Access of Fibre Networks        

• FTTH Enables Growing Bandwidth Service Offerings
• GPON in France
• FTTH is Coming to Israel
• Helios Concurrent Performance - Japanese Style
• Happy Holidays to you and yours from BroadLight!
• Interview with Chee Kwan on the Successful Certification of Broadlight GPON ONU in Los Angeles
• BroadLight Helios HGU Demo for Home Surveillance at Digitimes Tech Forum
• Unify – Telekom Malaysia GPON Service is Ramping
• Largest GPON tender Results Announced by China Unicom
• BroadLight is Certified with World's First GPON Certification
• Portugal Brings Fibre to the Home