According to the latest figures published by the Broadband Forum and prepared by broadband industry analysts Point Topic, broadband subscriptions have soared to over 624 million, presenting a huge opportunity for the future of the connected home.
The organization also announced the first consumer home devices to be certified by its new BBF.069 CPE Certification Program. The BBF.069 CPE Certification Program has been developed to verify that devices are TR-069 compliant. TR-069, also known as the CPE WAN Management Protocol, is the remote management standard used around the world to provision and manage the “connected home.”
According to reports from industry analysts at Ovum, TR-069 is already used to manage more than 147 million devices, making it the global standard for remote management; but with over 624 million broadband subscribers today there is tremendous room for connected home services growth, the Broadband Forum points out.
“This is a real celebration as the BBF.069 CPE Certification Program launches, signifying another step forward in supporting innovation within the broadband ecosystem,” said Robin Mersh, CEO of the Broadband Forum. “Device conformance is critical in enabling interoperability and provides the key to expediting the exciting growth and potential of connected home services around the world.”
The Broadband Forum BBF.069 Certification sends a clear and simple message to the industry, according to the Forum, confirming that CPE vendors meet operator and service provider requirements. Certification has substantial benefits for all participants in the value chain, the organization adds. For example, it gives service providers confidence that certified CPE devices will interoperate with their remote management auto-configuration servers. It also helps equipment and system vendors reduce testing overheads, and enables them to easily market their products – increasing their ability to address a much larger market overall.
Service providers have welcomed the BBF.069 CPE Certification. Michael Fargano, industry standards program manager at CenturyLink’s Office of CTO commented, “Building on our commitment to customer service excellence and our active engagement in developing the TR-069 protocol, we at CenturyLink are pleased to support the launch of BBF.069. This certification program is a great step forward in helping service providers like us rollout new products and services with great confidence and success, knowing that they are certified and will be easily provisioned and managed by CenturyLink. It all comes down to happier customers, and that is what CenturyLink focuses on every day.”
The Broadband Forum also offered its congratulations to the companies whose products have achieved the first BBF.069 certifications at the official testing laboratory, University of New Hampshire Interoperability Laboratory (UNH-IOL): Broadcom, Cisco, D-Link, Huawei, and Lantiq. (The Global Registry of certified products is available on the Broadband Forum website at http://www.broadband-forum.org/certifiedtr069.php.)
UNH-IOL was selected as the official test house for BBF.069 CPE Certification in June 2012. This selection was based on the UNH-IOL’s history and experience in TR-069 testing since 2006 with the Broadband Forum. Certification is now offered through the UNH-IOL’s recently launched Home Networking Consortium.
“The UNH-IOL’s experienced technical team worked closely with CPE vendors to bring the first wave of Broadband BBF.069 certified devices to market,” said Erica Johnson, director for the UNH-IOL. “We will continue to build on the positive momentum initiated during the first rounds of testing with a strong focus on certifying an increased number and broader range of devices for the home networking environment through the new testing program.”
The Broadband Forum believes that TR-069 has massive potential. IPTV services alone have brought 69 million new set-top boxes into the “connected home,” and TR-069 provides a simple inclusive platform for managing all these devices. Globally 15.9 million IPTV subscribers were added over the last 12 months, and 3.57 million over last quarter. Every region is seeing great pick up of IPTV services, with China, France and the US leading in adoption. Over the last quarter, Russia has also made great strides in rolling out IPTV services.
As providers make the investment in fiber deployments, customers are also benefiting from the speed and stability that that brings. Point Topic reports strong 12-month growth rates for FTTx (27%) and FTTH (23.4%), and for the first time the market share for DSL fell below 60%.
With high-speed broadband options on the rise, customers are quickly layering on services, applications, and devices that enrich their lives. TR-069 takes the complexity out of expanding the connected home, and provides the simple and stable experience that helps service providers around the world exceed customer expectations, the Forum asserts. The new BBF.069 CPE Certification program takes another step forward in developing interoperability; ensuring products are market ready and easy to integrate into any connected home, the group concludes.