Networks

Service providers and municipalities alike continue their push toward offering gigabit services over fiber networks. In fact, fiberville is a web site dedicated to listing which service providers and municipalities provide fiber solutions. Recently, Comcast significantly upped the ante by announcing a 2 Gbps symmetric service that will become available in certain locations. The services […]

Today sees the first OPNFV release known as ‘Arno’ (OPNFV releases are named after rivers) which OPNFV has been busily creating since the community was launched last September. In my blog celebrating the OPNFV launch I outlined the importance of open source to stimulate innovation and accelerate progress on implementation. At CableLabs we are very […]

When ONF Executive Director Dan Pitt invited me to contribute a blog post, it brought to mind our interaction in the summer of 2012 on how to treat SDN in the seminal NFV White Paper I was then editing. The operator co-authors were keen to ensure that SDN and NFV were positioned in the paper […]

Last week, as I was walking down the hallway, I came across two gentlemen painting a hallway door. They paused and kindly let me through. While I waited, I caught a glimpse of a door with a sign that read, in big bold red letters, “pre-action sprinkler control”. What exactly is a “pre-action”?, I thought, […]

In September, I blogged about the launch of the Open Platform for NFV (OPNFV) initiative, this week saw another significant event, the second release of ETSI NFV Industry Specification Group (NFV ISG) documents. These documents cover the following NFV topics: Architectural Framework Revision 2 Infrastructure Management and Orchestration Performance & Portability Best Practices Resiliency Requirements […]

Almost exactly two years after a group of 13 network operators launched Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) onto the world stage, there is now another seismic industry shift taking place towards using open source software for networks. Open Platform for NFV (OPNFV), which launched today, is a new open source initiative that brings together the network […]

We have always wanted more information about our world: Where is our next meal coming from; what’s the weather like; are my kids OK; did my team win?  Past information delivery systems, such as the telegraph, the telephone, and broadcast television, have all been supplemented with the Internet.  At a basic level, the Internet exists, […]

APON, BPON, EPON, GEPON, GPON, G.epon, NGPON1, XGPON1, XGPON2, NGEPON, NGPON2, TWDM-PON, WDMPON – did I leave any out? I’m sure I did. The alphabetical possibilities to represent different versions of passive optical networking (PON) technologies will soon be exhausted. I’m being overly dramatic, of course, but trying to make the point that all these […]

The NCTA recently announced Gigasphere, which encompasses the new experiences customers will come to enjoy based on the DOCSIS 3.1 technology developed by CableLabs, Inc. There is a lot of excitement around DOCSIS 3.1, and the new capabilities it will bring to cable networks for cable operators and their customers. Customers will be able to enjoy […]

“Operators of all kinds – fixed, mobile, converged and pure-play Wi-Fi – are moving beyond using Wi-Fi just for convenient access, or data offload, and are making it a central part of their broader strategies to support a high quality broadband experience everywhere.” (Excerpt from WBA Industry Report 2013: Global Trends in Public Wi-Fi p3) Over […]