Access 4.0: A valuable lesson in network transformation

The Access 4.0 broadband deployment by Deutsche Telekom has deepened its understanding of the intricacies of network transformation. The Access 4.0 team discusses what it has learnt and reflects on the issues a mass deployment raises.

Deutsche Telekom’s Access 4.0 platform has been delivering broadband services for nearly half a year.

But the operator has deliberately limited the deployment of the next-generation fibre-to-the-x platform to one central office in Stuttgart.

Robert SoukupThe system is fully functional, says Robert Soukup, senior program manager at Deutsche Telekom, but the operator wants to understand the processes involved so they can be automated before it starts the widescale deployment.

“Now we can see where the gaps are and what we need to adapt internally,” says Hans-Jörg Kolbe, chief engineer and head of SuperSquad Access 4.0 at Deutsche Telekom.

This will take the rest of the year. Only if this final check is successful will the Access 4.0 platform be rolled out across the operator’s 1,000 central offices in Germany.

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ONF advances its vision for the network edge

The Open Networking Foundation’s (ONF) goal to create software-driven architectures for the network edge has advanced with the announcement of its first reference designs.

In March, eight leading service providers within the ONF - AT&T, Comcast, China Unicom, Deutsche Telekom, Google, NTT Group, Telefonica and Turk Telekom - published their strategic plan whereby they would take a hands-on approach to the design of their networks after becoming frustrated with what they perceived as foot-dragging by the systems vendors.  

Timon SloaneThree months on, the service providers have initial drafts of the the first four reference designs: a broadband access architecture, a spine-leaf switch for network functions virtualisation (NFV), a more general networking fabric that uses the P4 packet forwarding programming language, and the open disaggregated transport network (ODTN).  

The ONF also announced four system vendors - Adtran, Dell EMC, Edgecore Networks, and Juniper Networks - have joined to work with the operators on the reference design programmes.

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ONF’s operators seize control of their networking needs

• The eight ONF service providers will develop reference designs addressing the network edge.
• The service providers want to spur the deployment of open-source designs after becoming frustrated with the systems vendors failing to deliver what they need. 
• The reference designs will be up and running before year-end.
• New partners have committed to join since the consortium announced its strategic plan

The service providers leading the Open Networking Foundation (ONF) will publish open designs to address next-generation networking needs.

Timon SloaneThe ONF service providers - NTT Group, AT&T, Telefonica, Deutsche Telekom, Comcast, China Unicom, Turk Telekom and Google - are taking a hands-on approach to the design of their networks after becoming frustrated with what they perceive as foot-dragging by the systems vendors.

“All eight [operators] have come together to say in unison that they are going to work inside the ONF to craft explicit plans - blueprints - for the industry for how to deploy open-source-based solutions,” says Timon Sloane, vice president of marketing and ecosystem at the ONF. 

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What the cable operators are planning for NFV and SDN

Cable operators may be quieter than the telecom operators about network functions virtualisation (NFV) and software-defined networking (SDN) but what they are planning is no less ambitious.

Cable operators are working on adding wireless to their fixed access networks using NFV and SDN technologies.

Don Clarke“Cable operators are now every bit as informed about NFV and SDN as the telcos are, but they are not out there talking too much about it,” says Don Clarke, principal architect for network technologies at CableLabs, the R&D organisation serving the cable operators.

Clarke is well placed to comment. While at BT, he initiated the industry collaboration on NFV and edited the original white paper which introduced the NFV concept and outlined the operators’ vision for NFV. 

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