Written by Ronan Kelly
In case you missed it, NBN Co recently announced that it has become the first Australian commercial network operator to join the Silicon Valley-based Open Networking Foundation (ONF). Why does this matter? According to NBN, this important investment “puts its vendors on notice that it is keen to explore the cost savings of open source network technologies.” As more operators around the world adopt this philosophical and business mindset, open ecosystems are sure to be the future of global networking.
As a valued strategic partner of NBN Co, ADTRAN welcomes the decision to join us in the ONF, which is focused on delivering open, disaggregated architectures and disrupting the status quo in the access network. This open architecture approach enables service providers to have the freedom to choose a variety of elements and control the introduction and rollout of new customer applications and broadband technologies, which helps eliminate costs and improve efficiencies.
By supporting an open, multi-vendor environment, leveraging open source software platforms developed through the ONF and its partners, NBN is helping advance the most sophisticated technologies of SD-Access systems that align with the industry’s leading blueprint for next-generation broadband architectures. It’s exciting to see how Australia’s NBN Co is helping to lead the way and design the future of the internet.
As an ONF supply chain partner and strategic advisory board member, ADTRAN is committed to helping to develop next-generation access solutions for the open networking ecosystem in addition to offering its leadership and expertise to assist in developing platforms for operators to build and operate networks of the future. ONF’s recently revamped strategy perfectly aligns with our priority to offer systems and solutions integration capabilities for all types of operators utilizing both open source components and field-proven products and solutions – enabling them to build their best networks, today.
Beyond our work with the ONF, we recently joined prpl Foundation, through our recent acquisition of SmartRG. The non-profit was founded by Broadcom, Qualcomm and Intel in 2015 now boasts over 35-member companies and is an open-source, community-driven organization. Like ONF’s dedication to address the digital transformation of today, ADTRAN’s work with the Carrier Interest Group supports the creation of standards and APIs needed to enable major international carriers and ISPs to commission more secure and flexible access devices, including Wi-Fi routers and gateways.
It’s great to see key players in the market, worldwide, are commmitted to bringing deployable solutions to market as the industry approaches a tipping point of transformation and we are excited to be demonstrating the ONF VOLTHA architecture with another forward thinking ONF member at Mobile World Congress at the end of the month. Open networks are critical to the future of the connected world that we live in and the only way to address and succeed in the transformation is for the industry to work together and this is why it is exciting to see our partners, like NBN Co, join the movement.