Broadband Forum Fall Meeting Newsletter

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Broadband Forum community come together for final Member Meeting of 2025

Our final face-to-face meeting of 2025 in Tucson, Arizona, rounded off a very busy year for the Broadband Forum. Since the Summer Meeting, we have published 12 technical reports, test plans, and marketing reports, and are now building on that momentum with a large number of exciting new projects being proposed and launched. From power management to access security, edge computing, AI, and Quality on Demand, I’m looking forward to seeing the progress these projects make in the months ahead.

We also had six fantastic speakers present on the topic of quantum computing for our Town Hall Innovation Series, outlining how our broadband networks can be prepared as the technology matures. Among the key messages conveyed was that SDOs should work together to coordinate, collaborate, and lay out a joint framework for a unified, agile response to quantum computing innovations and challenges. The sessions generated much discussion about how we can consider the quantum threat in our future BBF specifications for quantum-proof solutions.

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I also wanted to take this moment to say a big welcome to two new Broadband Forum staff members. Familiar to many of us at BBF, Daniel Egger joins as a consultant, and Arthur Loginov for our tools support.

As always, our meetings provide a great balance between face-to-face collaboration and open forums for discussion. It has been great to catch up with our entire membership, as well as welcome new members and guests. As we begin to close the chapter on 2025, I’m already looking forward to what promises to be an action-packed year ahead. I’m looking forward to catching up with you all at our Spring Member Meeting and first-ever BASe event in Melbourne, Australia.

• Broadband Forum CEO Craig Thomas

Thank you to our sponsor, Motive

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Speaking during the Opening Plenary, Motive Vice President of Product and R&D Jeevithan Muttu highlighted that the broadband industry is standing at a defining moment.

“We have never had access to so much actionable data to strategically utilize, especially now, as the customer tolerance for failure is shrinking and today’s broadband is just expected to work,” Muttu said.

Read the full article here: https://www.broadband-forum.org/events/fall-2025-member-meeting-roundup/#Motive

Founders of ADSL Forum celebrate prestigious IEEE award

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In September 2025, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) honored ADSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line) technology with its prestigious IEEE Milestone Award during a ceremony in Antwerp, Belgium. The award is typically bestowed to transformative innovations that have delivered lasting benefits to humanity for at least twenty-five years.

Among those in attendance in Belgium were ADSL Forum founding members Frank Van der Putten, Tom Starr, Gavin Young, Kevin Foster, and John Shelnutt.

Read the full article here: https://www.broadband-forum.org/events/fall-2025-member-meeting-roundup/#ADSL

(Left to right: Frank Van der Putten, Tom Starr, Gavin Young, Kevin Foster, and John Shelnutt during the IEEE award presentation)

Work Area Updates

For a full list of all Technical Reports published by Broadband Forum, click here. Please feel free to share this information with your colleagues, so they are engaged and aware of the developments of this work.

For additional insight and to get involved, sign up for access to Broadband Forum tools and access your account using your company email address

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Anticipation builds for 2026 PON Plugfests and PON power management  

The Access Work Area focuses on developing technical specifications and test plans that deliver multi-vendor interoperability for last mile broadband deployments across access network technologies such as fiber, copper, and wireless networks (HS-PON, XGS-PON, 25GS, NG-PON, Gfast, MoCA, etc.).

The Access Interoperability and Test Project Stream continued work on PON and MoCA Access test plans:

• TR-423 Issue 3: PON PMD Layer Conformance Test Plan was published in August 2025.

• Performance targets were added to the "WT-500 MoCA Performance Test Plan". Members have been asked to review them so that straw ballot can begin during the 2026 Spring Meeting.

• WT-309 PON TC Layer Interoperability Test Plan corrigendum was agreed to be started.

The Access Architecture Project Stream continued to work on "WT-280 PON requirements", addressing requirements regarding power saving and power and energy reporting.

Read the full Fall 2025 Meeting update here: https://www.broadband-forum.org/events/fall-2025-member-meeting-roundup/#Access

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USP 1.5, CPE power management, Matter, and Wi-Fi 7 performance testing progress for Connected User group

The Connected User Work Area develops specifications, implementation guides, reference guides, and test plans for the deployment, management, and consumption of services by the end-users.

Issue 2 Amendment 20 of the highly valuable TR-181 Data Model was published and focuses on improving power management in the CPE. Now, discussions have begun regarding the top priorities for the next version of TR-181. A whitepaper was also published showing how the Wi-Fi theory of operation in TR-181 works in practice, explaining its benefits, and highlighting its integration with the User Services Platform (USP).

Read the full Fall 2025 Meeting update here: https://www.broadband-forum.org/events/fall-2025-member-meeting-roundup/#ConnectedUser

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Multi-tenant 5G FWA, QED, and dBNG: Network Architecture publishes six new documents since Summer Meeting

The Network Architecture Work Area develops the architecture and nodal requirements for end-to-end broadband deployments across traditional and converged networks to ensure the best possible quality of experience for users.

The Wireless Wireline Convergence (WWC) Project Stream published ‘Multi-Tenant 5G FWA’ (TR-507) and ‘Benefits of Multi-Tenant Fixed Wireless Access’ (MR-516). Multi-Tenant FWA was demonstrated successfully as part of the BBF Innovation Demos at Network X.

The Broadband Service Architecture (BSA) Project Stream continued work on Multi-Service BNG Disaggregation (459 document series), specifically on the marketing of the latest publications and communicating why now is the right time for service providers to deploy dBNG. Since the Summer Meeting, TR-459i3c1 and MR-459.5 have been published. Alongside this, early work on Issue 4 of WT-459 continues with important discussions taking place during the Fall Meeting on security, wholesale models, and equal cost path failures.

Read the full Fall 2025 Meeting update here: https://www.broadband-forum.org/events/fall-2025-member-meeting-roundup/#NetworkArchitecture

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Strong end to the year for Provider Cloud with multiple documents close to publication

The Provider Cloud Work Area develops frameworks and specifications to enable broadband services and networks to utilize cloud-based deployment approaches, including automation and autonomous systems that will harness machine learning and AI.

Since the Summer Meeting, the group published Amendment 9 of TR-383. The amendment brings the YANG model for VoIP, extending BBF YANG management support to nodes offering traditional voice services over a packet-based network. It also adds a range of improvements related to QoS, forwarding and transceiver management. During the Fall Meeting, attention turned to new enhancements to Common YANG models

Read the full Fall 2025 Meeting update here: https://www.broadband-forum.org/events/fall-2025-member-meeting-roundup/#ProviderCloud

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Service Requirements progresses AI, wholesale, and QoE work 

The Service Requirements Work Area defines user-centric, actionable service requirements and specifications for subscriber, access, and Broadband Service Providers’ (BSPs’) core networks.

Three new project proposals, covering forward-looking topics of major relevance for the industry, have been reviewed. This includes ‘Edge Computing in Access for Private Network Services’ and ‘AppFlow for Quality on Demand (QoD)’, which are planned for finalization in the near future. The proposal to define an ‘Architecture and Functions for AI in Broadband Network’ as follow-on work to the ongoing ‘AI in Broadband Network’ project (MD-529) requires additional discussions. With the objective of addressing trends, key characteristics, and requirements, MD-529 received significant feedback and input during the meeting’s discussions.

The ‘Wholesale Open Access’ project continues to gather momentum with key contributions laying the foundations for the new wholesale framework TR, during the Fall Member Meeting.

Read the full Fall 2025 Meeting update here: https://www.broadband-forum.org/events/fall-2025-member-meeting-roundup/#ServiceRequirements

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YANG Ninjas: Leading YANG across the broadband industry

The “YANG Ninjas” is an advisory group of volunteers responsible for reviewing YANG data models created within the Broadband Forum. Its task is to ensure consistency and adherence to the Broadband Forum YANG Best Current Practices (OD-360). The group is overseen by the YANG Sensei: Joey Boyd (Adtran) and Sven Ooghe (Nokia).

Starting during the Fall Member Meeting, the OD-360 review process has been streamlined to align with the new work area structure. It allows all work areas involved in YANG to review any additions or changes to the ‘Best Current Practices’ ahead of time.

Read the full Fall 2025 Meeting update here: https://www.broadband-forum.org/events/fall-2025-member-meeting-roundup/#YANGNinjas

The Open Broadband CloudCO Application Software Development Kit (OB-CAS) aims to make monitoring and maintenance easier for BSPs, enabling them to easily integrate applications into their access network management platforms.

Since publishing its first release (1.0.0) of its Software Development Kit (SDK) earlier this year, the OB-CAS team has now completed the development of a “dynamic threshold setting” application, enabling smart threshold crossing alerting. The application can detect anomalies in real-time in a running time-series of metric values making use of smart algorithms or AI as opposed to using pre-defined static thresholds set on the network elements.

Read the full Fall 2025 Meeting update here: https://www.broadband-forum.org/events/fall-2025-member-meeting-roundup/#OBCAS

The OB-MAP (Multi Access Point) team has been actively collaborating with the prpl Foundation community and the WFA (Wi-Fi Alliance) Data Elements Task Group to define aspects of Wi-Fi mesh network data modeling and configuration.

OB-MAP was instrumental in defining Configuration Templates, which offer a flexible way to describe the Wi-Fi configuration that an operator intends to deploy on a local network, even before the network is available. In addition to the formal description of these new entities, a corresponding data model node has been defined and is now in TR-181 Device:2.20.

Read the full Fall 2025 Meeting update here: https://www.broadband-forum.org/events/fall-2025-member-meeting-roundup/#OB-MAP

The OB-STEER project started from code that was developed for the 2024 Broadband Forum Innovation Demonstrations at Network X. Building on Broadband Forum’s working text WT-474, OB-STEER aims to create a reference implementation of the Subscriber Session Steering architecture to deliver flexible, on-demand connectivity and simplify network management.

A number of companies continue to express an interest in joining the OB-STEER project to help progress the existing open source code base. Since the last meeting, large parts of the code have been ported from Python to Golang (Go programming language) to improve performance.

Read the full Fall 2025 Meeting update here: https://www.broadband-forum.org/events/fall-2025-member-meeting-roundup/#OB-STEER

The Open Broadband-UDP Speed Test (OB-UDPST) project produces an open-source implementation of a speed test tool as defined in the Broadband Forum’s TR-471 (Maximum IP-Layer Capacity Metric and Measurements) standard.

As the OB-UDPST group continues its efforts to create a harmonized standard across various standards bodies, the group is close to achieving a new milestone with the IETF. Formalization of the protocol, via an IETF Request for Comments (RFC), is in the final stages and is set to be completed soon.

The next major release of OB-UDPST (9.0.0) is in the final stages of development. This version will be compatible with the formal client-server protocol mentioned above while remaining backward compatible with the current 8.2.0 version. In addition to enhanced protocol security, it includes several improvements in server efficiency.

Read the full Fall 2025 Meeting update here: https://www.broadband-forum.org/events/fall-2025-member-meeting-roundup/#OB-UDPST

Open Broadband-User Services Platform-Agent (OB-USP-Agent) is an open source project that is focused on creating a reference implementation of the User Services Platform (USP) specification from an "Agent" perspective.

Since the last face-to-face meeting in the summer, momentum has been building around Release 11 (Kestrel Release). A third of major features have already been completed, with a further two in progress. Alongside this, 36 minor fixes and enhancements are complete and they have been released in various patch releases (with 10.0.11 the latest).

prplOS 4.1 was released with OBUSPA 10.0.6 in October 2025 and prplOS 5.0 is set to incorporate the Kestrel Release and be published in April 2026. RDK-B is now using OBUSPA 9.0.9 and planning to integrate OBUSPA 10.0.10 in the near future. 

Read the full Fall 2025 Meeting update here: https://www.broadband-forum.org/events/fall-2025-member-meeting-roundup/#OB-USPA

For more on the work of The Broadband Forum’s Work Areas, please visit the wiki here: https://broadband-forum.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/BBF/overview

Upcoming F2F and virtual events

·  January 2026, PON Interoperability: Accelerating Fiber Deployment and Meeting Market Demands, vBASe webinar

·  January 2026, State of Connected User/Services – Part 1, vBASe webinar

·  February 2026, State of PON/Access – 2026, vBASe webinar

·  February 2026, State of Connected User/Services - Part 2, vBASe webinar

·  March 15-19, 2026, OFC, Los Angeles, United States

·  March 23, 2026, BASe Australia, Melbourne, Australasia

·  April 2026, State of AI & Automation, vBASe webinar

·  May 17-20, 2026, Fiber Connect, Orlando, United States

·  May 19-21, 2026, ANGACOM, Koln, Germany

·  June 4-5, 2026, BASe Summit, TBC, Europe

·  June 2026, Network Security Reality Check, vBASe webinar

·  Sept 29 – Oct 1, 2026, TechExpo, Orlando, United States

·  September 2026, Network X / Innovation Demonstrations Preview, vBASe webinar

·  October 13-15, 2026, Network X, Vienna, Austria

·  November 2026, State of PON/Access - Reality Check, vBASe webinar

·  December 2026, State of Connected User/Services - Reality Check, vBASe webinar

• March 24-27, 2026, Spring Member Meeting, Melbourne, Australia

• June 1-4, 2026, Summer Member Meeting, TBC, Europe

• November 2-5, 2026, Fall Member Meeting, TBC, Americas