24 May 2011, Berlin – The latest Broadband Forum release, BroadbandSuite™ 4.1, provides techniques and tools to provision, measure and manage each segment of the broadband network to ensure quality delivery of Connected Home services. This release looks at the ever expanding ecosystem of the Connected Home and addresses for the first time service requirements of triple play and beyond to include machine-to-machine applications including metering, monitoring as well as teleworking support.

Recognizing that more than 60% of the world’s broadband deployments are via Digital Subscriber Lines (DSL), a group of the specifications in this release deal specifically with how to engineer DSL for enhanced speed, stability and service delivery. These specifications make up what is referred to as the DSL Quality Management (DQM) Suite which describes techniques using DSL line performance, status and test data, as well as other data as inputs to measure throughput and diagnose line functions. The specifications then prescribe potential corrective actions to alleviate problems or improve performance.

Topics covered in the BroadbandSuite 4.1 release include:

    DSL Quality Management (DQM) Suite of TRs

    Broadband Architecture recommendations

    ADSL2plus & Splitter functional measurements

    IPTV Performance Monitoring and Diagnostics

    BBF Value Proposition for Connected Home white paper

    BroadbandSuite 4.1 Release Companion Guide

Launched at the Broadband Forum’s Q2 quarterly meeting in Berlin, Germany, Broadband Suite™ 4.1 –Quality Service Delivery provides a timely toolkit of options for providers to better engineer their networks and management techniques. From the provisioning stage to lifecycle management- these specifications set the bar much higher than simple guaranteed service delivery to ensuring the Quality of Experience (QoE) that customers expect.

The following technical reports are contained in BroadbandSuite 4.1:

    TR-105 ADSL2/ADSL2plus Functionality Test Plan

    TR-127 Dynamic Testing of Splitters and In-line Filters with xDSL Transceivers

    TR-138 Validation of G.997.1 Parameters

    TR-160 IPTV Performance Monitoring & Diagnostics

    TR-188 DSL Quality Suite

    TR-198 DQS: DQM Systems and Functional Architecture and Requirements

    TR-252 xDSL Protocol-Independent Management Model

Building upon Broadband Suite 4.1, the Broadband Forum has additional work in progress on quality service delivery, including pending reports on alias addressing, vectoring with VDSL2, as well as white papers focused on splitter deployment best practices, and use cases around Quality IPTV over DSL.

“Broadband is rapidly becoming the accepted means for delivering a multitude of services. Stability and quality is therefore a number one priority as the penetration of broadband increases and related service offerings become increasingly structured. The Broadband Forum’s work has focused on developing the tools necessary to help providers deliver excellent service quality and performance to enhance their customers’ experience,” said Chief Executive Officer of the Broadband Forum, Robin Mersh.

Broadband Forum Technical Reports and White Papers are all free to download from the website at www.broadband-forum.org.