HGI announces partnership agreement with Broadband Forum

The Home Gateway Initiative (HGI) announced that it has signed a liaison agreement with the Broadband Forum that will lead to close collaboration by both organizations on the development of standards and specifications for broadband networks worldwide.

The comprehensive agreement is designed to enhance the already active cooperation between HGI and the Broadband Forum. It allows each organization to provide input, and to release copyright on work-in-progress specifications to the partner organization as working documents are drafted. The result will be acceleration and strong alignment of key specification work within the industry that leads to improvements in the capabilities of customers’ broadband networks.

The areas of cooperation by these two groups will be centered on architectural and functional requirements for customer located broadband equipment. HGI’s mission to solve the service, feature and technology challenges in the digital home complements the Broadband Forum’s core competencies in end-to-end architecture and management. The groups agreed to cooperate in addressing quality of service (QoS), software modularity, IPv6, energy efficiency and testing.

Both groups will meet regularly to discuss projects and priorities for industry standards in these and other areas. Both organizations bring a unique focus on a set of related problems, and are stronger by working together.

By jointly identifying goals, sharing work in progress, and avoiding duplication of efforts, our member companies receive better value for their investments of resources in our respective efforts. The industry has important issues to solve, and this agreement helps significantly.”

Together, the two groups represent over 200 companies, and over 30 service providers, including Arcor, AT&T, Belgacom, Bell, BT, Cable & Wireless, China Telecom, China Unicom, Chunghwa Telecom, Deutsche Telekom, Embarq, Fastweb, France Telecom, KDDI, KPN, KT, Magyar Telecom, NTT, OTE, Portugal Telecom, Qwest, SingTel, Swisscom, Telecom Italia, Tata Teleservices Ltd, TDC, Telecom Slovenije, Telecom New Zealand, Telefonica, Telekomunikacja Polska, Telekom Austria, Telekom Malaysia, Telenor, TeliaSonera, Telkom SA, Telstra, Telus and Verizon.

HGI to host its 1st Test Event

The first ever test event to assess Quality of Service (QoS) and Multi-session support in both Home Gateway products and reference designs is to be held by the Home Gateway Initiative (HGI) in France next month.

The HGI Test Event builds upon two key pieces of technical work within HGI. The first is the QoS architecture, fully described in the recently published QoS White Paper, HGI-GD013-R2. The second is HGI’s Requirements for Multiple Flows, currently an HGI working draft document (HGI-RWD010-R3).

The event, which will run from September 28 to October 2 in Lannion (Brittany, France), will enable each vendor to choose the tests that they wish to participate in. Each participating vendor is allocated an entire day to complete the tests with the assistance of the host lab personnel. Test results will be reviewed and validated between the vendor and the HGI auditing team. Vendors will be free to publish their validated test results, and/or share them with Service Providers, whilst the HGI management committee will publish an anonymous summary of the test results.

The HGI, founded in 2004 by nine telecom operators, is shaping the next generation of internet and voice services. Starting from use-cases and service needs, the HGI sets requirements for Home Gateways, infrastructure devices, and the home network. The HGI now has members from across the globe, representing the entire spectrum of players in the broadband home area.

For further information, please visit www.homegatewayinitiative.org.