Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Bowdon]

Broadband Forum issues ‘landmark’ technical specification to define first virtualised Residential Gateway

The first ever specifications for the virtual Residential Gateway have been released by the Broadband Forum as it concluded work on what is said to be a landmark project to bring virtualisation into the home.

The Network Enhanced Residential Gateway (TR-317) provides requirements for an end-to-end architecture, creating a flexible and agile environment.

TR-317’s virtual Customer Premises Equipment (CPE) eliminates the need to provision and attach new services directly to an end-user’s Residential Gateway and enables Service Providers to do this centrally from their Cloud infrastructures, giving the potential for an enhanced customer experience and significant cost savings.

Forum in Focus: Broadband Forum brings NFV home

The first ever specifications for the virtual Residential Gateway were released today, as the Broadband Forum concluded work on a landmark project to bring the potential of virtualization into the home.

The Network Enhanced Residential Gateway (TR-317) provides requirements for an end-to-end architecture, creating a flexible and agile environment

In this video, Gregory Dalle gives valuable insight on what TR-317 will deliver for Service Providers and the impact it is likely to have on the whole industry.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buOd6YWKSlo[/youtube]

[Dray]

Executive Summary
 
TR-317 specifies the Network Enhanced Residential Gateway (NERG) architecture. NERG consists in shifting some of the functionality of a residential gateway (RG), as defined in TR-124 [6], to the operator's network.
 
With NERG, the functions provided traditionally by the RG are now distributed between ant on-site device called a BRG (Bridged Residential Gateway) and a network based component, called a vG (virtual Gateway).

https://www.broadband-forum.org/technical/download/TR-317.pdf

[phi2008]

Random thought ...  if the features of the gateway are going to be dependent on the network provider does this have implications for the use of non-standard equipment? Will there effectively be a lock-in on what can be used to connect - assuming a device doesn't meet the standard?

[Weaver]

@phi2008 surely you're exactly right. ISP's are going to want to bully users into giving up their own chosen routers and trusted most highly critical firewalls and get some unknown cheap crap CPE from the ISP that the user knows absolutely nothing about, and can't control or trust. All so the ISP can lower their costs and push expensive extra services at the user. They presumably dream about the good old days of BT and PSTN where BT could keep tacking on extra annoying charges for things like number blocking, voice mail, redirects and who knows what. Mere conduit isn't juicy enough at the moment. Horrible.

And presumably dumb CPE with all the variable and intelligent software running on the ISP's servers will be very latency-critical unless the software is downloaded on the fly and cached locally long-term. I wonder if soft, dumb, highly remote-dependent kit that works on a 300 Mbps link would still work on a 0.5 Mbps link like my neighbour's with 60 - 300+ ms latency?

This isn't a new idea, as I seem to remember someone else developed a soft, remote-controlled dumb device, a couple of years back - can't remember.

I need to read that document, as what little I know about such systems was from reading about that other half-forgotten development some while ago.

[niemand]

Great to see the specifications for this technology being laid out. It has huge potential to improve experience for the vast majority of customers, especially as we increasingly use more and more devices at home and those without the nous would benefit from segmented networks and quality of service.

Implementation needs to be handled with caution for obvious reasons, but there are a ton of up-sides here.

Along of course with a ton of downsides for those of a more cynical bent over it.

The mass-market ISPs will I'm sure be taking a close look at this. Sky have made attempts to force people to use their equipment anyway, BT much prefer it, and Virgin Media have required it since time immemorial, but implementing a modem mode.