LF Broadband rises from ONF ashes

• The Open Networking Foundation (ONF) was dissolved in late 2023 and its projects subsumed by fellow open-source-focused industry body The Linux Foundation
• The ONF had three networking projects focused on edge, programmable platforms and access infrastructure
• The access network developments are now the foundations for a new initiative, LF Broadband, which will further develop the ONF’s work on open, disaggregated broadband network systems

Open-source industry body the Linux Foundation has unveiled a new industry initiative, LF Broadband, that builds on years of open, disaggregated broadband access network developments undertaken by the now defunct Open Networking Foundation (ONF) and counts Deutsche Telekom and Türk Telekom as its main telco supporters. 

As we reported in December last year, the ONF hung up its boots after 12 years of open-source developments and handed over its portfolio of networking projects, which encompassed broadband access network systems, edge deployment architectures – now part of the Linux Foundation’s Aether project – and programmable network platforms, now the Linux Foundation-hosted P4 project.    

LF Broadband builds on the many years of work already poured into the development of the SEBA (SDN-enabled broadband access) reference design for building open, programmable, disaggregated fixed broadband networks and the VOLTHA (virtual OLT hardware abstraction) project that has been focused on virtualising passive optical networking (PON) systems, including OLTs (optical line terminals). The initiative is underpinned by an independent Linux Foundation fund that will be used to support not only deployment projects that are based on SEBA and VOLTHA specifications but also other open-source broadband network initiatives – such as those related to fixed wireless access of the fixed broadband connections of 6G network designs – that result from the work of the group’s members. 

Right now, that’s a pretty limited number of deployments: While the likes of Orange and AT&T have shown interest in disaggregated fixed broadband architectures, German giant Deutsche Telekom and close partner Türk Telekom have for some years blazed the trail and actually integrated the open-source broadband technologies into their networks. The Turkish operator announced its first SEBA-enabled deployment in 2021 and aims to increase its deployment to 1 million broadband lines within the next three years, according to a recent presentation, while Deutsche Telekom has long been working on its next-generation Access 4.0 strategy, which saw it award a sizeable contract to Adtran in 2020 for software-defined optical line terminal (OLT) systems and SDN-enabled management tools – see Deutsche Telekom hands ADTRAN a major software-defined broadband access deal.

So it’s no surprise to see executives from that telco duo as the top of the LF Broadband governing board tree: Türk Telekom’s network director Ahmet Fethi Ayhan and Manuel Paul, squad leader for network convergence at Deutsche Telekom have been elected as co-chairs of the board, while other members include Bora Eliacik from Netsia, a technology subsidiary of Türk Telekom, and Robert Soukup from Radisys, a vendor subsidiary of India’s Jio Platforms. The governing board oversees the strategic direction of LF Broadband and approves all spending on behalf of the organisation. The Linux Foundation’s general manager of networking and orchestration, Arpit Joshipura, takes on the role of executive director of LF Broadband.  

Other initial members of the initiative include Adtran, Digital Platforms, Excelacom, Iowa State University, Universidad de Burgos, and ZTE – so not a great deal of initial support for a new initiative that is building on years of developments. 

Naturally, the Linux Foundation and the initiative’s members are bullish. “Just as open source drove the 5G transition in telecommunications core and edge stacks, it is also driving the next generation of broadband network technologies,” stated Joshipura in this announcement about the initiative’s formal launch, which also includes multiple quotes from members extolling the virtues of the initiative. “LF Broadband provides a neutral forum for vendors, end users, and researchers to collaborate on the solutions necessary to drive transformed broadband networks and the passive optical network industry,” added Joshipura.

And according to LF Broadband, “multiple other operators have VOLTHA-based solutions in various stages of lab trials and field trials,” but no names are provided.

So what’s driving these companies to be involved and what might just attract others to jump aboard? Just as with Open RAN, which focuses on the development of disaggregated, software-defined radio access network (RAN) systems and architectures, it’s a mix of ecosystem expansion, the desire to deploy best-of-breed elements from (potentially) multiple vendors – rather than pre-integrated single vendor stacks – and a desire to find ways to build and run networks more efficiently: Deutsche Telekom has long argued that the economic models associated with broadband networks built using SEBA and VOLTHA stack up. Indeed, LF Broadband claims that its models and specifications can deliver “significant TCO [total cost of ownership] savings” of between 20% and 40% of capital expenditure (capex) and 10% and 20% of operational expenditure (opex).  

But given that Open RAN has also been in development for some years and is still struggling to attract widespread support for large investments that will drive economies of scale, attract new entrants and fuel technology feature innovation, LF Broadband might struggle even more to have a major impact on the fixed access broadband sector, especially given the existing scale of fibre broadband investments made in recent years in systems that the operators hope will be fit for purpose for many years to come. 

Deutsche Telekom and Türk Telekom will have a lot of persuading to do if they are to convince other operators that LF Broadband has the answers to any remaining questions they have about their fixed broadband strategies. 

- Ray Le Maistre, Editorial Director, TelecomTV