The Broadband Forum is a non-profit industry consortium dedicated to developing broadband network specifications. Members include telecommunications networking and service provider companies, broadband device and equipment vendors, consultants and independent testing labs (ITLs). Service provider members are primarily wire-line service providers (non-mobile) telephone companies.

History

The DSL Forum was founded in 1994 with about 200 member companies in different divisions of the

telecommunication Telecommunication is the transmission of information by various types of technologies over wire, radio, optical, or other electromagnetic systems. It has its origin in the desire of humans for communication over a distance greater than tha ...

and

information technology Information technology (IT) is the use of computers to create, process, store, retrieve, and exchange all kinds of data . and information. IT forms part of information and communications technology (ICT). An information technology system ...

sector. It is used as a platform for companies that operate in the broadband market. Its initial main purpose was the establishment of new standards around

digital subscriber line Digital subscriber line (DSL; originally digital subscriber loop) is a family of technologies that are used to transmit digital data over telephone lines. In telecommunications marketing, the term DSL is widely understood to mean asymmetric d ...

communication products such as provisioning. This cooperation has brought different standardizations for ADSL,

SHDSL Single-pair high-speed digital subscriber line (SHDSL) is a form of symmetric digital subscriber line (SDSL), a data communications technology for equal transmit and receive (i.e. symmetric) data rate over copper telephone lines, faster than a conv ...

, VDSL, ADSL2+ and

VDSL2 Very high-speed digital subscriber line (VDSL) and very high-speed digital subscriber line 2 (VDSL2) are digital subscriber line (DSL) technologies providing data transmission faster than the earlier standards of asymmetric digital subscriber li ...

. The group was established in 1994 as the ADSL Forum, but became the DSL Forum in 1999. It was renamed after the

(DSL) family of technology, also known collectively as xDSL. Among its early design documents, the Forum created TR-001 (1996) system reference model, which together with later TR-012 (1999) core network architecture, recommended PPP over an ATM transport layer as the best practice for a DSL ISP. This was subsequently refined in TR-025 and TR-059. Starting in 2004, the Forum expanded its work into other

last mile Last mile may refer to: * Last mile (telecommunications), the final leg of the telecommunications networks that deliver services to retail end-users * Last mile (transportation), the final leg the movement of people and goods from a transportation ...

technologies including

optical fiber An optical fiber, or optical fibre in Commonwealth English, is a flexible, transparency and translucency, transparent fiber made by Drawing (manufacturing), drawing glass (silica) or plastic to a diameter slightly thicker than that of a Hair ...

. On 17 June 2008 it changed its name to "Broadband Forum". DSL-related specifications, while still a key part of the forum's work, are no longer its only work. For instance, the forum produced work specific to passive optical networking (PON). Its Auto-Configuration Server specification TR-069, originally published in 2004, was adapted for use with set-top box and Network Attached Storage units. The Forum's TR-101 specification (2006) documents migration toward an

Ethernet Ethernet () is a family of wired computer networking technologies commonly used in local area networks (LAN), metropolitan area networks (MAN) and wide area networks (WAN). It was commercially introduced in 1980 and first standardized in ...

-based DSL aggregation model (Ethernet DSLAMs). In May 2009, IP/MPLS Forum merged with the Broadband Forum. It had promoted the

Frame Relay Frame Relay is a standardized wide area network (WAN) technology that specifies the physical and data link layers of digital telecommunications channels using a packet switching methodology. Originally designed for transport across Integrated ...

and

Multiprotocol Label Switching Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) is a routing technique in telecommunications networks that directs data from one node to the next based on labels rather than network addresses. Whereas network addresses identify endpoints the labels identi ...

technologies. Technical work of IP/MPLS Forum continued in a newly created "IP/MPLS and Core" Working Group of the Broadband Forum. The historical specifications from the IP/MPLS Forum's predecessors, ATM Forum, Frame Relay Forum, MFA Forum, and MPLS Forum, are archived on the Broadband Forum's website, under IP/MPLS Forum specifications. Broadband Forum issued Femto Access Point Service Data Model TR-196 during April 2009 and version 2 released during November 2011. Broadband Forum specified in TR-348 for

Hybrid Access Networks Hybrid Access Networks refer to a special architecture for broadband access networks where two different network technologies are combined to improve bandwidth. A frequent motivation for such Hybrid Access Networks to combine one xDSL network with ...

an architecture that enables network operators to efficiently combine XDSL and

LTE LTE may refer to: Science and technology * LTE (telecommunication) (Long-Term Evolution), a telephone and mobile broadband standard ** LTE Advanced, an enhancement *** LTE Advanced Pro * Compaq LTE, a line of laptop computers produced by Compaq * ...

References

External links

* {{official website, broadband-forum.org/
Advantages Of Leased Lines Over Broadband
Technology consortia Digital subscriber line Broadband Digital television

History

See also

References

External links