The Wireless Broadband Alliance (WBA) has released a standard technical framework for operator-managed wifi for in-home networks.

The report proposes an interoperable reference architecture for operators’ managed wifi deployment, operation, remote management and diagnostics of home networks.

The proposed framework will combine multiple available standards to streamline wifi data collection, wifi management, configuration and optimisation of home networks, simplifying the analysis and decision-making process for carriers.

Consumers expect reliable, high-performance wifi networks that enable their wifi devices to work at home with little to no set-up required. The paper discusses the various deployment difficulties this presents for operators, who need to balance the cost of management and deployment with growing consumer requirements.

Currently, there exists several operator-managed wifi options in the market, each using different proprietary or standard methods for data collection, communication between the customer premises equipment and the cloud, remote management, mesh formation and so on. Furthermore, each operator-managed wifi option tries to solve the same problems in a different way, which yields non-interoperable and non-reusable services.

This results in considerable resources operators need to employ to navigate through the different techniques and standards available when delivering on end-user expectations. It also highlights the difficulties many operators still face when negotiating with vendors to ensure compliance with their own standards and requirements. The main problem put forth by the paper is a holistic option for an operator-managed wifi network, which incorporates the necessary standards into a reference architecture for the operators to use in their deployments, still does not exist.

WBA members led by Airties, British Telecom (BT), Deutsche Telekom and MaxLinear are seeking to simplify this analysis and selection process, leading to better resource optimisation, while allowing them to make more accurate claims when communicating their value proposition with end clients and users.

“As an industry we are always trying to get faster internet speeds to our customers,” said Sascha Dech, system architect at Deutsche Telekom. “While we are making progress in getting it to customers’ homes, we also see an increasing demand to get proper managed residential wifi in place. Standardisation of components helps us to deliver on our key promises, a great user experience as well as having a reliable and fast connection to the internet.”

This paper represents the first phase of that journey, presenting an operator-managed wifi reference architecture that combines the benefits of all available standards, including Wifi EasyMesh, Wifi Certified Data Elements, and Broadband Forum (BBF) User Services Platform (USP) TR-369 and TR-181 data models. The Wifi Alliance EasyMesh, for instance, can be used as the standard interface for wifi data collection, wifi management, configuration and optimisation on home networks with a standalone gateway.

The WBA defines the building blocks for a reference in-home wifi network architecture that will cover both single wireless gateway and multi-AP in-home wifi. This technical industry framework for operators defines how to implement and deploy managed residential wifi technology, along with highlighting the reference architecture and explaining its advantages. This first stage will be enhanced downstream with an expansion of the scope of requirements.

“Wifi and internet have become interchangeable terms in recent years,” said Tiago Rodrigues, WBA CEO. “A user’s perceived quality of experience is therefore tied to the performance of their in-home wifi network. This is putting pressure on operators to better manage their residential wifi services. There are countless operator-managed wifi options currently on the market, all using different proprietary or standard methods for data collection, remote management, mesh formation, etc, making it extremely difficult for operators to provide a consistent level of service for their users. The WBA and its members are seeking to change that with a new reference architecture that combines the best standards into one.”

Metin Taskin, CEO of Airties, added: “Thanks to the cross-industry efforts of the WBA, broadband operators around the world can now benefit from a standards-based, reference architecture for residential wifi. This new operator-managed wifi report specifies the industry standards end-to-end to simplify integrations and deployments, enabling operators to focus more of their efforts on the quality of experience.”