Broadband Forum and HomeGrid Forum come together to unlock G.hn Access certification benefits for operators’ deployments

The GHNA Certification Program combines the best of both worlds with richer set of compliance, interoperability and performance testing

Collaboration between Broadband Forum and HomeGrid Forum has helped unlock greater interoperability and gigabit plus performance for service providers, as the two leading standards development organizations have jointly developed a GHNA (G.hn Access) Certification Program.

The GHNA Certification Program is designed to combine Broadband Forum-based performance testing with HomeGrid Forum-based compliance and interoperability testing for access equipment implementing the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) G.hn standard (ITU-T G.996x series).

“The new collaboration will have widespread ramifications to benefit broadband players across the industry,” HomeGrid Forum President Livia Rosu said. “Thanks to the new GHNA Certification Program, service providers will have the confidence to undertake and accelerate effective service deployments with highly performant, interoperable and standard-compliant G.hn Access certified systems that have been awarded both the Broadband Forum and HomeGrid Forum stamp of approval.”

GHNA Certification, which is available through either the Broadband Forum or the HomeGrid Forum, is comprised of two parts, Part A with compliance and interoperability testing (“GiGAWire™ testing”) specified by the HomeGrid Forum, and Part B with performance testing (“BBF.GHNA testing”) specified by the Broadband Forum and ongoing work in TR-476. G.hn Access equipment that successfully passes both parts is granted the official certification logo and certificate on behalf of both organizations.

G.hn Access deployment options are capitalizing on complementary architectures to extend fiber networks with phoneline and coax-based Point-to-Point (P2P) and Point-to-Multipoint (P2MP) infrastructure and topologies. By leveraging G.hn technology through existing wires, service providers can cost-effectively provide last mile infrastructure in areas where optical fiber cannot be deployed all the way to the customer premises.

“Service providers have been leveraging G.hn Access technology for addressing MDUs, SFUs and a variety of complicated fiber extension scenarios to deliver multi-Gigabit Internet over coax and phonelines,” Vice President of the HomeGrid Forum and LUMEN Director Strategic Innovation Tom Barnett said. “We worked very closely with GiGAWire™ system vendors to pre-test and solve service delivery challenges. The launch of the G.hn Access certification is designed to accelerate our deployments with pre-approved system vendors.”

“Combining both organizations’ expertise in G.hn technology with Broadband Forum’s experience in performance testing and HomeGrid Forum’s experience in interoperability and compliance, means that the wider industry as a whole is set to benefit,” Broadband Forum Vice President Dr. Aleksandra Kozarev said. “The next steps of our collaboration will see the first vendors pass our BBF.GHNA beta trials, to be held at University of New Hampshire Interoperability Laboratory (UNH-IOL) during the week of 26^th September 2022, which coupled with GiGAWire testing will lead to GHNA certification.”

• If you wish to take part in the G.hn Access Pre-Certification Plugfest, please visit: https://www.iol.unh.edu/event/2022/09/ghn-access-pre-certification-plugfest.
• For more information about Broadband Forum, visit: https://www.broadband-forum.org/.
• To learn more about HomeGrid Forum, please see: https://homegridforum.org/.

About the Broadband Forum

Broadband Forum is the communications industry’s leading open standards development organization focused on accelerating broadband innovation, standards, and ecosystem development. Our members’ passion – delivering on the promise of broadband by enabling smarter and faster broadband networks and a thriving broadband ecosystem.

Broadband Forum is an open, non-profit industry organization composed of the industry’s leading broadband operators, vendors, thought leaders who are shaping the future of broadband, and observers who closely track our progress. Its work to date has been the foundation for broadband’s global proliferation and innovation. For example, the Forum’s flagship TR-069 CPE WAN Management Protocol has nearly 1 billion installations worldwide.

Broadband Forum’s projects span across 5G, Connected Home, Cloud, and Access. Its working groups collaborate to define best practices for global networks, enable new revenue-generating service and content delivery, establish technology migration strategies, and engineer critical device, service & development management tools in the home and business IP networking infrastructure. We develop multi-service broadband packet networking specifications addressing architecture, device and service management, software data models, interoperability and certification in the broadband market.

Our free technical reports and white papers can be found at https://www.broadband-forum.org/.

Follow us on Twitter @Broadband_Forum and LinkedIn.

About HomeGrid Forum

HomeGrid Forum (HGF) is an industry alliance that brings together the world’s best in technology innovators, silicon vendors, system manufacturers, and service providers to promote G.hn, a globally recognized gigabit home networking technology based on ITU-T standards. G.hn is the most reliable and versatile wireless home network backbone available today. Our members promote the global adoption of G.hn, a single unified, multi-sourced networking technology – over coax, copper pairs, powerline, and plastic optical fiber. HomeGrid Forum provides G.hn silicon and system certification through a strict compliance and interoperability testing program. For more information on HomeGrid Forum, please visit our website at www.homegridforum.org.

HomeGrid^™ is registered trademark of the HomeGrid Forum in the United States and other countries. GiGAWire™ is a registered trademark of KT Corporation and a licensed trademark to be used by HomeGrid Forum.

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