The Broadband Forum has completed its TR-459 specifications for Broadband Network Gateway (BNG) disaggregation, which the Forum said will simplify network operations by cutting the number of management points; reduce time to market for new services and increases service resilience.

The gateway disaggregation was needed, according to the Forum, because video and broadband consumption are expected to continue to grow significantly, and operators need to be able to match the growth in demand without sharp increases in operating expenditures.

Broadband Forum Broadband Network Gateway Spec

By separating the control and user planes, each will be able to scale based on the dictates of what is needed for new services and additional customers. The centralized locations for configuration and IP address management will provide for easier operations and faster delivery of new services, according to the Forum.

The specification will also address fragmented IP pool management, under-utilized control planes and complex operation and management for software upgrades and service provisioning.

“Over the years, BNGs have had to evolve to support new functionalities such as management of multiple types of [access], transport encapsulations and customers,” said Broadband Forum CEO Robin Mersh, in a prepared statement. “Broadband Forum’s work responds to the changing ecosystem and ensures flexible scalability through an agile architecture constructed to meet operators’ needs.”

“Operators have previously suffered from very limited choice when addressing subscriber growth or bandwidth demand. The most common approach has always been to add more BNGs into the network,” added Kenneth Wan, Nokia senior product manager, in a prepared statement. “The Disaggregated BNG changes this. It not only offers flexible user and control plane scaling but ensures operational simplicity by using a single control plane function to manage multiple instances of user plane. The completion of TR-459 is of significant importance, especially for service providers, who have been eagerly anticipating a Broadband Forum standard Disaggregated BNG reference architecture with standardized interfaces and protocols.”