UNH-IOL plans G.fast interoperability demo at 2016 Broadband World Forum

The University of New Hampshire InterOperability Laboratory (UNH-IOL) says it will take its interop capabilities on the road to London next week to host a multi-vendor G.fast interoperability demonstration within the Broadband Forum Interoperability Pavilion at the Broadband World Forum (BBWF), October 18-20. The demonstration aims to display interoperability among products from six companies based on chipsets from three different providers.

The UNH-IOL say it also will have the time to show live testing during the demo based upon the upcoming G.fast Certification Program.

Companies expected to participate in the demo include:

  • Calix
  • Digital Lightwave, a Division of VeEX
  • Huawei
  • Metanoia Communications, Inc.
  • Technicolor
  • Telebyte.

The demonstration will include both demarcation point units (DPUs) and customer premises equipment (CPE). Telebyte and Digital Lightwave will supply the test equipment for the exercise. Most if not all of the G.fast gear will be based on silicon from Broadcom orSckipio. Metanoia undoubtedly will showcase the abilities of its MT-G5321 PHY.

"Proving cross-chipset interoperability enables G.fast technology to become an even more powerful tool for service providers to achieve higher speeds to the subscriber over short distances," said Tom Starr, president of the Broadband Forum via a press release. "This interoperability ultimately ‘future proofs' the network, so that new devices can effortlessly work with already deployed devices, saving time and money."

"Achieving high-performance interoperability for G.fast is a key enabler for cost-effective and agile ultra-fast deployments," said Kevin Foster, general manager, CPE & Access, at BT, a proponent of G.fast (see, for example, "Openreach taps Huawei, Nokia for G.fast roll-out"), in the same release. "Communication providers need attractive in-home and standards-based solutions that their end customers can self-install. The Broadband Forum's work on interoperability underpins an ability for industry to deliver that goal."