The Broadband Forum (BBF) says that the rollout of G.fast—a cost-effective way to provide advanced services on copper infrastructure—will be expedited by certification and performance test plans that the organization is publishing.

The certification and publishing plans are a product of the BBF’s Physical Layer Transmission Work Area, which aims to promote multi-vendor interoperability. The new publications are TP-337 Issue 3, which is paired with Corrigendum 1: Gfast Certification Test Plan, and TR-380 Issue 2: Gfast Performance Test Plan. They all are aimed at easing rollout on the Fiber-To-The-Extension-Point (FTTep) architecture.

“These latest publications represent an important step forward that coincides with the increased demand on bandwidth as operators seek to provide gigabit services directly to the consumer,” Herman Verbueken, the Director of the BBF’s Physical Layer Transmission Work Area, said in a press release. “It is critical for multi-vendor interoperability to be achieved in deployments for both access and in-premises networks. That is why we continue to work towards creating standardized interoperability and certification so that all those in the industry can reap the benefits that this efficiency creates.”

Broadband Forum G.fast Certification

The publications will promote interoperability by eliminating the need to retest equipment that the BBF has approved. The goal is to accelerate time to market for products, provide developers and implementers with feedback on improving products and lower costs, while giving end-users more choices in devices and services.

TP-337 Issue 3 provides a testing framework for a set of functional, stability and throughput test cases, the BBF says. By doing this, it expands multi-vendor test coverage for Gfast deployments over twisted pair and coaxial cable.

It adds the ability to test new features, including consumer premises equipment download and enhanced reach and Dynamic Time Assignment (DTA) capability. This addresses the “dynamic nature of Internet traffic” and provides consistent high throughput for end users, the organization says.

These test plans build on TR-419, which was published earlier this year.