The Broadband Forum and HomeGrid Forum have joined forces to “unlock greater interoperability and gigabit-plus performance for service providers” through a GHNA (G.hn Access) certification program.

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

G.hn Certification

GHNA Certification is available through either the Broadband Forum or the HomeGrid Forum and is a two-part testing program. Part A includes compliance and interoperability testing (“GiGAWire™ testing”) specified by the HomeGrid Forum. Part B includes performance testing (“BBF.GHNA testing”) specified by the Broadband Forum, as well as ongoing work in TR-476. G.hn Official certification is granted once equipment successfully passes both parts.

G.hn Access deployment options build  on complementary architectures to extend fiber networks with phoneline and coax-based point-to-point (P2P) and Point-to-Multipoint (P2MP) infrastructure and topologies throughout the home and business.

“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,” said Aleksandra Kozarev, Broadband Forum vice president, in a prepared statement. “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 26th September, which coupled with GiGAWire testing, will lead to GHNA certification.”