On Wednesday, the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) announced a new group, ETSI ISG F5G, that's dedicated to specifying the fifth generation of fixed networks.
The ETSI ISG F5G group will look at how fiber connections can be enhanced as well as new opportunities that could turn the fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) paradigm into "Fiber to Everything Everywhere," according to the press release.
The group will address aspects related to new optical distribution network (ODN) technologies, XG(S)-PON and Wi-Fi 6 enhancements, control plane and user plane separation, smart energy efficiency and end-to-end full-stack slicing, autonomous operation and management, and adaptation of the transport network, among other items.
The kick-off meeting for the group took place on Feb. 20-21 at an ETSI facility and members of the group elected Dr. Luca Pesando, TIM, as the chairman of the ISG group.
“I’m happy to be the chairman of this new ETSI group. Fiber is one of the cornerstones of communication technologies, supporting fixed access and the interconnection between any other access networks. Defining its future developments to maintain this fundamental role through the overall evolution of communications is therefore essential,” said Pesando, in a statement.
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The new group will start with five areas. The first, F5G use cases, include services to consumers and enterprises, which will be picked based on their impact in terms of new technical requirements that are identified. The second area, which is called landscape of F5G technology and standards, will study the technology requirements for F5G use cases, including gap analysis and taking a look at the existing technologies.
The third area will look at defining fixed network generations and the path of fixed network evolution. It will include transport, access and on-premise networks. It will also identify the principal characteristics demarcating different generations and define them.
Fourth, the group will look at the architecture of F5G, which will specify the end-to-end network architectures, features and related network devices/elements’ requirements for F5G, including on-premises, access, IP and transport networks.
Finally, the group will focus on F5G quality of experience (QoE) factors for new broadband services. It will analyze the general factors that impact service performance and identify the relevant QoE dimensions for each service.
Members of the group include: Association eG4U, Altice Portugal, BOUYGUES Telecom, BTC, Cadzow Communications, CAICT, CATT, China Unicom, China Telecommunications, CICT, ECO, Fraunhofer HHI, Futurewei, Huawei Technologies, JSPRC Kryptonite, POST Luxembourg, Rostelecom, TIM and Turk Telekomunikasyon.