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WBBA Barcelona Seminar 2023 Held Successfully

On 28 February 2023, the World Broadband Association (WBBA) Barcelona Seminar 2023 was held with the theme of Maximising Broadband’s Global Potential, gathering global partners, industry leaders, renowned experts and broadband industry stakeholders throughout the world.

The participants conducted extensive communication and shared ideas, practices and considerations by focusing on the topics of the potential of cloud-based broadband infrastructure to provide flexible and high-quality internet connection globally, and to explore the actions that both industry and government need to take to ensure that digital gains are shared more equitably.

Endorsement from renowned organizations and telecoms operators and vendors across the globe formed the impressive speaker line-up, including Shao Guanglu, Executive Director, President and COO of China Telecommunications Corporation Limited; Martin Creaner, Director General of WBBA; Li Zhengmao, Chairman of WBBA; John Hoffman, CEO and Director of GSMA Limited. In addition, keynote speakers joined the event, including Brennen Smith, Vice President of Technology, OOKLA; Li Jun, Vice President of China Telecommunications Corporation Limited; Stefaan Vanhastel, CTO of Fixed Networks, Nokia. A fireside chat and panel discussion were hosted with the participation of industry leaders, including Paul Morrissey, Advisor at EXFO; Richard Jin, President of Optical Business Product Line, Huawei; Stephen Wilson, Senior Principal Analyst at OMDIA; Tao Qiu, Executive Vice President and CSO of China Unicom.

The WBBA is a multilateral, industry-led association, providing leadership for digital broadband across the next decade. The WBBA provides an open, multilateral organization and platform for future-facing broadband cooperation and partnership across the industry, championing the business, consumer and citizen outcomes that broadband is capable of delivering across the world, through converged network and cloud infrastructure. The WBBA was officially entered into the Swiss Directory of International Organizations in 2022, and held its first board meeting on 26 February, 2023, which gave great significance to WBBA governance improvement and future development.

The seminar advocates that the industry stakeholders actively join forces to promote the prosperous development of cloud network broadband industry. WBBA will play an important role in serving global broadband network operators, vendors, cloud service providers and other stakeholders, uniting the global industry chain, facilitating industry chain communications and exchanges, enhancing technological cooperation, and promoting the innovation and development of the global cloud and network information infrastructure, and to achieve the prosperity of the cloud and broadband industry around the world.

Additional Articles

Reflecting on Success: Highlights from WBBA’s Third Board Meeting in Barcelona

March 8, 2024

The World Broadband Association (WBBA) recently convened for its third board meeting, a pivotal gathering held in the vibrant city of Barcelona. This meeting was a testament to the continued dedication of WBBA’s founding members towards advancing broadband technology and shaping its future trajectory. At the heart of the discussions was the 2024 roadmap, a strategic blueprint aimed at navigating

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Former TM Forum President & CEO, Martin Creaner, appointed as Director General of the World Broadband Association

July 17, 2023

One of the leading strategic thinkers in the global communications industry, Martin Creaner, has been appointed to the World Broadband Association (WBBA) as Director General. The WBBA was founded in July 2021 with a mission to bring together cloud and broadband industry stakeholders to address and drive forward shared goals of closing the digital divide to maximize the social, environmental

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WBBA Convenes Broadband Industry Stakeholders from Across the Globe for Annual Event 2022

July 17, 2023

The World Broadband Association gathered an audience of over 300 stakeholders from across the broadband industry and beyond, for its flagship event, Connecting the world by bringing the benefit of broadband to all.Successful flagship events in Amsterdam and Bangkok The Association hosted successful flagship events in Amsterdam on 19th October and Bangkok on 28th October, convening broadband industry stakeholders throughout

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Key Messages
Key Messages
Recommendations
Recommendations
The Importance of Greater Broadband Investment​
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Key Messages

Advanced cloud technology together with superior end-to-end connectivity can enable a wider and more sophisticated range of applications that can in turn drive greater innovation, efficiency, and wealth.
Both enterprises and broader industry ecosystems are actively looking at broadband’s role in enabling their digital transformation. Most respondents to the WBBA’s Thought Leadership Enterprise Survey stated that they need faster and more reliable internet to run their business applications.
Certainly, in the short to medium term, xDSL, cable modem, fixed-wireless access (FWA), and satellite are all expected to have a role in the delivery of broadband services. However, full-fiber access will always deliver the optimum experience and remains the most sustainable and cost-efficient option.
There is a danger therefore for governments to base their cost-benefit analysis on a national economic view. However, such analysis will miss all the social benefits, as well as the more local economic benefits, that advanced broadband networks can bring. Governments must take all benefits into account, including more localized ones, when creating national broadband policies.
However, future applications will not only need ultra-high-speed services but also ultra-low latency and jitter, with high levels of reliability and consistency if they are to function properly. Countries with networks that are not capable of meeting such criteria will be left behind as the world moves to the next phase of internet applications such as the “metaverse.”
Fiber networks are significantly more environmentally friendly than equivalent copper-based networks, and can help support other green initiatives such as greater working from home, the use of advanced videoconferencing, etc. Fiber-based networks also require less maintenance due to there being less active equipment in the field, and can therefore reduce operators’ operational costs.
With rollout of new access technologies like 5G and Fiber, IPv6 reached more than 30% penetration worldwide (APNIC) and is rapidly growing. IPv6 Enhanced technologies, including segment routing over IPv6, per flow monitoring and AI, enable a multitude of objects and people to be flexibly connected to the proper services, granting end-to-end quality of experience.
Based on the responses from the WBBA Thought Leadership Survey, respondents believed, on average, this coverage could be expanded to approximately 70% through private investment. It is clear that government support will be needed to get to 100%.
However, a lack of data on the available infrastructure, access to key infrastructure such as ducts and in-building networks, and a lack of understanding both internally and externally are also key barriers to further investment.
Respondents to the WBBA survey stated that a reduction in regulatory barriers, greater flexibility in partnership arrangements, copper switch-off regulations, and setting out minimum service standards for network installations, would all take priority over financial support.

Recommendations

All countries must look to maximize the potential of broadband. This means creating long-term national broadband plans that evolve around three basic phases of broadband adoption:

  • Phase 1: Fast deployment of basic connectivity (most likely focusing on wireless technologies)
  • Phase 2: Continued rollout of fixed-broadband access to 100% of premises
  • Phase 3: Continued investment in advanced broadband technologies to move to gigabit societies and beyond.

In order to help facilitate this evolution to advanced broadband networks, government organizations and regulators must consider:

  • Implementing regulatory flexibility, including the removal of outdated or non-essential regulation
  • Introducing flexibility in partnership arrangements; for example, allowing agreements between players, such as co-financing, collaborative models, public-private partnerships, etc.
  • Facilitating deployment through municipality approvals, using existing resources (government buildings, streetlights, ducts, etc.) and sharing infrastructure and facilities, including in-building networks. This should also include other types of utility infrastructure where possible
  • Providing financial assistance through investment support, incentives, and subsidies; e.g., universal service funds
  • Improving access to telecom facilities and physical infrastructure; improving procedures for rights of way and accessing public infrastructure, as well as broadband mapping.
Making the Recommendations a Reality

Operators, enterprises, vendors, regulators, and policy-makers should seek to create a collective voice, to evangelize, advocate, co-create, and partner in the drive toward the provision of ultra-broadband networks and services for all. Organizations such as the WBBA can help by influencing key stakeholders through discussion, education, and promotion. Specifically, the WBBA should aim to:

  • Set out the importance of greater broadband investment, not just for the good of the service provider but for countries as a whole
  • Promote regulatory, legislative, public relations agendas that help advance the interests of members through WBBA publications and live events, highlighting best-practice business models from around the world to remove any “lack of understanding at boardroom level”
  • Influence through research, discussion, and promotion of new potential marketing or naming concepts for fixed broadband to ease mass-market understanding of the different generations of broadband access – hiding technical jargon such as “Mbps,” “latency,” and “jitter” from the customer
  • Through thought leadership, media activity, and live events, continue to make the case for what governments need to recognize and do to close the industry innovation, socioeconomic, and environmental benefit gaps through infrastructure investment
  • Explore through new research the challenges and opportunities arising from changes in the industry structure, addressing its impact on the business and the standardization landscape. This includes aspects of fiber wholesale, the move toward horizontal industry structure with separation of infrastructure and services, and the change of customer relationship to digital
  • Work with stakeholder partners to understand and promote the potential of future applications that will bring new benefits to broadband customers and wider society
  • Develop in-depth thought-leadership research on the new revenue opportunities advanced networks can provide to service providers in both the consumer and enterprise markets
  • Develop and highlight best-practice investment models that show the true return on investment of a full-fiber rollout to both private companies and government organizations
  • Champion the needs of its members to highlight barriers to future investment, creating a platform to enable open discussion between different types of stakeholder to encourage greater cooperation and new partnerships.

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