NBN Co tells iiNet: Use Broadcom chips in VDSL routers
ISP also planning Zigbee-powered connected home router
By Simon Sharwood, 24 Feb
2014http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/02/24/nbnco_tells_iinet_told_to_use_broadcom_chips_in_vdsl_routers/
iiNet, Australia's third-largest internet service provider in terms of
subscriber numbers, has been told by NBNCo that it should consider only
Broadcom chipsets for its future VDSL modems.
Simon Watt, head of iiNet's labs, told The Register the advice was not
prescriptive, but given the lead time required to develop customer premises
equipment the fact the suggestion has been made at all suggests NBNCo, the
entity building Australia's National Broadband Network (NBN), has gone some way
down the road towards consideration of the VDSL technologies it will use.
That NBNCo feels in a position to share the recommendation suggests VDSL will
certainly become a part of the network, regardless of the outcome of the
various reviews of the NBN curreently under way.
VDSL has been advanced a crucial part of the new government's plan, as it feels
a fibre-to-the-node (FTTN) rollout using VDSL will be faster and cheaper than a
fibre to the premises (FTTP) build. That VDSL successors, notably G.Fast, will
offer greater speed with a FTTN topography is also advanced as a reason VDSL is
a worthy broadband medium.
So what does Broadcom offer?
Here's what the company has to say about its Residential VDSL2/ADSL2+ Gateway
Solution:
“The BCM6368 combines a VDSL2/ADSL2+ transceiver and AFE with a
high-performance multicore MIPS32 CPU, ATM/PTM hardware SAR, hardware
packet-processing accelerator, Gigabit Ethernet switch core with four 10/100
Ethernet PHYs and dual GMII interfaces, dual USB Host/Device, multichannel
TDM/PCM bus, parallel expansion bus supporting CardBus, and mini-PCI into a
single high-performance monolithic device.
The VDSL2/ADSL2+ transceiver delivers 100 Mbps downstream and 50 Mbps upstream
(100 Mbps upstream with external AFE), enhanced QoS for IPTV video,
dual-latency framing, ATM or PTM physical layer, DSL channel bonding, and
embedded operations channels for remote management of the CPE.”
(Also)
A highly integrated, single-chip VDSL2/ADSL2+ integrated access device (IAD)
solution with seamless, multiuser support for 10/100/1000 Ethernet, USB 2.0
host and devices, ISDN, DECT™, multichannel VoIP, and IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n
wireless home networking
VDSL2/ADSL2+ auto-detecting, G.933.2 (G.vdsl2), G.992.1, G.992.2, G.992.3,
G.992.5, and T1.413-compliant DSL transceiver
High-performance VIPER™ CPU and special hardware accelerator support
simultaneous small packet routing at wirespeed, multichannel VoIP, multiport
Ethernet switching, IEEE 802.11b/g/n wireless networking, packet
encryption/decryption, and advanced applications, such as remote management via
TR-069
Integrated VoIP processing, using the widely deployed and fieldhardened
DSLxChange software, eliminates design complexity and cost
Other Broadcom VDSL chipsets are detailed here. Most offer comparable
specs.http://www.broadcom.com/products/Broadband-Carrier-Access/xDSL-CPE-Solutions
It's not hard to see why NBN Co and iiNet are both keen on the company's
chipset.
The former gets a market leader committed to standards. The latter, if it
adopts something along the lines of the BCM6368, gets extensibility that makes
it possible to build custom devices.
As it happens, that's just what Watt told The Register it hopes to create, in
the form of a Zigbee-equipped router that will be able to chat to various
devices around the home.
IiNet has begun to strike up relationships with third parties so it can gather
data from connected devices and turn the information they collect into services
for its customers.
The ISP has already created a Zigbee-packing power plug to measure power
consumption and imagines that such devices could become part of a future
product.
The reason for these efforts, Watt explained, is an attempt to differentiate
iiNet as more than just a bit-shifter, the better to encourage deeper and
longer-lasting relationships with customers. ®---
Cheers,Stephen
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