The Headlines

How the quantum era is shaping broadband network security

CEO’s note

With just over a month until the BBF Spring 2026 Member Meeting, I am looking forward to being reunited with our community for what promises to be incredibly important week.

Our time in Melbourne, Australia, will begin with the BASe Summit Australia, bringing together top thought leaders to examine the future of technology innovation and the challenges and opportunities for the broadband sector in the years ahead.

For our members, the Spring Member Meeting provides a crucial platform for face-to-face interaction and collaboration, as we continue to develop and refine globally-adopted technical specifications. Alongside this, our Town Hall Innovation Series (THIS) will be focusing on Open Access/Wholesale delivery and Retail Service Provider needs. It’s a must-attend event, where experts with first-hand knowledge will explore how wholesale broadband must evolve to meet both regulatory realities and increasing subscriber expectations.

I feel open access or wholesale models have three key challenges before becoming truly “Services-Led”. This includes:

• Increased and flexible differentiation of services from the wholesale provider to the retail service provider all the way to the subscriber’s applications.
• The improvement of visibility and measuring Quality of Experience (QoE) across both the layer 2 and layer 3 networks.
• Ensuring the security and control of every peering point within an evolving open access network architecture for the subscriber, wholesale provider, the retail ISP and the application providers.

I encourage you all to participate and join the conversation in Melbourne.

• Craig Thomas, CEO at Broadband Forum

Thank you to our Media Partner:

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Contribute to the future of broadband and work with the Broadband Forum!

The BASe Summit Australia 2026, co-hosted with NBN Co, will set the stage and serve as a thought-starter for the Broadband Forum’s series of events in the country. You can register and view the full agenda here.

Registration is now open for Broadband Forum’s upcoming Spring Member Meeting 2026, taking place in Melbourne, Australia, from March 24^th – 27^th. Early Bird Registration ends February 23^rd, so register today to benefit from the  discounted prices, here.

Join us for the last webinar in our Omdia Survey series, focusing on the “Future of the Connected Home” survey and report. Make sure to register to hear from some of the industry’s top thought leaders on February 19^th.

News and updates

Experts have warned that quantum computing could compromise today’s broadband encryption methods as early as 2030, with ‘harvest now, decrypt later’ attacks already being a concern. Catch up with this, and other presentations related to the quantum era in a blog recapping the Broadband Forum’s Town Hall Innovation Sessions in the Fall, here.

Broadband Forum estimates that smarter power management in home devices could save 1.3TWh a year across Europe, enough to power about 70 small data centers. Updates to BBF’s TR-181 data model enable BSPs and manufacturers to design and introduce smarter and more sustainable products, without compromising performance. Read the full story in Data Centre Magazine.

Broadband Forum’s OB-STEER project has released the latest version of its open broadband software code. It offers a reference implementation of key elements from the Subscriber Session Steering architecture, currently being developed in the WT/TR-474 project and demonstrates how this approach can improve both network reliability and sustainability. You can learn more about how to access the code or get involved in this project, here.

At the most recent Broadband Forum Innovation Demonstrations at Network X, a collaborative, multi-vendor project showcased how standardized tools can bridge the wholesale/retail visibility gap to provide a unified picture of network health. Learn more about the “Performance Monitoring for SLA Compliance: Bridging the Wholesale-Retail Gap” demonstration, here.

FANS returned to the Broadband Forum Innovation Demonstrations, specifically targeting wholesale and open access networks. Learn more by watching the demonstration video, here.

Planning for the 2026 Innovations Demonstrations has begun. The Innovation Demonstrations foster collaboration, innovation, and demonstrate industry leadership. They provide a valuable feedback loop that helps us improve our  standards, while shaping future Broadband Forum work with real-world implementation experience. Learn more here (must be BBF member to view).

Technology Spotlight

Wholesale broadband

The way wholesale broadband has been regulated has remained the same since the xDSL era. That framework served the industry well at the time, but today’s networks look very different. Access technologies are more diverse, and service delivery is more agile and visible. At the same time, wholesale models are expanding globally just as network architectures are being reshaped by data centers, metro edge computing, and AI/ML Cloud.

During the upcoming Town Hall Innovation Sessions, there is a rich number of service providers presenting and asking questions on how the traditional and regulated models for wholesale broadband need to evolve to meet new market dynamics such as:

• How to add value to the retail service provider and end subscriber beyond simple speed-based wholesale packages
• How to successfully deliver and monitor QoE
• The impact of new architectures such “Telco Edge” or Metro Edge Compute
• Where do AI agents and Agentic AI fit and their feasible roles in the broadband wholesale environment

Upcoming events

• ‘The Future of the Connected Home’ Omdia Survey Webinar Series: February 19^th
• BASe at OFC 2026: March 19^th
• BASe Summit – Australia 2026: March 23^rd
• Town Hall Innovation Series – March 24^th
• Spring Member Meeting 2026: March 24^th – 27^th
• Broadband Forum PON Plugfest at LANPARK’s Laboratory: April 20^th – 24^th

Get involved in our most recent projects!

[Service Requirements] AI in Broadband Networks: Applications and Technologies

This project aims to provide guidance for service providers on network development under AI trends with new AI service development, new network capability deployment, and new network operations methodologies.

Our latest certifications

BBF 369 USP Products (testing services provided by approved laboratory, University of New Hampshire InterOperability Laboratory)

• Zyxel: EE4600 USP Agent Certification Derivative product

BFF 247 GPON ONU Products (testing services provided by approved laboratory, LANPARK)

• Askey: RTF8316VW-SX
• ZTE: F8748V3.0 | F6705V11.2
• TP-Link: XZ000-G7
• Arcadian: Nautilus
• Heights Telecom: HT-370BE
• Sagemcom: SagemcomFast5698_OPL
• Comtrend: GRG-4355u
• Huawei: V581S
• Tozed Kangwei Tech Co., Ltd: ZLT G304VA (VEIP)| ZLT G304VA (PPTP) 

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