Broadband Access Abstraction (BAA)

Broadband Access Abstraction (BAA) is the project opened in structure of the Broadband Forum (BBF) organization within the Open Broadband (OB) program and headed by Nokia company.

The initiative of Broadband Access Abstraction connected with developments of open source is designed to facilitate management of open multivendor access networks and to accelerate implementation of innovations, including software-defined networks of the fixed access.

The purpose of this project — to find an optimal variant of software implementation at the level of open BAA to liquidate dependence of customers on the equipment of this or that vendor and proprietary program functions using the standardized interfaces and separation of software solutions from hardware level.

Within the project experience in definition range of the network architectures answering to a wide range of operator needs and requirements is applied. As envisioned by BBF, work on specifications and program codes within one organization will accelerate a feedback and will facilitate development processes and testings.

2017: Nokia joined the project of BAA

On October 2, 2017 Nokia announced accession to an initiative of Broadband Access Abstraction (BAA) of the non-profit industry organization Broadband Forum. Within BAA the company is engaged in software development with the open code, in passing integrating efforts of vendors and operators and approving them with requirements of the industry to meet the needs of operators in all countries.

Nokia became the first vendor which made a contribution to development of open program codes for the project of BAA. The open code written in a full compliance with standard data models of BBF supports fixed functions of management and facilitates operation of multivendor, multitechnological access networks. It also helps operators and vendors to be focused on creation of the innovation cloud opportunities.

According to Robin Mersh (Robin Mersh), the chief executive officer of Broadband Forum, the contribution of Nokia to creation of the Open source software within an initiative of Broadband Access Abstraction will help to reduce terms and to simplify the processes directed to achievement of compatibility. Besides, operators will be able to create a standard template of cloud infrastructure for the central office. Having integrated open codes with industry specifications, Broadband Forum will be able to cooperate with community open source that will facilitate development processes and testings, he is convinced.

Together with BBF Nokia creates a flexible environment of cooperation in which the software will be developed for reuse by operators of networks of the fixed access around the world. Opening and standardizing the most common part of the network software, we get rid of need every time to write it again for each new technology, each vendor and each network point. Instead we can concentrate efforts on creating applications and the functions allowing networks to work quicker, better and more intellectually, for example: in the field of convergence of the fixed and mobile networks; implementations of fronthauling technology for 5G networks in the fiber-optical environment; automation of work and construction of networks with functions of self-curing and automatic optimization — Federico told Guienne (Federico Guillén), the president of division of the fixed Nokia networks.