What struck me most was the way the conversation wasn’t about replacing fixed wireless with fiber, but rather creating a powerful hybrid approach. Fiber, with its xPON technology, offers undeniable advantages in bandwidth, cost, and future-proofing. Having said that, fixed wireless that played a vital role in getting internet access to these regions in the first place will continue to be used also in the future. The BEAD program recognizes this. It’s about empowering stakeholders with a broader toolkit. This hybrid approach unlocks a more robust internet experience for rural communities, leveraging the strengths of both technologies.

Of course, there are challenges. Wireless ISPs will need to adapt and acquire new skills in fiber optic deployment to fully tap into BEAD funding. But there’s also a huge opportunity. Many fixed wireless vendors are already being proactive, integrating xPON into their offerings.

This is where Ethernity Networks (ENET) comes in. Their experience in Carrier Ethernet, xPON, and system-on-chip components positions them perfectly. They can provide cutting-edge solutions for both fixed wireless vendors and ISPs looking to embrace the hybrid model. ENET’s leadership in switching and xPON technologies allows them to tailor cost-effective solutions for diverse deployment scenarios. No matter the specific needs of a rural community, they can offer a solution that leverages the strengths of both fiber and wireless, including support for wireless transmission over xPON to allow extension of wireless antenna closer to the customer . What truly excites me is ENET’s OEM-focused business model. This collaborative approach ensures a smooth transition for vendors, ultimately benefiting rural communities by accelerating their access to high-speed internet.

The BEAD program and the rise of xPON represent a $42 billion market opportunity. ENET’s commitment to a fiber-wireless future, combined with their expertise and partnerships, positions them as a frontrunner. As rural communities embrace the hybrid model, ENET is poised to be a trusted partner, bridging the digital divide and unlocking a brighter future for all.

Ilan Tevet

VP Marketing and Business Development

As 5G, IoT, and other applications look to the edge to satisfy increasing demands, communication service providers are seeking solutions that allow them to operate at the network edge with both high bandwidth and low latency, while maintaining a small physical footprint (in terms of space and power consumption) and reducing TCO.

Software-based solutions are a good start, but they simply cannot provide the required performance with CPU-based hardware. The hardware itself must provide acceleration by way of offloading the data path from the CPU. Let’s examine three trends that will become more prominent in 2020 in which hardware-based acceleration will enable edge networking.

#1: Telcos will seek flexibility at the network edge by turning to FPGA-based disaggregated solutions for networking and security.

Network operators want to disaggregate their network equipment so their systems can keep up with evolving standards and requirements, especially at the network edge. However, simply separating the hardware and software is not enough.

Even if telecom companies attain full agility when it comes to software, that only means they can adjust their control plane configurability. As long as they rely on ASIC-based switch silicon, they will be locked into the data plane functionality available on their silicon ASIC (which often lacks many of today’s most advanced features), not to mention being locked into a specific hardware vendor.

FPGAs are the platform that is missing to enable true hardware disaggregation, with complete flexibility in both the control and data planes. They provide the performance of ASIC-based solutions, along with a flexible and programmable platform to assure that operators are free to add or change functionality as needed down the road.

In 2020, the trend will be for operators to use FPGAs for switch/routers at the edge of their networks, as they seek to meet the demands of 5G and IoT.

#2:  Operators will begin to realize that the performance they are currently receiving from software-based user plane functionality (UPF) is nowhere near good enough for full 5G rollouts. They will therefore begin turning to hardware-based acceleration.

One of the key pieces to achieving 5G benchmarks is accelerating the user plane function (UPF), which serves as the data plane of 5G networks. UPF is currently handled in software, but this presents several issues, especially as operators consider moving their UPF toward the network edge.

Several CPU cores must be fully engaged to produce 5G data transfer. This takes up valuable space and power resources at the edge and keeps those cores from being used for the control and application functions for which they are intended.

An ideal UPF deployment would combine the flexibility of software-based virtualization with the performance of well-designed ASIC silicon. The solution is to accelerate the UPF by offloading the data plane to programmable hardware, ideally using FPGAs. Their reprogrammability means that they are flexible enough to handle changes and advances in 5G as the protocols and standards evolve.

In 2020, more operators will turn to FPGA-based hardware to accelerate their user plane functionality at the edge, producing the required performance improvements to achieve 5G at its full potential.

#3:  Telecom operators and enterprises will turn to FPGAs to accelerate SD-WAN deployments as legacy systems struggle to meet new throughput demands.

SD-WAN (software-defined wide area network) technology has been instrumental in allowing global businesses to connect and communicate between their headquarters and branch locations.

However, there are limits to what legacy SD-WAN systems can handle. As enterprises seek to connect hub-and-spoke installations such as data center to data center, cloud aggregation to endpoints, telecom central office to end users, and business campus aggregation to local enterprise devices, companies are relying more on high-speed communication and need bandwidth over 1Gbps. Under these conditions, legacy systems falter.

Rather than investing in an advanced SD-WAN system that can handle higher throughput, businesses can keep their existing server/processor system, while offloading the data plane to an FPGA-based SmartNIC to accelerate their SD-WAN solution.

This also allows companies to instantly and transparently gain these other benefits of FPGA-based SD-WAN acceleration:

• Higher throughput
• Reprogrammability to adapt to evolving requirements
• Usability with existing uCPE (universal customer premises equipment)
• Extremely low latency
• Low power consumption
• Highly deterministic performance
• Support for IPSec security protocol

In 2020, businesses will increasingly adapt their existing infrastructure to meet growing bandwidth requirements by using FPGA SmartNICs to accelerate their SD-WAN solutions.

The full version of this blog was featured in The Fast Mode’s 2020 Trends and Outlooks series. You can access that article here.

By Brian Klaff

Will this be the Year of the Edge?

AT&T says yes. Emphatically. An AT&T executive recently declared it so, in explaining how the carrier is now prioritizing edge computing and delivery of powerful edge capabilities to business customers.

That includes building 5G and edge technologies together and working with cloud providers to add edge technology into its network centers as they are upgraded for 5G.

“Our entire edge strategy is based around what our customers actually need and solving real problems for them,” said Executive VP Mo Katibeh in a blog post. “We are trying new things. Proving new concepts. Building new capabilities.”

AT&T is hardly alone in its emphasis on the edge. This is where the action is, and it is where we at Ethernity have been focused for some time now. Our white paper on the edge addressed in depth the edge environment, its unique needs, and how SmartNIC data acceleration can ensure that the edge lives up to its potential.

In fact, we would go so far as to say you can’t really have a Year of the Edge without a Year of Acceleration. There are challenges at the edge that simply can’t be overcome without hardware-based network acceleration, ideally in the form of FPGA-based SmartNICs.

When virtual networking applications are run through software programmed on legacy hardware, providers face severe challenges of space and power – particularly at the edge – to reach the growing number of users and devices. There is also the question of performance issues such as latency and jitter.

An FPGA-based SmartNIC solution can overcome these challenges. It offers scalable, deterministic performance with very low latency at a fraction of the space, power, and overall cost. These are critical elements at the network edge. The additional advantage is that a SmartNIC solution is secure, open, and fully programmable, helping to keep costs low going forward.

In fact, Analysys Mason in a recent technical white paper went so far as to say that the transformation of operators’ networks into software-defined, automated, cloud-native infrastructures in the era of 5G and the edge will only be possible with data plane acceleration technologies.

The bottom line, according to Analysys Mason, is that “Acceleration technologies will be pivotal to this transformation by enabling operators to meet the performance, latency, QoS, subscriber density and security requirements of existing and future applications with optimum TCO (total cost of ownership).”

Analysys Mason came to the same conclusion as an increasing number of vendors and service providers, that FPGA-based systems are the best choice for achieving this acceleration, thanks to their programmability.

When it comes to enabling the edge, it will be solutions such as Ethernity’s Router-on-NIC that help to enable acceleration, leveraging the capabilities of an FPGA-based SmartNIC to provide switch/router functionality and an NFVI gateway. The Router-on-NIC is really the ultimate solution for 5G UPF Acceleration, which the more enlightened leaders in the telecom industry already recognize as the key to achieving the potential of the edge and the performance benchmarks of 5G.

So as much as it may be the Year of the Edge, 2020 will also be the Year of Acceleration.

By Brian Klaff

China Mobile recently gathered the leading 5G hardware and software vendors to an “Open User Plane Function” conference, where they addressed the need to create a universal platform for user plane functionality (UPF), which is the data plane within a 5G network.

In other words, in the opinion of one of the world’s largest telecommunications operators, UPF appliances need to be both open and decoupled from the entire 5G infrastructure, in particular the SMF (session management function) block, which sends control information to the UPF. Keeping the control and data planes separate increases the flexibility of the network infrastructure and facilitates operation at the network edge.

China Mobile took this initiative because it recognizes that UPF can make or break a successful rollout of 5G. As 5G demands higher bandwidth, lower latency, and other performance improvements over 4G LTE networks, operators like China Mobile look to the network edge and even the “on-premises edge” to meet these requirements.

The user plane, where the data itself passes through, is the block that must be moved to the edge. Control and configuration, on the other hand, can be kept in a central location. In order to make this work, China Mobile is asking vendors to work together so the UPF can be open and separated from the software control plane.

China Mobile further believes that FPGA hardware is the right programmable platform to handle the user data plane. They therefore called for delivery of an FPGA SmartNIC to offload the data plane from the server CPU, further speeding up and improving the performance of the network. When it comes to creating a universal platform to handle the user plane function, this can be accomplished best with an FPGA, because of the following advantages:

• Far better performance (throughput, latency) than standard CPUs, which are simply not built for network data flow processing
• Small footprint and low power consumption, ideal for the network edge
• Runs on standard off-the-shelf servers, where the embedded FPGA itself is a COTS platform, as opposed to the dedicated hardware of an ASIC
• Can be reprogrammed as needed to meet evolving standards and requirements
• Highly reliable with fast failover
• Enhanced security with IPSec tunnel endpoint aggregation handled inline such that data never needs to access the CPU

China Mobile’s initiative is an excellent example of the trend toward hardware disaggregation in the network, separating control and user functions for true network function virtualization, while keeping the infrastructure agile enough to adapt to ever-changing standards and requirements.

China Mobile’s open user plane function policy will allow more Tier 2 vendors to compete to supply 5G solutions, as the operators will be empowered to select the optimal solution for UPF rather than rely on the Tier 1 ASIC suppliers for entire systems. With China the clear leader in 5G planning so far, such an initiative should also encourage other network operators in China and around the world to follow China Mobile’s example. Ethernity looks forward to working with system integrators on creating a universal platform for 5G networking and taking an active role in future discussions toward developing Open UPF.

Ethernity Networks has natively separated the data plane from the control plane in FPGA-based acceleration solutions for over 15 years, deploying more than 600,000 systems and connecting more than 100 million end users.

In fact, Ethernity provided an earlier generation of this solution over EPC as early as 2015 that has remained in deployment since then. With our ACE-NIC100 SmartNIC and Router-on-NIC FPGA firmware, Ethernity offers an optimized, next-generation solution for 5G UPF acceleration that achieves the required high-performance benchmarks of 5G by offloading the entire data plane to the FPGA.

To link to the original article in Chinese about China Mobile’s initiative, click here.

By Louis Luo