The Broadband Forum has announced the release of code and supporting documentation for Broadband Access Abstraction (OB-BAA), the first code release for the Open Broadband project.

The code and documentation offer an alternative approach for telcos looking to upgrade networks ahead of the anticipated stress caused by the introduction of more accessible and faster connectivity. The aim is to facilitate coexistence, seamless migration and the agility to adapt to an increasingly wide variety of software defined access models.

“OB-BAA enables operators to optimize their decision-making process for introducing new infrastructure based on user demand and acceptance instead of being forced into a total replacement strategy,” said Robin Mersh, Broadband Forum CEO. “By reducing planning, risks and execution time, investment in new systems and services can be incremental.”

The Forum’s Open Broadband initiative has been designed to provide an open community for the integration and testing of new open source, standards-based and vendor provided implementations. The group already counts support from the likes of BT, China Telecom, CenturyLink and Telecom Italia, as well as companies such as Broadcom and Nokia on the vendor side.

OB-BAA specifies northbound interfaces, core components and southbound interfaces for functions associated with access devices that have been virtualized. The standardized approach, specifically designed for SDN automation, is what Broadband Forum claims differentiates the launch from other approaches with the benefit of removing the hardware/software decoupling process.

“The first release of OB-BAA marks a major milestone for the industry,” said Tim Carey, Lead Technology Strategist at Nokia. “It delivers an open reference implementation based on standards-compliant interfaces, that operators and vendors worldwide can use to develop and deploy interoperable cloud-based access networks more easily and quickly.”

While this is the first release of the group, the Broadband Forum has promised several planned releases, consisting of code and supporting documentation.