Communications networks infrastructure specialist CommScope announced on Nov. 17 that it has collaborated with RDK Management on the availability of the User Services Platform (USP) Agent implementation for the RDK community. The USP, as defined in TR-369, is the latest Broadband Forum remote management and control protocol for the connected home.
“CommScope has been a major contributor and proponent to USP in the industry,” said John Blackford, Product Management Director, CommScope. “This new RDK integration of USP will benefit existing TR-069 deployments as they migrate to USP.”
CommScope notes it has been instrumental in advancing USP in the industry, with its initial contribution of source code to seed an open source USP Agent project called OB-USP-Agent, and its continuing support to improve the open source project as the USP specification evolves. OB-USP-Agent was integral in the validation of the Broadband Forum’s BBF.369 USP compliance program, and is the open source solution that has been contributed and integrated with RDK for broadband.
CommScope's Blackford, who also is the OB-USP-Agent project lead, noted that CommScope’s existing ECO solution, deployed globally for TR-069 management in millions of devices, has been enhanced with USP support and has already been deployed into broadband service providers to manage USP devices.
“The contribution of this new remote management protocol is particularly important to telco broadband service providers that now have more options when deciding which protocol to use for remotely managing the devices in the home network,” said Steve Heeb, President of RDK. “CommScope has been a leader within the RDK community for years, and we are grateful for their continued efforts to serve the needs of RDK service providers around the globe.”
With USP integrated into RDK for broadband, the option to remotely manage the connected home via an interoperable and standard-based protocol opens the industry up to more possibilities including managing home security and automation. The testing tools provided by QA Cafe and CDRouter, along with CommScope and other TR-069 ACS providers, have adapted their solutions ensuring that customer premise equipment providers and operators can quickly implement USP for RDK.
“Vodafone believes that USP is the right protocol for the modern era of real-time telemetry, massive expansion of devices in the connected home, gateways providing more services beyond connectivity and the use of AI/ML to optimize performance and automate closed-loop service assurance,” asserted Gavin Young, Head of Fixed Access Center of Excellence, Vodafone. “The integration of the USP agent into RDK is a positive sign of increasing industry convergence on this approach.”