In a blog post published earlier this week, details were provided on why CommScope unexpectedly decided to acquire the cable assets of Casa Systems for $45.1 million. The primary reasons discussed included strengthening CommScope’s cable presence and achieving the necessary scale for the transition to virtualized Cable Modem Termination Systems (vCMTS).
Another significant factor in CommScope’s decision to pursue this acquisition is the access Casa’s already-deployed Axyom vBNG (Virtual Broadband Network Gateway) platform to complement CommScope’s PON OLT and ONT platforms and provide operators with a more comprehensive fiber portfolio. The Axyom vBNG has already been deployed with Mexico’s Izzi as well as with other tier 1 operators that have not yet been announced publicly.
Similar to the vCMTS market, the vBNG market is still in its early stages of development, though vBNG deployments are expected to increase significantly in 2025 and beyond as operators continue to move away from BNG functions integrated directly on centralized, hardware-based edge routers, and look to separate control and user plane functions.
vBNGs serve as the access point for broadband subscribers, managing the connection between their modem and the service provider’s broadband network. vBNGs authenticate and manage those subscriber sessions, aggregate the sessions, and then route them to the service provider’s network. Additionally, vBNGs offer traffic shaping functions to deliver Quality-of-Service (QoS) features for specific subscribers, such as traffic prioritization and rate limiting.
As Fiber to the Home (FTTH) deployments and subscriber sessions continue to increase, operators will need to scale and distribute their BNGs to enhance network resilience and simplify IP address management and subscriber authentication at the edge rather than backhauling all of that traffic to a centralized BNG. This is as much the case for larger, tier 1 operators as it is for smaller operators who don’t necessarily need a large, centralized BNG. vBNGs running on COTS servers provide all operators with the flexibility to scale their throughout and simultaneous session management with their subscriber base.
Operators such as AT&T, Deutsche Telekom, Telefonica, Vodafone, and Comcast are all active in the standardization and development of vBNGs and there is a growing population of smaller ISPs trialing vBNGs from a group of vendors that include Casa Systems, Ciena, NetElastic, Six Wind, 5X9 Networks, UfiSpace, DriveNets, rtBrick, and Nokia.
Certainly, with the ongoing global subsidization efforts to expand fiber access, now is the right time for operators to begin rethinking how they architect their subscriber management functions. Even beyond fiber, fixed wireless access (FWA) providers are also looking at vBNGs that can provide the Access Gateway Function (AGF) of a 5G core. The AGF provides nearly all the same functionality of a vBNG, but is also focused on facilitating the interworking of wireline devices with the 5G core. For any mobile operator delivering FWA services, the AGF can play a critical role in the management and authentication of FWA CPE and subscriber sessions.
