prpl Foundation Fast-Track programme to accelerate CPE launches
Details
John Moulding
| 12 October 2023
3 prpl Foundation Fast Track programme to accelerate CPE launches

A new ‘Fast-Track’ programme devised by the prpl Foundation aligns telcos, chipset manufacturers and broadband customer premise equipment vendors for the creation of new consumer and business-centric devices. It is expected to reduce time-to-market.

prpl Foundation says the Fast-Track programme will foster greater open-source innovation across the wireless and wireline broadband access technology industry. Two cornerstones of the prpl Foundation, MaxLinear and Qualcomm, have already signed up for the programme. They have contributed extensive resources and carrier-grade Wi-Fi 6E CPE to the development community and as a result their chipsets will now be considered the reference platforms for the prpl Foundation going forward.

By the end of the third quarter of 2023, the first ever open-source Wi-Fi 7 based hardware platform based on prplWare will be available to the operator and service provider community for integration with future CPE.

“Standardisation of software platforms is essential for successful developments, but this can only be achieved so long as the service providers and system operator community work together efficiently”, says Wayne Daniel, Senior Director of Technology at Qualcomm. “The Fast-Track programme designed by the prpl Foundation will offer long-term support to all involved parties and provide a greater framework and opportunity for technological advancement. It was an easy decision for Qualcomm to get involved.”

The prpl Foundation is the open-source community dedicated to open APIs and open industry standards, focusing on carrier-grade software for broadband customer premise equipment. It is expected the fast-track programme will foster even greater open-source innovation across the wireless and wireline broadband access technology industry.

Through the ‘Fast-Track’ program, chipset manufacturers and CPE manufacturers are empowered to contribute to a common software ecosystem, from which products can be developed and integrated quickly. Once evaluated and validated as part of prpl’s ongoing prplWare open-source software stack, the certified chipsets devised through the programme establish a strong Quality-of-Experience (QoE) for applications such as gaming, where minimal lagging and low-latency connectivity is essential.

The programme enables, for instance, greater packet acceleration for security and Wi-Fi sensing applications, speeding up innovations required for accurate event detection, home security, fire, and automation, alongside services that enable such programmes associated with residential and business functions.

“We are delighted to announce the creation of our game-changing Fast-Track programme”, declares prpl Foundation President Dr. Len Dauphinee. “As part of the process, chipset and CPE vendors will adapt their platform to run prplWare efficiently. The Fast-Track programme provides the tools required to accelerate market launches, with CPE receiving the highest recognition from our industry-leading organisation. We anticipate that the programme will accelerate the way chipsets are developed going forward.”

As part of the ‘Fast-Track’ programme, software developers will also design new features for prplOS - the foundational operating system component of the prplWare platform - alongside specific software components for prplMesh based on the new carrier-grade CPE. The prplMesh team will use the CPE for their development cycles, with the goal to complete R5 certification by the end of the year.

The new service provider and operator carrier-grade CPE will be utilised in the prpl Foundation’s Continuous Integration (CI) platform for the verification, testing and validation of key software component features.

Silicon vendors can participate in the ‘Fast-Track’ programme through prpl Foundation membership. “Additional chipset vendors are welcome to join the ongoing initiative as new chipsets supporting Wi-Fi 7 and future innovations evolve in the marketplace,” the organisation says.

The Fast-Track programme is one of the discussion points at the upcoming prpl Summit in Paris on Monday, October 23.