OpenSync™ to be a Key Component of TIP Wi-Fi

Many companies are founded with the dream of changing the world. Only a few do, and even fewer do it in a large and permanent way. Today, with the announcement of the Telecom Infra Project (TIP) Wi-Fi Software Stack with OpenSync as a key component, the world has been permanently changed. 

Plume® had a dream of enabling innovative new services to be deployed rapidly into consumers’ homes, accelerating the benefits from a wide range of new technologies. Based in the cloud, with a flexible agent installed on devices in the home, Plume would relieve the bottleneck of deploying completely new firmware for each feature and enable learning across millions of homes. 
 
This approach has proved to not only be a successful technology but a successful business model. Several large service providers, including Bell Canada, Comcast, and Liberty Global have adopted the technology. Chipset vendors helped enable it, and several device manufacturers, including Samsung, put it on their platforms. 
 
At Plume we realized, the best way to change the world was to do it with partners. So, we open-sourced our agent, creating OpenSync in October of 2018. In just over a year’s time, OpenSync has had explosive growth. It is now present in over 15 million access points and devices and is helping manage over half a billion clients. Contributions to OpenSync have been made by a range of companies. New adopters include Charter Communications, Vodafone, J:COM, affiliate members of the National Cable Television Cooperative (NCTC), numerous independent service providers, and Samsung. Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) adopters include: Arris, Askey, CIG, Comtrend, Hitron Technologies, Kaon Media, Quanta, Samsung, Sagemcom, Sercomm, Technicolor, Tenda, TP-Link, and Ubee. Support and reference designs have been enabled by Broadcom, Celeno, Mediatek, Qualcomm, and Quantenna. 
 
Similar to Plume, the TIP Wi-Fi project group created in early 2019, sought to bring innovation to this technology domain, creating dis-aggregated solutions reducing vendor lock in and accelerating deployment of advances in Wi-Fi systems.  And like Plume, the TIP Wi-Fi project group is bringing forward an ecosystem centric approach to Wi-Fi system development, enlisting the collaboration of major service providers, OEMs, software and chipset vendors to create an open source Wi-Fi system. 

 
Given the similarity of goals and approaches, Plume became one of the pioneering companies in the Wi-Fi project group, and is contributing OpenSync to be part of the TIP Access Point Wi-Fi Software Stack. Additionally, we are committing our support to the community effort to create this new class of access point software stack to facilitate and catalyze ubiquitous interoperability across devices, operating systems, software, and services. What does this mean for the industry? 

• TIP, with the power of its hundreds of member companies and organizations spread across service providers, technology companies, developers, integrators, chipset, and device makers will expand OpenSync capability and availability in more markets and verticals.  

• OpenSync will be supported by multiple cloud vendors. Already, the management of the same access points with an identical OpenSync agent on them has been demonstrated with cloud management from Tanaza, ConnectUS, and Plume clouds. TIP is creating a Cloud Software Development Kit that will encourage additional cloud implementations. 

• The TIP open AP development will accelerate a robust roadmap and additional contributions, particularly in the areas of enterprise, service provider, small business, and public Wi-Fi. 

• TIP will create test labs that will provide development, performance, interoperability, and certification testing. 

The world has changed for the better. With OpenSync as a key component, and TIP taking a leadership role to drive the technology, we will build a future of fast, reliable access and new services that will change the way people live each and every day. 

Author: Bill McFarland, CTO, Plume

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