BERLIN, October 23, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --
OpenSync™ creates the first multi-industry, open service curation, delivery, management and support
framework; benefits showcased by an eight-participant interoperability demonstration including Liberty Global, Bell Canada and
Comcast at the Broadband World Forum 2018
Following the large-scale deployment of residential Wi-Fi services relying on its core elements, the cloud managed
modern home services pioneer Plume, and the world's largest consumer electronics manufacturer Samsung announced the formation of
a new open source software initiative called OpenSync™. The initiative, whose elements have been deployed by Liberty Global, the
world's largest international TV and broadband company, Bell, Canada's largest communications
company, and Comcast, the largest broadband company in the US, creates a silicon, CPE, and cloud-agnostic approach for the
curation, delivery and management of emerging residential services leveraging managed Wi-Fi.
(Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/773368/Plume_and_Samsung_Infographic.jpg )
As the key enabler of this initiative, Plume has open sourced its previously proprietary Plume Middle Layer (PML)
software which has already been deployed in millions of homes globally to create the OpenSync™ framework. OpenSync™ operates
across residential gateways, modems, routers, access points, extenders, set-top-boxes, IoT hubs, smart speakers and other Wi-Fi
enabled CPEs to form a common cloud-to-hardware abstraction layer with open interfaces to cloud controllers. The OpenSync™
framework allows for curation, rapid and scalable delivery, comprehensive back office management, and enhanced support of
cloud-based services to the consumer.
OpenSync™ is available under a BSD-3 open source license and brings an open and
extensible framework to build cloud managed services. This framework is compatible with and leverages other open source
initiatives and industry alliances such as RDK, OpenWRT and prpl. OpenSync™ components have been pre-integrated into reference
designs and SDKs from the industry's leading silicon providers. OpenSync™ is compatible with and complimentary to the Wi-Fi
Alliance's Wi-Fi EasyMesh™ standard.
The benefits of OpenSync™'s all-inclusive, multi-vendor approach will be demonstrated at Broadband World Forum
2018, booth #MR15, Hall 21b where visitors will see interoperability of advanced gateways deployed
by Comcast incorporating RDK, advanced gateways deployed by Bell Canada and Liberty Global, gateways and extenders manufactured
by Sagemcom, Plume designed Pods and SuperPods manufactured by CIG, Sagemcom and Sercomm, and the Samsung SmartThings Wifi AI
based mesh system with IoT hub. The hardware featured in the demo use Wi-Fi silicon from three different leading SoC platforms.
Master coordination of the network is performed by the Plume Cloud, and features such as Adaptive WiFi™ performance optimization,
HomePass® guest and access controls, advanced parental controls with profiles, device and network security features are visible
through the Plume App and Samsung SmartThings App. Samsung's open SmartThings IoT ecosystem, compatible with hundreds of
third-party devices from popular brands complements this unprecedented demonstration of a multi-industry, multi-vendor,
multi-service, multi-silicon, and open-interface cloud managed home network facilitated by the OpenSync™ open source
framework.
The initial release of OpenSync™ focuses on whole-home Wi-Fi networking, management and control, the collection of
statistics using industry standard protocols such as MQTT, IoT device security, guest access management, and advanced parental
controls. Through the accommodation of additional open source components including Open Virtual Switch (OvS™) and OvSDB, and via
its managers, OpenSync™ forms the foundation of a truly open ecosystem that extends the scope of this open source effort far
beyond basic Wi-Fi mesh interoperability.
OpenSync™ - open service
curation, delivery, management and support framework
"Consumers today demand choice when bringing products and services into their home that work best for their
lifestyle, without being locked into any one ecosystem," said Chanwoo Park, Vice President and
Head of IoT Product & Service at Samsung Electronics. "Interoperability is central to our connected living strategy and
extends to our smart home devices. SmartThings Wifi, our tightly integrated mesh Wi-Fi router and smart home hub, leverages the
full OpenSync™ framework so people can implement the Wi-Fi solutions that work best with their home. The plug-n-play
compatibility of our solution with other partners adopting OpenSync™ delivers the best experience for consumers."
"Over the last few decades, the needs of the consumers shifted from Internet connectivity in order to be
productive, to performance for uninterrupted entertainment and around the clock social engagement," said Fahri Diner, co-founder
and CEO of Plume. "Driven by the influx of smart devices flowing into our homes, the next decade is all about personalization and
cross-platform experiences," Diner continued. "As the scales move from millions of homes, to billions of people, to trillions of
devices, we believe that carefully managed unlicensed spectrum and truly open frameworks become fundamental pre-requisites. This
was the primary motivation behind our decision to open source our widely deployed innovations."
"For Liberty Global, a critical element of exploiting our broadband capabilities and delivering a superior
connectivity experience to our customers is to ensure that we can continuously optimise Wi-Fi performance within a customer's
home. It is also clear to us that in creating those capabilities we need to intelligently optimise performance across homes in
close proximity to each another, which is common in our footprint," said Dan Hennessy, European
CTO of Liberty Global. "This is why we've already used elements of the OpenSync™ framework to optimise Wi-Fi in millions of homes
and look forward to investigating ways in which the initiative might be applied to other use cases that may benefit our
customers."
"Our partnership with Plume has enabled Bell to further our global leadership in the cloud-based managed Wi-Fi
solution. As the scope of our residential offerings expand beyond triple- or quad-play voice, video, data and mobile, we are
excited to continue to work with Plume to demonstrate OpenSync™ at BBWF here in Berlin," said
Shawn Omstead, Vice President, Residential Product Development and Management at Bell Canada.
"We've been using various elements of the OpenSync™ framework to power our highly popular Whole Home Wi-Fi service launched
earlier this year, and we're proud to be the first ISP to demonstrate an open source approach to supporting, managing and scaling
future services."
"We've realized tremendous value from the RDK software stack in our advanced gateways," said Fraser Stirling, Senior Vice President Digital Home, Devices & AI at Comcast. "Plume's PML is already
integrated with RDK and deployed within our footprint, and we look forward to incorporating additional
elements of OpenSync™ in the near future. The ability to deploy OpenSync™ atop the open-source RDK software further
demonstrates the power and versatility of our approach. With more than 40 million RDK devices deployed globally, the RDK
community is increasingly focused on new innovation for gateways and in-home mesh networking."
"The ability to run cloud augmented services such as Wi-Fi mesh, parental controls, and security on broadband
gateways is becoming an integral part of service provider offerings," said Greg Fischer, Senior
Vice President and General Manager, Broadband Carrier Access at Broadcom. "The standardization of the interface between the
gateway and the cloud is an important step to accelerate and scale the deployment of these services into the home network."
Plume's CEO and co-founder Fahri Diner will officially launch the OpenSync™ initiative during a keynote address at
the Broadband World Forum 2018 at 10:10 am on October 24. Samsung and
Liberty Global perspectives will be shared during a panel session at 3:35 pm on October 24. Plume's CTO Bill McFarland will discuss technical insights about
OpenSync™ at 2:30 pm on October 25.
Access to OpenSync™ software, documentation, and license terms and conditions are available at http://www.OpenSync.io
About Plume®
Plume is the pioneer of Adaptive WiFi™, the world's first self-optimizing Wi-Fi delivering reliable and consistent
Internet experience to every corner of the home, and the original designer and inventor of Wi-Fi Pods and SuperPods. Plume is
driven by the Plume Cloud, a powerful cloud-based control plane, enabling the most advanced, resilient home Wi-Fi solution due to
its ability to dynamically adapt and respond to changing network loads and interference. An open source common middle layer,
OpenSync™ can be integrated into third party hardware for connection to the Plume Cloud. Plume's cognitive service curation
platform enables a rich set of modern consumer services for the home which can run-on third-party hardware platforms and be
deployed at massive scale. Visit http://www.plume.com and http://www.platform.plume.com .
About Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.
Samsung inspires the world and shapes the future with transformative ideas and technologies. The company is
redefining the worlds of TVs, smartphones, wearable devices, tablets, digital appliances, network systems, and memory, system
LSI, foundry and LED solutions. For the latest news, please visit the Samsung Newsroom at http://news.samsung.com .
About Liberty Global
Liberty Global (NASDAQ: LBTYA, LBTYB and LBTYK) is the world's largest international TV and broadband company, with
operations in 10 European countries under the consumer brands Virgin Media, Unitymedia, Telenet and UPC. We invest in the
infrastructure and digital platforms that empower our customers to make the most of the video, internet and communications
revolution. Our substantial scale and commitment to innovation enable us to develop market-leading products delivered through
next-generation networks that connect 21 million customers subscribing to 45 million TV, broadband internet and telephony
services. We also serve 6 million mobile subscribers and offer WiFi service through 12 million access points across our
footprint. In addition, Liberty Global owns 50% of VodafoneZiggo, a joint venture in the
Netherlands with 4 million customers subscribing to 10 million fixed-line and 5 million mobile services, as well as
significant investments in ITV, All3Media, ITI Neovision, Casa Systems, LionsGate, the Formula E racing series and several
regional sports networks.
Wi-Fi EasyMesh is a trademark of the Wi-Fi Alliance®. OvS is a trademark of The Linux Foundation. Plume, Pod,
SuperPod, Adaptive WiFi, AI Mesh and HomePass are trademarks of Plume.
Plume Contact (Europe):
Olivia Tee
Bite UK
+44(0)7917-862383
olivia.tee@biteglobal.com
Samsung Contact:
Jen Stratton
Allison+Partners
+1-646-428-0624
SamsungSmartHome@allisonpr.com
Liberty Global Contact:
Matt Beake
+44-(0)20-8483-6428
mbeake@libertyglobal.com
SOURCE Plume and Samsung