RDK partners with WBA

RDK has become a member of the Wireless Broadband Alliance (WBA), marking a collaboration aimed at enhancing Home Wi-Fi and Internet of Things (IoT) initiatives. Both WiFi and IoT are increasing in popular with billions of connected devices in daily use, but prone to issues including congestion, security and a poor user experience.

The partnership aligns efforts across broadband service providers, CPE manufacturers, SoC vendors, software developers, and system integrators.

Members of both organisations will collaborate on industry-wide projects such as Operator Managed Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi 7, and IoT, leveraging RDK for Broadband (RDK-B).

RDK, a joint venture of Comcast, Liberty Global, and Charter, manages an open-source software community with over 600 companies and deployed on over 100 million devices. The WBA is a global industry body dedicated to improving Wi-Fi standards and services.

Together, they aim to streamline Wi-Fi data collection, management, configuration, and optimization of home networks through innovative initiatives like the Operator Managed Wi-Fi (OMWi) reference architecture.

WBA CEO Tiago Rodrigues and RDK general manager Jason Briggs will discuss this collaboration at the upcoming annual RDK Global Summit in Amsterdam in September.

“The RDK community and the WBA share a common commitment to enable interoperability and innovation across the ecosystem of companies supporting today’s broadband service providers,” said Briggs. “The coordination between RDK’s open-source community of more than 600 companies, and leading industry organizations such as the WBA, is necessary to identify and address common technical challenges. By working together, we can enable service providers to spend more of their own efforts and resources on customer-facing applications and services that drive business results.”

“At the WBA, part of our core mission is to help move the industry forward by enabling collaborative opportunities for our members to enhance the Wi-Fi experience, and further aligning with RDK is an important part of that overall commitment,” added Rodrigues. “While we have different areas of focus, our organization’s efforts are highly complementary, and we look forward to supporting our respective member companies as they work on broadband initiatives that span the interests of both of our communities.”

Meanwhile, another industry group, the Connectivity Standards Alliance, has unveiled the first full release of its security specification for IoT devices. The spec incorporates a certification programme to encourage compliance and transparency around key market regulations and benchmarks.