LF Broadband is pleased to announce the release of VOLTHA 2.15, a new version of the open source access platform that delivers important operational controls, enhanced observability, and continued improvements in stability and scale.
This release introduces four major feature enhancements requested by operators and vendors deploying VOLTHA in production environments, alongside a substantial set of bug fixes and performance optimizations across the platform.
What’s New in VOLTHA 2.15
PLOAM-Level ONU Disable / Enable Support
Operational teams often encounter situations where an ONU behaves unexpectedly – due to optics issues, firmware problems, or other faults – and begins interfering with upstream timeslots. VOLTHA 2.15 introduces a standardized way to disable or re-enable an ONU at the PLOAM level, allowing operators to isolate problematic devices without impacting the rest of the PON.
Key capabilities include:
- New protocol definitions to support ONU disable at the PLOAM level
- Two operational methods depending on ONU state:
- By serial number and interface ID (for ONUs not yet activated at the OLT)
- RPCs: DisableOnuSerialNumber, EnableOnuSerialNumber
- By ONU ID and interface ID (for ONUs already activated)
- RPCs at VOLTHA and OLT agent: DisableOnuDevice, EnableOnuDevice
- By serial number and interface ID (for ONUs not yet activated at the OLT)
This feature gives operators more precise control during fault mitigation and maintenance, improving network reliability and service continuity.
Enhanced Performance Management (PM) Statistics
VOLTHA 2.15 significantly enhances PM statistics to better align with real-world vendor implementations and high-speed PON technologies:
- Port statistics clarification: Metrics previously represented as packets are now enhanced to reflect frames, accommodating varying vendor definitions.
- XGSPON-ready counters: FEC and GEM counters in the OpenONU adapter have been updated to avoid overruns when collecting statistics at line rate on XGSPON ONTs.
- New upstream HEC error metric: Per-ONT statistics now include upstream HEC error counts retrieved from the OLT.
- New KPI event support: A new KPI event enables reliable publishing of 64-bit counters, including FEC and GEM statistics for XGSPON ONTs.
Together, these updates improve accuracy, interoperability, and observability across mixed-vendor and next-generation PON deployments.
OLT IP Address Update Without Reprovisioning
Prior to this release, changing the IP address of an OLT required deleting and re-adding the device, a disruptive and operationally expensive process.
VOLTHA 2.15 introduces:
- A new interface to update an OLT’s IP address
- Corresponding changes in adapters to apply the update seamlessly
This enhancement simplifies network reconfiguration, supports operational flexibility, and reduces downtime during infrastructure changes.
gRPC Statistics Enabled Across VOLTHA Modules
To improve platform-level observability, VOLTHA 2.15 enables gRPC statistics collection across VOLTHA services and libraries. This provides deeper insight into control-plane behavior and performance, supporting better monitoring, troubleshooting, and capacity planning in large-scale deployments.
Stability, Scale, and Reliability Improvements
Beyond new features, VOLTHA 2.15 includes a broad set of bug fixes, dependency upgrades, logging optimizations, and performance enhancements across:
- VOLTHA core services
- OpenOLT and OpenONU adapters
- PM collection, reconciliation, and scale handling
- Kafka, etcd, and gRPC interactions
These updates reflect continued investment by the LF Broadband community in hardening VOLTHA for production use at scale, including high-density and simulated 10K+ ONU environments.
Get Involved
VOLTHA is developed in the open by a global community of operators, vendors, and developers working together under LF Broadband. We encourage users to:
- Review the full change log
- Test VOLTHA 2.15 in their environments
- Share feedback and contribute to future releases
To learn more about VOLTHA and how to get involved, visit https://lfbroadband.org/projects/voltha/.
