At the recent Broadband Forum BASe Technical Summit in Munich, Abhilash Laxmeshwar of Radisys – co-chair of the LF Broadband VOLTHA Technical Steering Team – presented key updates on performance improvements in the open source VOLTHA project. His session offered an in-depth look at how the latest VOLTHA release is enabling greater scalability and resource efficiency, advancing the goal of disaggregated and virtualized access networks.
Testing at Scale with BBSIM and VGC
The presentation focused on performance benchmarks and optimizations between VOLTHA versions 2.12 and 2.13, using BBSIM (Broadband Simulator) to simulate OLTs and ONTs in a controlled environment. Testing ranged from 8,000 to 24,000 subscribers across different VOLTHA stack configurations, providing a real-world look at how VOLTHA behaves under scale.
A critical part of the testing stack was the introduction of the Voltha-Go-Controller (VGC), a new component introduced in VOLTHA 2.13. VGC streamlines control functions and plays a pivotal role in resource management under large subscriber loads.
Major Efficiency Gains in VOLTHA 2.13
One of the most notable outcomes from the v2.13 release is the dramatic reduction in memory consumption:
- ~70% reduction in memory usage in the OpenONU adapter.
- ~50% overall memory reduction across the VOLTHA vStack.
These results were observed in setups handling 24,000 subscribers distributed across three vStacks. Such efficiency improvements directly translate into cost savings for operators and improved network responsiveness for users.
Looking Ahead
Abhilash also outlined upcoming enhancements planned for future VOLTHA releases, including:
- Reduction in database operations during call flows to minimize load.
- Smarter reboot handling with configurable cleanup options for OLTs and ONTs.
- Lower CPU utilization across system components.
- Greater stability, especially under corner-case scenarios.
These planned improvements reflect VOLTHA’s continuous evolution toward supporting carrier-grade performance for open and disaggregated fiber networks.
Open Source at the Core of Innovation
This presentation reinforced VOLTHA’s role as a cornerstone of LF Broadband’s mission to accelerate broadband innovation through open collaboration. As deployments scale and architectures evolve, VOLTHA is proving to be a robust, flexible foundation for operators embracing software-defined access.
For more information about VOLTHA or to get involved, visit https://lfbroadband.io/projects/voltha.
