A united voice for Broadband

Overview:

An Omdia report found the fixed broadband industry was facing a number of challenges, including inequality of broadband access, lack of impactful regulation and policy, and difficulty in ensuring sustainable service provider ROI. To address these challenges and accelerate development to meet demand and provide key social and economic benefits, Informa Tech worked with key industry stakeholders to create the World Broadband Association (WBBA), a community that brings together industry stakeholders to share knowledge, build partnerships, and influence industry progress on key topics.

Challenge:

The fixed broadband industry is fragmented, with many different players and no clear market voice. This makes it difficult to address the challenges facing the industry, such as inequality of broadband access, lack of impactful regulation and policy, and difficulty in ensuring sustainable service provider ROI.

Solution:

The WBBA was created to advance the interests of its members in the broadband industry through a variety of activities, including advocacy, events, and knowledge-sharing.

17,000

Unique Site Viewers (2022–23)

Association Members*

Board Members

1,115

White Paper Downloads

Omdia identifies industry challenges

In late 2020, a report produced by Omdia, Informa Tech’s research and consulting arm, ‘Delivering on the promises of broadband’, found the fixed broadband industry was facing several challenges. These challenges included inequality of broadband access, lack of impactful regulation and policy, and difficulty in ensuring sustainable service provider return on investment. >

The report sparked further discussion between Informa Tech and key industry stakeholders, identifying a potential issue that the fixed broadband industry is fragmented, with many different players across the ecosystem. Ultimately, the industry needed a collective market voice; a community that would come together on a regular basis to talk about and address its challenges. The World Broadband Association (WBBA) was created to meet this need.

The WBBA is created

The WBBA was launched in 2021 with founder members Huawei, Nokia, Openreach, Swisscom, China Telecom, Openserve, Chorus and Algerie Telecom.

Informa Tech facilitates the association by providing WBBA’s research, digital media and events. The WBBA now gives the industry a collective market voice in four key ways:

Promoting regulatory, legislative and public relations agendas that help advance the interests of members through topic-specific working groups and thought leadership
Organising physical events, such as summits at MWC Barcelona and MWC Shanghai, (as well as Informa Tech’s own Network X and other bespoke events) and webinars, providing members with opportunities to network, learn from each other, and share best practice
Shaping opinion, raising awareness, influencing the industry Providing a platform for community knowledge-sharing and partnership-building between cross-industry stakeholders.

“We are part of the WBBA to ensure we have a voice as an industry.”

JB Rousselot
CEO, Chorus

“The World Broadband Association provides industry-leaders, OEMs and Telcos, a platform to collaborate and drive a common goal.”

Sunil Piyarlall
Executive for Network Architecture and Modelling, Openserve

“The WBBA is going to be key in bringing together the industry stakeholders to work on closing the digital divide.”

John Hoffman
CEO & Director, GSMA Ltd.

A global organisation and powerful advocate

Although a young organisation, the WBBA has already made significant progress in addressing the challenges faced by the fixed broadband industry and has been a powerful advocate for the interests of its members. It is now a global organisation, bringing together representatives from across the sector to share knowledge, build partnerships, and influence the industry on key topics.

^{* Number of Association Members grows weekly; figure correct as of 14 August 2023}