prpl summit report

Two weeks ago, Maarten De Decker and I traveled to Dallas, Texas to join in the work for the prpl Summit. The advancements that have happened over the past year, and the trends in prpl are truly impressive, and we were anxious to share our experiences with the rest of the world. As the project manager for prplMesh, and one of the main organizers of the event, I was quite nervous about how things would turn out.

The day before the prpl summit we arrived at the lovely AT&T campus in the center of Dallas. After receiving our blessing from the golden God of communication (pictured), we got our badges and were shown to the room where we could begin to set up the prpl workshops and demo. Unpacking our suitcase containing the demo devices, we started quickly setting things up for the next day. After catching up with our colleagues from the other work groups, it was time to do some general repetitions and work out some last minute organizational issues. Since we were using the same demo setup, some last minute coordination needed to happen to make sure everything went smoothly.

As a Project Manager, I was in my element here: scheduling changes, switching to a different USP server at the last minute, arranging the various presentations into a cohesive whole, collaborating with the lovely AT&T events staff to make sure the correct presentations are loaded? I’ve got this!

On the day itself, we started the day with an explanation of prplOS, the bedrock of the system. This is what everything relies on, and Peter Steinhaeuser was really excited explaining the various facets of the project he’s lead all these years. There’s a lot of new functionality in prplOS, from support for new carrier-grade hardware, to the focus on the High-Level API and the new components extending the usefulness of the OS.

After a heartfelt welcome by AT&T Senior Vice President & Network CTO, Yigal Elbaz , Wouter Cloetens jumped in to talk about the Low Level API effort, and how prpl collaborates with vendors to standardize their APIs and open their architecture. Then, Nadjim Brahmi proceeded with a thorough examination of Ambiorix, the framework upon which we build our applications and connect them to the cloud via TR-181 APIs. The presentation was really on point – never have I heard Ambiorix explained more effectively! Then, John Blackford explained how OB-USPA interfaces with Ambiorix to provide cloud control, and Fabrice PREMEL told an enthralled audience how our LCM effort made deployment of apps a breeze, with downloadable containerized applications that add their own data models. Our CPEs have never felt more like Android tablets! Then, it was our turn.

Maarten and I climbed the stage, and explained the history of prplMesh, why it matters, and how it does its magic. With more and more operators deploying prplMesh, our home networks are becoming ever more efficient and easy to configure.

As we took a break for lunch, I reflected on how far we’d come within prpl, to have a full stack solution for operator CPEs that promotes open source, eases development, enables and encourages 3rd party apps, and gives the best QoE to wireless devices in the network.

For the rest of the day, we heard awesome testimony of the main players in the prpl ecosystem, from operators to SoC vendors, as well as app developers, and how prpl enables them to collaborate to create amazing operator-delivered user experiences in the home.

Overall, the message is unmistakable: open source, open standards and collaboration are here to stay, and will define the industry going forwards. And I’m excited to be a part of it.