Fibre optic infrastructure is essential as the backbone of Internet traffic worldwide. Understanding the interplay and interconnection of these fibre optic backbones is, therefore, critical to developing a more complete picture of Internet resilience.
The Internet Society organized an Open Fibre Data Standard (OFDS) workshop hosted by the Giga Connectivity Centre in Geneva, Switzerland, from 19 to 21 May.
This was the first of several efforts we are leading to advance awareness and adoption of the OFDS worldwide since taking over the secretariat role this year. Learn more about OFDS below.
Sixteen representatives from UN organizations, multilateral banks, international non-profits, network operators, and experts in open data standards spent three days:
- Discussing and fast-tracking a multistakeholder governance mechanism for the standard to ensure that its evolution reflects the needs of its constituency.
- Planning the technical evolution of the standard and the development of software tools to facilitate the adoption and implementation of the standard
- Developing a sustainability plan for the growth of the initiative.
Priorities that emerged from the workshop included:
- A website and supporting communication material to support the standard, including informational, advocacy, and technical resources.
- Identifying a Minimum Viable Dataset that would constitute the minimum set of OFDS data to comply with the standard.
- Easy-to-use conversion tools to support the creation of OFDS datasets.
- An appealing demo of OFDS mapping to demonstrate potential.
- Governance and fundraising mechanisms to oversee, support, and sustain the standard long term.
What’s Next
Participants agreed that an interim overall OFDS governance group should be established to guide work on the standard and supporting activities over the next 12 months.
This group will oversee the three agreed-upon thematic working groups (Table 1) and dissolve when it achieves the key milestone of designing and implementing a multistakeholder governance mechanism for the standard.
| Working Group | Focus | Participants |
|---|---|---|
| Tools Working Group |
| AFRALTI Digital Economy Giga Guifi.net Internet Society Open Data Services UNICEF |
| Standard Development Working Group |
| |
| Advocacy Working Group |
|
This is the first of five workshops we plan to hold in 2025. Email us if you’re interested in hosting one or having us present on the initiative to your group.
The Open Fibre Data Standard (OFDS) is an open data, open standards initiative supported by the Internet Society.
It describes what data to publish about fibre optic networks, and how to structure and format data for publication and use. It does so through common concepts and definitions about what fibre network data should contain and how it should be structured. The standard also includes guidance and tooling to support the publication and use of fibre network data in various formats to suit most user needs.
Established in 2022, the OFDS has been developed in collaboration with the World Bank, International Telecommunications Union, Mozilla Corporation, Liquid Intelligent Technologies, CSquared, and Digital Council Africa.