SANTA CLARA, CALIF. – August 7, 2017 – The prpl Foundation, an open-source, community-driven consortium with a focus on enabling the security and interoperability of embedded devices for the smart society of the future, today announced Vodafone Group has joined the Foundation. As a leading multi-national telecommunications provider and Europe’s fastest-growing fixed broadband provider, Vodafone joins prpl with the intent to accelerate the harmonization of software platforms for in-home devices like routers in order to foster innovation in the digital home and smart gateways.

Furthering its commitment to the work of the prpl Foundation, Vodafone Group’s head of fixed devices, connectivity & security, Enrique Marti del Olmo, will join the prpl Board of Directors, prpl’s Carrier Interest Group and the prplWrt Working Group to help make routers more open, interoperable and secure.

“With the formation of our Carrier Interest Group last year, we set out to strengthen the ties between telecommunications carriers, major chipset vendors and key open-source developers such as those in the OpenWrt community,” said Art Swift, president of the prpl Foundation. “Vodafone’s engineers have been closely following the work of our Carrier Interest Group and prplWrt working group for many months, and now with Vodafone’s active participation and planned open-source contributions, we expect the pace of innovation to accelerate.”

“Vodafone endorses the important open-source and specification work of the prpl Foundation. Increasingly, we see open-source software and open standards as critical to the successful deployment of fixed broadband devices like routers and the next generation of in-home services. By working together with prpl’s industrial and community members to integrate carrier-grade features into open-source platforms and establish open APIs, we believe we can improve quality, increase security and streamline development of fixed broadband products for the digital home market,” said Mr. Marti del Olmo.