When it comes to unlocking doors to opportunities for bigger bandwidth, enhanced services and concerted expansion into enterprise markets, most domestic cable operators believe their innovation-focused industry association CableLabs holds the keys.
Rather than focus on a single technology or service, CableLabs forges ahead on numerous fronts – developing specs, interoperability testing and product certification - to help its cableco members understand the business of technology.
As they rapidly evolve from large, core cable TV business toward multiservice broadband residential services to include network services for small/midsize businesses and next-generation interactive TV services, these huge operators turn to CableLabs.
Among the big impact items being worked on are DOCSIS 3.0 and the Open Cable Applications Platform (OCAP), explains Gerry Kaufhold, principal analyst with In-Stat, a market research firm covering cableco and telco technology and business efforts.
“DOCSIS 3.0, which supports channel bonding for cable modems, and presents opportunities for a cable modem service to provide up to 160mbps of downstream peak bandwidth, along with the ability to provide up to 100mbps of peak upstream bandwidth,” says Kaufhold. “OCAP includes an Enhanced TV, or ETV, specification that will eventually be used to make it possible for digital cable TV systems to offer truly interactive ads, similar to what is happening today on the Broadband Internet.”
DOCSIS 3.0
The CableLabs Certified Cable Modem project, also known as DOCSIS (Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification), defines interface requirements for cable modems involved in high-speed data distribution over cable television system networks.
The project also provides cable modem equipment suppliers with a fast, market-oriented method for attaining cable industry acknowledgment of DOCSIS compliance and has resulted in high-speed modems being certified for retail sale.
“DOCSIS 3.0 is the hot item for this year,” says CableLabs CTO Ralph Brown. “We’ve been conducting interoperability tests and are very pleased with the results.” CableLabs will conduct qualification and certification testing later this year with anticipated product availability following shortly thereafter, he adds.
DOCSIS 3.0 is crucial to the present and future of cableco networks seeking more speed as broadband bundles proliferate and to support the addition of future bandwidth intensive video services.
Specifically 3.0 specifies downstream channel bonding to create bigger “pipes” akin to how DSL uses copper bonding to achieve the same goal. With the 3.0 channel bonding, connections of a minimum 160mbps downstream and 120mbps upstream are attainable, according to Brown. The latest DOCSIS version also supports IPv6 and better supports mechanism for IP multicasting for services such as IPTV.
“Cable operators are so anxious about 3.0 that many have begun pre-3.0 (approval) field trials in order to get early experience with its capabilities before the rollout of certified products,” claims Brown.
Soaring demand for really high-speed Internet service to the home is driving 3.0 quickly, according to John Holobinko, vice-president and general manager of the cable IP business group at BigBand Networks, Inc. which provide an array of infrastructure for cable operators.
“This will enable cable operators to offer 100 megabits downstream to customers for which there’s growing demand,” Holobinko says. His company a pre-3.0 product in late March that uses the 3.0 downstream with an upstream capability based on 2.0 to help cablecos while they await for the completion of the new spec process.
OCAP
The OpenCable, aka OCAP, effort began in 1997 with the goal of helping the cable industry deploy interactive services over cable. OCAP provides a set of industry specs that define the next-gen digital consumer devices, encourage supplier competition and create a retail hardware and software platform.
CableLabs says the OpenCable project has two key components: a hardware specification and a software specification. The hardware specifications describe both one-way and two-way digital cable-ready “host” devices that are interoperable with cable systems throughout the U.S., thus creating a retail solution for consumer electronics products for cable.
The software specification of OCAP, solves the problem of proprietary operating system software, thereby creating a common platform for interactive television applications and services. CableLabs says interactive (bi-directional) OpenCable products require an OCAP middleware stack.
Packet Cable (POC)
Yet another CableLabs-led initiative is PacketCable, which is aimed at developing interoperable interface specifications for delivering multimedia services over two-way cable plant. Built on top of cable modem infrastructure, PacketCable networks use IP to enable a wide range of multimedia services, such as IP telephony, multimedia conferencing, interactive gaming, and general multimedia applications.
The real, and real fast impact of packet cable, industry experts agree, has been helping cablecos rollout digital phone service, in most case to complete a triple play bundle comprising TV, high-speed Internet access and VoIP. That’s while telcos race to finish their trifecta of VoIP and high-speed Internet, by adding IPTV.
“With products for version 1.5 certified for a long time, this has been a huge success for our members, some of which have already signed up tens of thousands of digital phone subscribers,” remarks Brown.
The version of Packet Cable under way, dubbed 2.0, is designed to be the core spec for a SIP-based, IMS architecture. “Now, we’re looking at the application layer and what apps can take advantage of IMS,’’ explains Brown, adding that CableLabs is participating with 3GPP group from which IMS arose,in an effort to have them include cable infrastructure in their ongoing work. Applications garnering the group’s attention include fixed/mobile convergence and residential, SIP-based telephony.
The cableco group is preparing for qualification and certification of Packet Cable 2.0 products later this year.
Operational Issues
While much of CableLabs work is focused on the delivery of new and enhanced services to residence and/or businesses, the group has not forsaken operational issues that its membership encounters with its often-diverse network infrastructures.
“Some cable operators reach their customers with hybrid fiber/coax [networks], while others use a fiber-fed infrastructure,” says Brown. “We need to develop a common operations management and provisioning approach for both. We’re at work with this integration.”
However, adds Brown, back-office systems tend to be fairly specific to the operator, which makes it hard for anyone to find one size or approach that fits all.
BigBand Networks Inc. www.bigband.com
Cable Laboratories www.cablelabs.com
Comcast Corp. www.comcast.com
In-Stat www.instat.com
