BigBand Bonds with Next-Gen Modem Spec
Claims to Ship First M-CMTS Headend Gear
By Todd Spangler -- Multichannel News, 3/25/2007 8:02:00 PM
BigBand Networks, fresh off a successful initial public offering, expects to make more noise in announcing what it claimed is the first standards-compliant cable-modem-termination system to support 100-megabit-per-second pipes.
The vendor said its Cuda modular CMTS (M-CMTS) is the first on the market and supports the downstream channel-bonding features of Cable Television Laboratories’ Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification 3.0 with the release of version 7.0 of the platform’s software.
Because the system is DOCSIS 3.0-compliant, operators can deploy high-speed-data service while using the same channels to support up to 30-mbps downstream speeds to existing DOCSIS 2.0 modems, said John Holobinko, BigBand’s vice president and general manager of cable Internet-protocol products.
Cable operators “can harvest additional revenues by leveraging the DOCSIS 2.0 installed base and have that coexist with 100-meg service,” he added.
BigBand also plans to announce the first customer deployment of the Cuda M-CMTS with Mutikabel, an operator in the Netherlands. The company -- a subsidiary of Germany’s PrimaCom -- has deployed “thousands” of DOCSIS 3.0 cable modems with the BigBand system, according to Holobinko.
DOCSIS 3.0 -- which CableLabs has not officially completed yet -- aggregates multiple quadrature-amplitude-modulation channels to provide a virtual tunnel to a subscriber’s cable modem. Three channels bonded together can provide, theoretically, in excess of 100 mbps of bandwidth -- 10 times the speed most cable operators typically advertise currently for their data services.
Infonetics Research analyst Jeff Heynen said getting to those ultra-fast bandwidth speeds is “imperative for cable because they have to stay one step of ahead of the Verizons and AT&Ts who are spending aggressively to get to 50 and 100 megs themselves … Cable would like to keep their broadband subscribers and expand their subscriber bases.”
Holobinko said BigBand’s new modular CMTS features allow an operator to deploy channel bonding less expensively than using an integrated one. For example, a Cuda with 80 downstream channels, running the M-CMTS software, requires just two edge QAM devices. An integrated CMTS, by comparison, would require four full chassis of equipment to provide the same capacity.
“Now downstream channels are 25% of the cost of a downstream channel using a traditional, integrated CMTS,” Holobinko said.
Other vendors -- including Cisco Systems, Motorola and Arris Group -- have demonstrated “pre-DOCSIS 3.0” versions of their channel-bonding equipment. But BigBand may get a temporary leg up on rivals by coming out ahead of the pack, Heynen said.
“It’s a smart move on BigBand’s part to open the window of opportunity before the other guys start to offer their 3.0 products,” he added.
BigBand’s competitors will most likely point out that their CMTS gear can be upgraded to support the full DOCSIS 3.0 spec once it’s finalized, Heynen noted. However, the fact that Multikabel has deployed the BigBand system “is proof that some [MSOs] are not going to wait” for the CableLabs spec to be signed and sealed, he added.
BigBand said it has tested the Cuda M-CMTS with Netgear’s DOCSIS 3.0 modems, as well as modems that use Broadcom’s BCM3381 chip set for DOCSIS 3.0 channel bonding.
On March 15, BigBand raised about $91 million from its IPO. The company’s stock -- listed on NASDAQ under the symbol BBND -- shot up 31% on its first day of trading, from $13 per share to close at $17, and it was hovering near $18 last week.
BigBand Debuts IPTV Solution For Cable
03/03/2009Cable Prevails In Patent Case Over DOCSIS
11/15/2009Bonding With Next-Gen Modem Spec
03/25/2007DOCSIS 3.0 Gets Further ITU Approvals
07/16/2007DOCSIS Paves the Road for Cable's Future
08/18/2002
