BigBand Rejiggers CMTS Development Team
Equipment Maker Cuts U.S. Staff, Adds Developers in China
Todd Spangler -- Multichannel News, 8/28/2007 6:12:00 AM
BigBand Networks has “slightly reduced” the size of the cable-modem termination system development team based in the United States, while hiring about the same number of employees in China to support ongoing maintenance of existing CMTS products.
Over the past several months BigBand has been “refocusing resources” to concentrate development in its Westborough, Mass., location to modular CMTS development, which includes edge quadrature amplitude modulation products, spokesman Jonathan Bass said.
“We believe traditional integrated CMTSs are rapidly becoming obsolete,” Bass said. “We’ve rebalanced R&D, so Westborough is focused exclusively on new product development.”
BigBand has relatively little share in integrated CMTS products, with three vendors -- Cisco Systems, Motorola and Arris -- holding 90% of the market, according to research firm ThinkEquity Partners. Operators that use BigBand CMTS equipment include Cox Communications and Time Warner Cable.
Meanwhile, BigBand has increased the size of the team in Shenzhen, China, roughly commensurately with the reduction of staff in the U.S., according to Bass, who declined to say how many employees were affected. Light Reading’s Cable Digital News reported that 15 employees were let go in Westborough.
BigBand currently has a total of about 600 employees worldwide, according to Bass.
A modular CMTS is designed to let cable operators more cost-effectively deploy more Data Over Cable Systems Interface Specification (DOCSIS) data channels, by allowing edge-QAM units to operate separately from the CMTS core.
