BigBand Passes 700,000 QAM Mark

Milestone Shows Demand for HDTV Content

by George Winslow -- Multichannel News, 3/2/2010 12:29:20 PM

BigBand Networks has now shipped more than 700,000 quadrature amplitude modulation units to more than 60 operators.

The Redwood City, Calif.-based vendor's milestone illustrates an ongoing push by operators to add QAMs and reduce the size of service groups to offer more high-definition content and other bandwidth-intensive services.

"Traffic over the network will continue to grow, not only with the expansion of HD content and the introduction of new formats like 3D, but also with the demand for Netflix and video services," said BigBand chief operating officer David Heard.

BigBand claims to be the leading QAM supplier, and Heard cites several factors in its success, including the fact that its switched digital video technology is in 33 million homes.

"We were the first to market in the trend to switched video, which had the first major wave of QAM out there," said Heard. "Today, we compete against the likes of Cisco [Systems] and Motorola, but our market share [for switched video] is larger than both of them combined."

Reliability and lower operating costs have also been a factor, he added.

Recently, BigBand made its BEQ6200 8:1 QAM commercially available. The 1.5 rack-unit edge QAM increases density to 96 QAMs per chassis and features 8:1 upconversion. It is stackable for improved operational efficiency and works with BigBand's software and network traffic-management systems.

"We have been able to double the density of the QAMs, which means less floor space, less power, less cost and we have the lowest failure rate in the industry," said Heard. "That means as traffic grows, we've been able to help operators keep capital and operating costs down."

Looking forward, Heard expects rapidly growing and increasingly unpredictable network traffic will continue to drive demand for more edge QAMs.

"Operators will need platforms that are flexible enough to deal with that traffic and at the same time drive down operating costs and control capital costs," said Heard.