CableLabs Offers Slimmed-Down Modem Test
Tiered Plan Aims At Speedy Rollout Of DOCSIS 3.0
By Todd Spangler -- Multichannel News, 4/22/2007 8:00:00 PM
CableLabs has come to the realization that sometimes, less is more: The research-and-development consortium last week outlined a three-tiered program for certifying cable-modem termination systems under Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification 3.0.
For DOCSIS 3.0 headend gear, CableLabs will offer three qualification levels: bronze, silver and full. The bronze and silver designations will be assigned to equipment that supports a subset of the complete DOCSIS 3.0 suite of specifications.
The idea is to encourage CMTS makers to submit gear for testing earlier than they otherwise might. “The impetus for this change for our certification-testing program was to speed up the DOCSIS program in order to get product into our members’ hands more rapidly,” CableLabs senior vice president communications Mike Schwartz said.
How? By allowing the CMTS vendors to concentrate on achieving interoperability with only the most-desirable features of DOCSIS 3.0 — at least at first.
Vendors cheered the move. “It’s great news because it gives cable operators the benefits of incorporating elements of DOCSIS 3.0 without waiting for the full spec,” BigBand Networks vice president and general manager of cable Internet-protocol products John Holobinko said. “It’s no longer all or nothing.”
What operators are most hungry for is downstream bandwidth. DOCSIS 3.0 specifications allow for downstream data rates of 160 Megabits per second (or higher), by virtually bonding multiple channels together.
| Timeline: Road to DOCSIS 3.0 |
|---|
| Key events in the spec’s development: |
| Sources: CableLabs, Multichannel News research |
| Summer 2004: Early features of DOCSIS 3.0, including downstream-channel bonding, are sketched out. |
| April 2005: First draft of DOCSIS 3.0 agreed on at National Show in San Francisco. |
| July 2006: CableLabs hosts weeklong interoperability event for vendors. |
| Aug. 2006: DOCSIS 3.0 specifications issued. |
| Dec. 2006: CableLabs and EuroCableLabs issue request for information seeking product availability information for devices that would comply with DOCSIS 3.0. |
| April 2007: CableLabs announces tiered testing program for CMTSs. |
| Oct. 2007: First DOCSIS 3.0 testing wave expected to begin. |
With the shift to a tiered-certification procedure, CMTS products that support the “bronze” level — which is said to comprise downstream-channel bonding as the key feature — will be submitted for testing as soon as October. Otherwise, equipment wouldn’t have been ready to go through the testing and qualification process until well into 2008, said Kevin Keefe, vice president of marketing for Motorola’s Connected Home Solutions unit.
The full DOCSIS 3.0 spec “is complex, and this makes it easier to qualify these devices for operators that need the downstream speeds,” he said.
John Mattson, director of CMTS products for Cisco Systems, said the revised CableLabs testing plans align better with the vendor’s product road map. “We were planning to deliver it in phases anyway,” he said.
And, the tiered DOCSIS 3.0 testing schedule is “more consistent with what the MSOs were working on,” Mattson added. “They didn’t want to trade time for the rest of 3.0. They wanted to get exposure early.”
Officially, CableLabs will not disclose what exactly will be included in “bronze” and “silver,” because those details are part of the confidential agreements with vendors.
However, according to several CMTS vendors, the bronze-level DOCSIS 3.0 certification level will incorporate downstream-channel bonding. Silver, the second interim certification level, will add upstream-channel bonding — which can provide 120 Mbps or higher — as well as support for Internet Protocol version 6 and Advanced Encryption Standard, according to these vendors. Full qualification will add some management features but mainly merges the prior two phases.
Ultimately, full DOCSIS 3.0 compliance will be the only certification level for CMTS vendors. CableLabs said the bronze and silver qualifications will be phased out as the full services suite is made available by vendors.
DOCSIS 3.0 modems, meanwhile, will have only a single level of certification — one that will represent compliance with the full specification.
Vendors are expecting to submit CMTS systems and cable modems to be part of CableLabs’ certification wave 56, for which equipment is due by Oct. 3. In the meantime, CableLabs said, it will host several interoperability-testing events.
That doesn’t mean operators are waiting. Motorola, for example, is participating in trials and tests of its pre-DOCSIS 3.0 downstream channel-bonding systems in Korea, Japan and the United States, where Comcast has been one of the most active operators engaged in kicking the tires on the technology, according to Keefe.
Cisco’s Mattson said the sooner real-world deployments happen, the faster full DOCSIS 3.0 equipment will be ready. “The earlier you get stuff into the market and deployed, and work out the kinks and details in front of live customers, the more robust it will be,” he said.
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