Hitless Wonder for Arris, Comcast

In what it called an industry first, Arris Group Inc. said Thursday that it successfully performed multiple cable-modem-termination-system hitless software upgrades with Comcast Corp.

Hitless upgrades enable operators to more seamlessly make enhancements that are needed to launch new high-speed-data and voice services, and their use can lead to increased network reliability, enhanced customer experience and reduced operator costs, Arris said.

Comcast and Arris leveraged the vendor’s “Cadant C4” hardware-redundancy features and automated-software-upgrade process to upgrade subscribers to the “Cadant C4 CMTS Release 4.0” software.

“We value Arris' understanding of the important need to balance technology advancement with the customer experience, and we are pleased to have worked with them on achieving this industry milestone,” Comcast chief technology officer Dave Fellows said in a prepared statement.