Arris announced a range of products Monday -- across its broadband, video-on-demand and access and transport units -- including a family of VOD applications and servers and a DOCSIS 3.0 cable-modem termination system designed for smaller operators.
The company tied the products under a new marketing slogan, "Convergence Enabled," referring to the concept of delivering voice, video and data from the point of creation all the way through to the end user.
"Driving convergence above all things is the insatiable demand for bandwidth," said Stan Brovont, Arris's global vice president of marketing and business development, on a Webcast with reporters.
The company detailed the C4c CMTS, a slimmed-down version of the Arris C4 DOCSIS platform. The C4c CMTS (the little "c" stands for "compact") provides 16 to 80 downstream channels and 12 to 60 upstream channels in a 7-rack-unit-high chassis.
The sweet spot for the C4c is "probably in areas where there are eight downstreams today and they need to upgrade to 32 downstreams," said Derek Elder, senior vice president of product strategy of Arris's broadband communication systems unit.
Arris introduced the third version of the D5 edge QAM platform, which Elder said increases density 400% compared with existing versions with the ability to deliver up to 192 QAM channels in a two-rack-unit chassis.
On the VOD front, Arris launched ConvergeMedia, a group of media application and distribution platforms, the first major overhaul of the video-on-demand lineup since Arris acquired C-COR more than a year ago.
The applications are in three categories: VOD management, which provides session and edge resource management and hierarchical content popularity profiles; ad-decision management for VOD ad insertion; and related tools for guide support and personalization.
In addition, Arris unveiled two VOD servers: XMS, designed for centralized hosting large amounts of video, and the MDX, designed to provide high streams-to-storage ratio.
The MDX was developed by Verivue, a startup that has received funding from Arris, Comcast and four venture-capital firms. Separately on Monday, Arris and Verivue officially announced a multiyear global strategic reseller agreement for the MDX 9000 Media Distribution Switch.
The Arris-developed XMS, which provides up to 96 Terabytes of storage capacity, is able to use a combination of disk or solid-state storage, according to the company.
In the access and transport area, Arris introduced two new products: the CorWave II optical transmitter for the CHP Max headend platform, and an "RF over glass" consumer-premises equipment device.
The CorWave II transmitter can deliver downstream spectrum on up to 16 wavelengths over the same fiber, said Bill Dawson, VP of business development and product strategy for Arris's access, transport and supplies unit. The transmitter also provides greater reach, he said, able to maintain high-quality video at up to 65 kilometers.
The Arris FTTMax 1000 RFoG optical network unit provides an interface between a passive optical network (PON) and RF equipment at a customer site, allowing an MSO to deliver the same RF-based services over a fiber-to-the-premises network.
In the network management space, Arris announced ServAssure Advanced, an application that applies network and service-assurance knowledge to DOCSIS 3.0 data to deliver service quality and maintain the efficient use of network resources.
Bryant Isaacs, the president of Arris media communication systems, confirmed on the Webcast that Comcast is using ServAssure Advanced as part of its broad DOCSIS 3.0 rollout.
