The Need for DOCSIS 3.0

Transcript

Introduction

Evan Schuman: Welcome today to the next installment in the Cisco Technology Audio Series. I'm Evan Schuman.

We have been seeing huge increases in IP traffic on the business side over the last few years, but today, that is being trumped by consumer traffic. Indeed, this year, consumer IP traffic is expected for the first time to actually be greater than business IP traffic. Certainly, Web multimedia is playing a relatively nontrivial role with that.

We're here today with Ben Bekele, a Cisco cable solutions marketing manager, who has been studying these IP trends. Ben, thanks so much for giving us your time today.

Interview

Ben Bekele: Thank you.

Evan Schuman: The changes today that we are seeing are going to have a particularly major impact on cable companies, but let me ask you this. Why specifically is DOCSIS 3.0 so critical to the service providers?

Ben Bekele: What DOCSIS 3.0 does is it addresses several critical trends that the cable industry is facing.

One is the need for speed. There's a huge initiative, both from the competition, as well as consumers, to get more speed. It does address that with its DOCSIS 3.0 downstream and upstream channel bonding schemes.

And then there's the other flip side to the change in subscriber profile, which is how they're using the Web, and [it's essentially enable] them to adopt a Video 2.0 realm, which is sharing of content on the Web, whether files or multimedia content, networking online, as well as connection with family and friends. It's allowing consumers to do such things as Internet video streaming, whether it's from Google TV or other sites on the Web, as well as it enables the operator to address the proliferation of the multitude of devices that are cropping up in the home with the IPv6 specification. So, in general, it addresses the need for speed and the advancement and services.

Evan Schuman: How far away do you see DOCSIS 3.0 from true full deployment, and where do you see this going in terms of advancements in the future?

Ben Bekele: CableLabs has realized that DOCSIS 3.0 is huge in terms of the specifications, so they have created this tiered qualification -- bronze, silver, and gold -- and almost all vendors, with the exception of one, today are bronze-qualified. And what that addresses is really the downstream channel bonding, the IPv6 requirement, and a couple other features that are critical for the immediate deployment of downstream channel bonding.

And Cisco has been qualified for the bronze CableLabs, and then what we have done is basically taken our uBR10K, the RF Gateway Series QAMs on the CMTS side, and then on the CPE side, we have provided the DPC3000 cable modem, which is a four-channel down and a four-channel up cable modem, and then the DPC3002, which is an EMTA, again, with four channels with the capability to bond four channels up and four channels down.

And what we have done with our DOCSIS 3.0 offering is we've basically created a way for operators to migrate to the DOCSIS 3.0 in a very seamless fashion. We're leveraging the MCMTS architecture, which is a specification developed by CableLabs prior to DOCSIS 3.0, and leveraging -- by leveraging that, we're enabling the migration at a much reduced cost per port from a CMTS standpoint, as well as a reduced OpEx in that customers would not have to go out and do Notes Flicks.

And, also, we're leveraging a very proven technology, both from a hardware and software standpoint, that really lessens the risk to 3.0 migration. We're also providing a way for them to do a targeted enablement of DOCSIS 3.0 services.

On another note, we've also added this RF Gateway 10 edge QAM, which is a chassis-based edge QAM, which really has revolutionized the QAM industry in that it has built-in high availability, the capacity is enormous compared to anything that's out there today, and enables the operator to really provide a carrier-class service over the MTMTS architecture.

Evan Schuman: Excellent. Appreciate your sharing these thoughts.

Ben Bekele: Thank you for having me.

Evan Schuman: For the Cisco Podcast Series, this is Evan Schuman. For more podcasts on technology and other global news information, please go to newsroom.cisco.com. That's newsroom.cisco.com.