Nokia: SDN, distributed architecture will smooth transition to all-IP
PHILADELPHIA – Consumers have an insatiable demand for digital video content, and cable companies know that. But extensive investment in legacy tech, coupled with cost pressures and cord-cutting, is taking a toll on the cable industry.
Recently we’ve seen significant deployment of fiber from multiple system operators looking to provision the capacity needed in an internet protocol world; coupled with existing copper assets, this trend has resulted in the perpetuation of hybrid fiber coaxial networks.
“The cable industry is at a crossroads and facing change at a level it has never seen before,” Jeff White, head of business development and strategy for cable in Nokia’s Fixed Network business group, said. “The current way of building cable networks simply will not scale to meet the tidal wave of IP video and high-speed data demands faced by cable operators. We’re helping operators add capacity, greatly simplify the network operations and prepare for an all-fiber, all-IP network.”
Corresponding with the kickoff of the SCTE/IBSE Cable-Tec Expo 2016, Nokia announced a new unified cable access solution meant to help MSOs leverage software-defined networking and virtualization; the goal is to create a distributed architecture that puts cable functions closer to the subscriber and centralizes management functions.
According to Nokia, this approach “significantly reduces the costs of traditional cable architectures by eliminating the [converged cable access platform] as a physical box and replacing the analog optical transmission with 10-gigabit per second Ethernet.”
The new product line is called Gainspeed; for more information on the specifics, click here.
