NEW ORLEANS – On this episode of HetNet Happenings, Sean Kinney takes a look at the 2015 Cable-Tec Expo, which centered around releases of the latest DOCSIS 3.1, as well as keeping user experience at the forefront as cable and telecom companies become more closely related from both a business and technological perspective.
Entertainment and communications vendor Arris released two new modems during the show designed to support the gigabit-level throughput provided by the DOCSIS 3.1 standard, which defines data transmission over coaxial cable. Arris CTO of customer premise equipment, Charles Cheevers, told RCR Wireless News that cable companies will be able to extend the life of coaxial infrastructure by pushing gigabit speed into homes over coax.
“DOCSIS 3.1 is the next evolution of the [capital expenditure] saving technology that cable operators need to deliver multigigabit services,” Cheevers said. “We’re moving into the Wi-Fi space at high speeds, too. More and more consumers are requiring that their access speeds be present over the Wi-Fi links in their home. You can do that a couple of ways.”
Cheevers said that, based on market research, about 36% of U.S. homes would need a second Wi-Fi access point or Wi-Fi extender to realize gigabit Wi-Fi speed throughout the space. He mentioned the promise of ultra-high-definition cable depends on the ability to effectively distribute bandwidth throughout a home in order “to be robust and high quality enough so that operators won’t be plagued with customer complaint calls.”
Also related to Wi-Fi, Arris is working with service provider Suddenlink to provide carrier-grade Wi-Fi to commercial customers across Suddenlink’s 17-state network footprint. A major goal of the partnership is to create seamless handoffs between Wi-Fi zones.
“Our customers are always looking for new ways to stay ahead of their end users’ demands and tap into new vertical markets. For Suddenlink, carrier-grade Wi-Fi was the next step in meeting this important need,” Tom McLaughlin, SVP sales, Americas for ARRIS, said. “Our unique expertise and solutions for commercial Wi-Fi deployments give operators like Suddenlink the ability to succeed in the market with fewer risks and greater scale.”
Simon Frost, global head of media marketing and communications for equipment provider Ericsson, spoke to RCR Wireless News about how Ericsson is enabling agility for MSOs, which was the Swedish vendor’s theme at the Cable-Tec Expo.
“We believe in the agile MSO because we fundamentally see that they need to be more agile on multiple levels in terms of service agility, in terms of network agility, in terms of the consumer proposition agility,” Frost said. “It’s because the consumer is evolving ever faster. It really is about delighting that consumer every single day and that’s a big challenge.”
Frost also pointed out that telecom and cable companies face many similar challenges.
“Ericsson is investing a lot of drive into cable,” Frost explained. “From a technology perspective, [telcos and cable companies] are converging in their outlook. They’re trying to bundle content packages and service packages … and provide the ultimate service to the consumer, and that’s getting more and more challenging because the consumer is questioning how much they’re paying for the services.”
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