CableLabs has partnered with a consortium headed by Facebook to open a TIP Community Lab at its Louisville, Colorado, headquarters.
Telecom Infra Project (TIP) is an open-source hardware consortium led by Facebook, and houses more than 500 member companies, including T-Mobile, Broadcom, Intel, Nokia, Bell Canada, SK Telecom and Hewlett Packard. TIP currently has project groups working in the strategic areas of access, backhaul, and core and management. CableLabs began participating in TIP a year ago and we now hold a seat on the TIP Technical Committee.
The TIP Community Lab will be located within the CableLabs building and will provide “an open and collaborative working environment for members of TIP project groups to meet, test and refine solutions they’re developing.”
Facebook and SK Telecom have established similar TIP Community Labs on their campuses.
RELATED: Q&A—CableLabs’ McKinney on Full Duplex, coherent optics and the 'random choice' of coaxial cable
According to CableLabs, Community Lab denizens will have access to channel emulators, traffic generators, LTE and DOCSIS sniffers, various HFC networks use for lab work, various LTE Res and multiple EPCs (LTE core network).
“Everyone who has access to 4G LTE today loves how speedy their smartphone is and they want more,” CableLabs said in a statement announcing the TIP collaboration. “They want the speeds that 5G wireless networks promise. But let’s be honest, we want it for equal to or less than what we pay for our service today. TIP is focused on building networks of the future through collaboration and disaggregation that will give operators the flexibility to grow their networks quickly and efficiently.”