Harmonic plans entry into CCAP fray

With the SCTE Cable-Tec Expo coming up in Orlando, Fla., in a few weeks (Oct. 17-19), more vendors are poised to unveil and promote their next-generation Converged Cable Access Platform (CCAP) platforms at the event. Harmonic (Nasdaq: HLIT) this week is already talking up its SCTE plans, announcing it will formally launch its new CCAP solution and new optical transmitters.

There is suddenly a lot of vendor energy behind CCAP, the integrated edge QAM and CMTS access technology that will bring the cable TV broadband sector closer to all-IP. In addition to Harmonic, Arris (Nasdaq: ARRS), Casa Systems and the major cable broadband CMTS vendors Cisco Systems (Nasdaq: CSCO) and Motorola (NYSE: MSI) all have been talking about CCAP recently.

On the service provider side, Comcast (Nasdaq: CMCSA) is set to make CCAP decisions for a 2013 deployment soon, and other cable TV operators are expected to make CCAP progress next year.

Harmonic described its new solution as a CCAP-compliant solution supporting Universal EdgeQAM capabilities that is designed to help cable TV operators address growing bandwidth requirements, IP adoption and ongoing facility restraints.

At the SCTE Cable-Tec Expo, Harmonic is also introducing its new high-density compact 1 Ghz SUPRALink and PWRLink optical transmitter modules that can work with the CCAP solution. The vendor also plans to showcase a turnkey solution for adaptive bit rate (ABR) multiscreen services that can be expanded to full IP video delivery to main TVs, as well as technical enhancements to live, file, and time-shift TV/nPVR applications based on IP technology.

For more:
here's the Harmonic release

Related articles:
Source Cable deployed Harmonic's edge QAM gear this year
Harmonic has been a supporter of MPEG DASH rights management