Cisco, Arris and Casa roll out dueling network tech announcements

As the ANGA COM trade show gets under way in Cologne, Germany, top vendors Cisco, Arris and Casa have all announced new initiatives designed to satiate the growing consumer hunger for more robust cable broadband service.

Cisco is rolling out Infinite Broadband remote PHY service, which it sees as a key asset for networks trying to cater to streaming OTT video and 5G data consumption. Further, Cisco also said it's demonstrating full-duplex DOCSIS 3.1. "It’s one of the biggest developments since the original DOCSIS because it positions the industry to achieve fiber-equivalent speeds — without replacing the “last mile” of coaxial plant. It’s also big because it enables symmetrical speeds of 600 Mbps, in the downstream and upstream signal directions," wrote Cisco CTO John Chapman on the company's site.

Arris, meanwhile, announced new offerings teaming PHY modules with its converged cable access platform, the E6000. It also said that Danish internet and TV provider Stofa has been signed as an initial customer of the new products.

Meantime, Casa Systems is launching new passive optical network (PON) and IP network solutions. Its 10G PON portfolio includes both centralized and distributed PON solutions.

In a blog post, Daniel Etman, product marketing director for Cisco’s cable access business, said the company’s latest offerings will help solve a longstanding problem.

“To compete with pure fiber,” he wrote, “cable operators must scale bandwidth to meet the needs of the market. In the past, they relied on two ‘tried-and-true’ techniques to achieve this end—segmentation and spectrum management. Unfortunately, network segmentation to improve bandwidth distribution has all but reached a physical limitation with legacy CMTS platforms. And adding more ‘boxes’ in already cramped hub sites is not the answer. These kinds of network changes are complex, expensive and don’t solve the long-term problem.”

With more of their revenue coming from broadband services and more video customers shaving the bundle, operators are in an all-out race to figure out how to get more bandwidth to consumers. The technical limitation of the existing architecture is being rethought, specifically through the shift toward distributed access architecture, or DAA. This approach relieves pressure that has traditionally been placed on optical nodes, which can fill up and require the addition of hubs or more chassis in a headend or hub site.

ANGA COM continues through Thursday.

Article updated May 30 with additional information about Cisco.