THE BROADBAND 50 - 2011

1: IP migration: A perfect circle

It has long been apparent that IP transport will eventually reach near-ubiquity, driven by the virtuous circle (… wider use drives down costs, dropping costs drives wider use, wider use drives …). Still, few can legitimately say that they expected usage to grow so quickly.

Even with YouTube, Netflix and Hulu out there, nobody outside of Apple saw the iPhone or the iPad coming – and, more to the point, nobody saw the rampant growth in IP data demands that smartphones and tablets represent. That demand includes traffic on everyone’s own networks, in addition to the backhaul some operators perform on behalf of others.

The business market – SMBs, and eventually enterprise customers – also demand IP transport, of course. And with cable giving up on cellular? It looks like Wi-Fi hotspot networks are in many more MSOs’ futures, suggesting even more IP traffic.

So expect to hear more about myriad manifestations of the migration strategy, including DOCSIS, CCAP, MPLS, pseudowires and more. – Brian Robert Santo



2: This cloud thing looks like a winner

Everything, it would seem, is headed to the cloud. And why not? Cable operators can cut down on multitudes of servers and other equipment in data centers, while businesses can reap the rewards of virtualization.

For those cable operators that lack Comcast’s financial clout to build their own clouds, there are public, private and hybrid clouds, through various partnerships and cloud vendors, to consider. Cable operators are also able to cash in by providing Ethernet transport services to and from clouds for businesses.

Comcast’s Xcalibur user interface is cloud-based, and consumers got in on the act with services such as Apple’s iCloud and Amazon’s cloud-based storage.

Cablevision and ActiveVideo Networks partnered up on cloud-based interactive services several years ago, and last year, Cablevision added “Quick View” mosaics, which let customers personalize their viewing preferences through ActiveVideo’s CloudTV platform.

VOD content also made its way to the cloud for quicker, more efficient streaming services. – Mike Robuck



3: All hail Comcast

Comcast hit on all cylinders last year. CEO Brian Roberts once again took over the spotlight at The Cable Show with demos of the next-generation, cloudbased Xcalibur platform, which will march

Comcast toward the IP world, as well as a speed test running on a Comcast cable modem that broke through the 1 Gbps speed barrier.

Xcalibur, which was developed by Sam Schwartz’s Comcast Converged Platforms team, is headed to a major market deployment early this year before a more widespread launch later this year.

“Comcast's work on Xcalibur is superb,” said one industry insider. “Sam Schwartz did a fabulous job.”

Also at The Cable Show, attendees got a peak at the Technicolor device that will provision Comcast’s Skype service, which will bring HD video conference calling to home TVs, PCs, and compatible smartphones and tablets.

Comcast took the wraps off of a home security service using iControl’s software, and it announced that it was one of the investors in the start-up company.

Lastly, Comcast started reaping the rewards of being both a cable operator and a programmer. One example was earlier VOD windows for NBCUniversal programming. – MR

Specialize in telecommunication and inter-networking accessory




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