CommScope has won the auction for bankrupt rival tech vendor Casa System's cable network assets with a surprisingly robust $45.1 million bid. 

That winning number was more than twice the $20 million “stalking horse” bid rendered back in early April by Canadian software company Vecima Networks, which moved in shortly after Casa Systems filed bankruptcy. 

Vecima, which had hoped Casa’s assets would accelerate its quest to run down Harmonic in the race for cable network virtualization, said it has assumed the role of backup bidder, with a bid of $44.95 million.

The sale of Casa’s cable tech business is part of a supervised, piece-by-piece bankruptcy court auction that has also seen Andover, Massachusetts-based Casa’s 5G mobile core and RAN assets sold to Lumine for $32.25 million, and Dallas-based DZS pay $7 million to buy NetComm, provider of fiber extension, fixed wireless access, home broadband and industrial Internet of Things products and patents.  

As for Hickory, North Carolina-based CommScope, it has battled its own debt demons in the aftermath of its $7.4 billion purchase of cable tech vendor Arris. 

However, extending itself further brings CommScope customer relationships with Casa client operators including Liberty Global, J:COM, Vodafone, and Canada's Rogers Communications and Vidéotron. 

“As a leader in the cable industry, we are quite pleased by the opportunity to acquire Casa’s cloud-native network solutions,” CommScope CEO Chuck Treadway said in a statement. “Adding Casa’s technology to our portfolio will allow us to provide a seamless transition for our combined customer base that utilizes both integrated and virtual CMTS products. This transaction provides stability to Casa’s customers while allowing CommScope to further grow our customer base as we enable customers to migrate to Distributed Access Architecture solutions on their own timeline.”

For its part, Vecima said: “the auction was a competitive daylong process that consisted of multiple rounds of bidding by Vecima and several other interested parties. Vecima conducted extensive due diligence prior to the auction and, based on those insights, made the decision at the end of the auction not to increase its bid any further when the proposed price was no longer reasonably supported by Vecima’s valuation of the assets.”

Canadian software company Vecima Networks aims to “challenge Harmonic” for control of cable’s virtualized network tech future with its $20 million "stalking horse" bid for bankrupt Casa Systems’ cable technology business, wrote Dell’Oro Group analyst Jeff Heynen. 

“Though Harmonic currently dominates the vCMTS market, holding 98% of global revenue in 2023, a good portion of that revenue comes from Comcast, which was the early mover in deploying vCMTS platforms in the industry,” Heynen said in a Wednesday-afternoon blog posting rendered shortly after Casa Systems announced its bankruptcy. 

“Charter is also planning to deploy Harmonic’s cOS broadband platform but has also signaled its desire to have multiple vendors’ vCMTS platforms in its network, which leaves the door open for Vecima to secure a portion of that business in addition to the RPD business it has already solidified there,” Heynen added. 

The cable network tech market is ripe with opportunity, with operators looking to deploy multi-gigabit-speed upgrades to their broadband networks, built around the new DOCSIS 4.0 standard and next-generation schemes that virtualize core appliances including the cable-modem termination system (CMTS) into software running on garden-variety computer servers, part of a broader alignment commonly referred to as Distributed Access Architecture" (DAA).

While Harmonic has emerged as an early leader of this new market, incumbent tech vendors of the old physical CMTS world, a list that also includes CommScope, have struggled to find traction. 

Last year, as Heynen noted, Casa Systems generated just $41 million from the business Toronto-based Vecima seeks to acquire, most of that money coming from licensing its traditional C100G Converged Cable Access Platform (CCAP) product. That was down from $81 million in 2022 and $115 million in 2021. 

However, through its Axyom-branded vCMTS software, Casa does have "DAA traction" with cable-operator clients including Rogers Communications, Vodafone, Liberty Global and Claro Colombia.

"From a product perspective, Vecima gains Casa’s Axyom vCMTS software, which it can use alongside its own Entra vCMTS platform to scale overall vCMTS deployments as they continue to expand at cable operators around the world," Heynen wrote. 

“What Vecima offers to the Casa cable unit is a renewed focus on the cable and fixed broadband markets, which was arguably missing at Casa as the company tried to balance R&D investments in its cable, vBNG, mobile core, and fixed wireless access product lines,” the analyst added. “With the focus and continued support by Vecima of Casa’s existing customer base, Vecima can potentially turn those customers into longer-term DAA customers.”

Casa Systems has filed for bankruptcy, and has already arranged deals to sell its cable technology assets as well as its 5G core and RAN businesses. 

The Andover, Mass.-based network technology vendor has entered into a $20 million asset-purchase agreement with Canada's Vecima Networks for its cable network technology business. The "stalking-horse bid" will set a baseline for an auction that will be supervised by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware, which is overseeing Casa’s restructuring. 

Casa Systems has also agreed to sell its 5G Core and RAN (radio access network) assets to another Canadian tech company, Lumine Group, for an undisclosed sum. Casa has asked the court to approve the transaction by the end of April.

“Like many in our sector, Casa has experienced a significant decline in revenue and profits due in large part to industry-wide downward capital investment and procurement trends in the cable and telco markets,” Casa Systems CEO Michael Glickman said in a statement. "We also have incurred significant investments to bring our 5G Mobile Core and RAN products to market. We believe the sales of our businesses through a Chapter 11 process will maximize value, preserve jobs and minimize disruption for our customers.”

Glickman spoke to Next TV back in November, several months after the veteran Cisco executive took over for Casa Systems' retired founder, Jerry Guo. Glickman outlined a plan to pivot to cloud-based software solutions and compete in cable's virtualized DOCSIS 4.0 future. 

The pressure was on, with Casa Systems stock having descended below $1 a share in August and the Nasdaq threatening the company with delisting. 

For its third-quarter earnings report in November — tied to its last 10-Q filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission — Casa said revenue was down more than 7% year-over-year to $62.08 million. The company also reported a net Q3 loss of $25.61 million. 

You want to talk about challenging CEO gigs?

Not only did veteran Cisco Systems executive Michael Glickman assume the reins in July from the only CEO Casa Systems has ever known, the founder himself, the retired Jerry Guo, he did at so at a low point for cable broadband technology vendors in general, with operators’ mouths full chewing on inventories frantically amassed during high pandemic usage levels. 

In fact, when Glickman officially took over the Andover, Massachusetts-based tech company in July, its stock was a third of what it had been in March, when Guo announced his retirement … and Casa revealed to investors that a major cable operator, widely believed to be Charter Communications, would not be using its products in its major network overhaul. 

All that said, when Next TV caught up with Glickman for a Zoom chat on Wednesday, he seemed bullish. Casa's engineering team, he believes is right on time ± or even ahead of schedule -- on the broadband industry's transition to software-driven, virtualized network infrastructures. 

He thinks inventory levels will start sorting themselves out sometime later next year, and Casa will effectively compete with Harmonic and other vendors for that virtualized DOCSIS 4.0 future. 

Next TV: So why leave the sunny shores of San Jose, California, to run Casa Systems at such a challenging time?

Michael Glickman: I spent almost 20 years at Cisco running the service provider business there before joining a startup and then ended up here at Casa about 100 days ago. We’ve been talking about virtualizing platforms for probably five to 10 years. And what I would tell you is, I'm starting to see now, this actually occurring. It's fair to say it started really in the hyper-scalar space and has now permeated into the wireless space, specifically with technologies like packet core, which powers the data services and for that matter, the voice services to those end-user customers. And now it’s even moving into the cable space with virtual CCAP. And specifically virtual CMTS, the core of that architecture. And that's really fundamentally one of the main reasons I came to Casa is because the company is really well positioned in those virtualized network functions. We're not only a leader in the in the cable space around virtualized core, but also in the wireless and telco space with virtualized packet core, virtualized security gateway, and virtualized BNG [Broadband Network Gateway], which is used for subscriber management for fiber installations. Even some wireless technologies, as well. And so coming over and being able to see that kind of portfolio of virtualized functions, many of which are cloud-native, which also has some really important aspects to it is really compelling, because I think we're hitting the market at the right time. 

Next TV: This is a company that's only known one CEO?

Michael Glickman: Yes, it’s always interesting taking over the helm from another leader, but also the founder of the company. On the positive side, what I had expected to see from an engineering and innovation, leadership is there. For a technology company, that is the most critical aspect of success moving forward, because you can build upon or change or restructure things like your go-to-market and sales and marketing. You could do the same maybe even on the product management side, the support. Those are all those are all things that can be fixed, made more effective or efficient. But if you do not have a core set of engineers who have demonstrated the ability to innovate, that’s a real tough one to build from scratch. So that is the heritage of Casa, and I spent a good amount of two months traveling literally around the world, meeting with our top customers and making sure that they knew me. And luckily, I know many of them already. We started to talk about what we want to do with this company moving forward. And I always asked each of them, ‘Why do you do business with Casa?’ And they would always answer the same way. It’s innovation. And not only that, it’s how nimble Casa is from an engineering standpoint, in responding to what the customer's needs are. It’s just foundational.

Next TV: It seems like the competitive response to Harmonic, which is an early leader in network virtualization, must consume a lot of your bandwidth.

Michael Glickman: I see it similarly. There are only two vendors today that have demonstrated a virtualized CMTS, or virtualized core: Harmonic and Casa. I think CommScope has now announced that they have one, but they haven't delivered it yet. Harmonic did a nice job of going to Comcast and structuring a very interesting deal, which had to do with sharing of intellectual property and ownership and all kinds of other things. That put them on the map with not only the largest cable provider in the world but also one that is at the forefront of pushing things like DOCSIS [4.0] and high-speed services. 

Editor's note: Harmonic said Glickman's description of its relationship with Comcast, which he claimed is "public knowledge," is false. "Harmonic does not share intellectual property ownership of its innovative and market-leading products and solutions with its customers," the company said in a statement to Next TV after this article was originally published. 

Glickman continues: So, that absolutely is their heritage. But we have done a very nice job of competing against them and winning. We’ve gone up against Harmonic for many carriers around the world, some of which have been announced publicly. And the reason is really twofold. The first is that we had the benefit of having a real CMTS. We took the code off of that fully functional CMTS and moved it into a virtualized and cloud-native environment. Harmonic built it from the ground up. There’s nothing wrong with that, but you do get advantages when you actually have a fully functioning system, especially from an operations provisioning and support standpoint. And secondly, we have an architecture that doesn’t force you to buy layer 3 switches when you actually go and put a virtualized stack of hardware together to run the software. And that has great advantage, especially in geographies where power consumption — and certainly price — is very important. So think about parts of Europe, Latin America, certainly, all the developing countries — that is a huge advantage for us. So we feel very good about our position and in that space.

Next TV: Just how consolidated do you think cable tech is going to get?

Michael Glickman: I've been working with service providers, especially tier 1s, for many, many years, and something that tends to be in the in the DNA is dual-vendor strategy. And it's not just to drive pricing down. It’s supply chain; it’s risk mitigation around engineering capabilities and feature sets that are required. There are all kinds of things that drive that. I’m not saying can't be done, I’ve done it right myself as a vendor with service providers. But most of them have been burned for some reason, based on that, and so I don’t see that going away. You do need a couple or three vendors in this space to be able to be effective for the industry.

Next TV: What’s going on with Casa and Wall Street right now?

Michael Glickman: Most of the damage, so to speak, to the market cap of Casa, unfortunately, was done in the March timeframe. And it certainly hasn't gotten any better. You just have to do more right to get out in front of investors, potential investors and the community. That’s going to help you drive the market cap back up over time. But the main thing is to be focused on execution, because if you can bring the metrics back to what the market is expecting, and you're setting the right expectations with regard to top line and bottom-line, and even exceeding those, I think typically the market pays you back. And, unfortunately, up to this point, to be very frank, we haven't done that. When you're missing expectations over and over again, there are always typically good reasons for it. But at the end of the day, nobody cares. You have to be at your best to deliver on the expectations you set. And you have to be able to read these markets. But I would tell you, if you look across the cable space, it's not just us and Harmonic, but also CommScope and Vecima. All these guys, they’re all saying kind of the same thing that I said in our last quarterly earnings call, right? To me, it's a combination of the pandemic overhang, where we had a really interesting situation during which not only was a supply chain constrained to the point where every customer was kind of forced to make some pretty significant purchases to make sure that they had what they needed … which is now getting delivered. Not only that, in the cable space, in the broadband space, all of us were going home and doing work from home, and thereby probably upgrading the speeds of our broadband to be able to do so. So you take that and you say, ‘Wow, that was a great, probably 18 to 24 months for the for the industry, both for the customers as well as the vendors serving them. But now we're going to pay the price on the other end.’

Next TV: When do you think this inventory glut will be over with?

Michael Glickman: Anybody’s guess is as good as the other’s. I mean, the only data that would be really meaningful for that is to have a very good understanding of the inventory that our customers have. We do understand that it’s very difficult for most of our customers to share this data because it gets into privacy. Most of these customers are public companies. What’s the uptake or future uptake of your broadband services, either by speed or by net new subscribers? They can't really share that with you. Even if you sign an NDA, it’s in essence violating regulatory law to do that. So you have to kind of read the tea leaves and kind of figure things out based on trends and what’s going on. I certainly don’t have any data that would refute this — I believe the second half of next calendar year is what most people are saying, we should expect for that bubble to work its way out, so to speak.

Next TV: What most excites you about Casa right now?

Michael Glickman: What’s exciting is this movement to these virtualized platforms. Because again, I think that puts us front and center. And it’s not a crowded space. Where I give my predecessor a lot of credit is, he started working on a virtualized cloud-native packet core solution eight years ago. He hired some really brilliant engineers from a startup network right down the road in Massachusetts. And that startup was actually purchased by Cisco. When I was over there at Cisco, we were able to take a huge amount of packet-core market share from the likes of Ericsson, Nokia, and all the rest. That is a very exciting space to be in. With all due respect to the legacy players like Nokia, Samsung, Ericsson and the rest, they basically have taken their code, their packet-core code, and they moved it into a Kubernetes, or whatever, virtualized stack. But the problem with that is it runs very fat, right? In other words, you need to stack servers up to the ceiling of your data center to be able to run that in a virtualized mode. Cloud native says that you run that in a very small footprint. And you have the ability to push that much further out into your network, which gives you benefits. And I can take you through several use cases.

Cable network technology vendor Casa Systems has culminated a talent search started in March when company founder Jerry Guo announced his retirement from the role of president and CEO, hiring longtime Cisco Systems executive Michael Glickman as his replacement. 

Glickman spent nearly 22 years at Cisco Systems, the latter part of that tenure in senior VP-level sales and marketing positions within the chip giant’s global service provider segment. 

He left Cisco at the end of 2020 to join Culver City, California-based network tech company PacketFabric as president. That's where he arrives at Casa Systems immediately from.

Glickman joins Casa at a challenging time, with the stock cratering in March — not only did Guo, who founded Casa Systems 20 years earlier, retire, but the company also announced the sad news that a “major North American customer,” presumed to be Charter Communications, would not be using Casa products as part of its ongoing network upgrade. 

“The Board believes Michael’s global sales leadership skills and industry experience strongly align with Casa Systems’ strategic priorities as we embark on the next phase of accelerated growth,” said the man who headed the executive search that led to Glickman, Bruce Evans, chairman of the Casa Systems board.

“With a proven track record of leading billion-dollar revenue businesses and spearheading global sales organizations focused on service providers, including telcos and cable MSOs, Michael brings a unique set of qualifications that position him for success in his role,” Evans added. 

Said Glickman, also in a prepped statement: “Casa Systems has a very strong heritage and cutting-edge technologies. I look forward to building upon what Jerry Guo, visionary founder and former CEO and this talented team have created over the past twenty years, and I am committed to our collective vision of reestablishing Casa Systems as an industry disruptor for the benefit of our global customers.”

Jerry Guo, who founded cable and wireless technology company Casa Systems 20 years ago, announced during his company's fourth-quarter earnings call earlier this week that he's retiring, effective soon ... very soon. Friday.

The University of Wisconsin-trained electrical engineering doctorate, who had stops at Bell Labs and Motorola, will sustain a sizable presence at the Andover, Massachusetts-based tech vendor he built, continuing to serve on its board and remaining its largest investor. 

Casa has hired a search firm to line up Guo’s successor. Company chief financial officer Edward Durkin will serve as interim CEO until that individual is found and hired. 

Guo’s announcement didn't come at a particularly auspicious time, however, with Casa also reporting that a “major North American cable customer” won’t be using the company’s cable tech products in its ongoing network upgrade. 

”Although we will continue to receive maintenance revenue associated with that customer for 2023, we assume no future product revenues from their cable broadband infrastructure upgrade project in our 2023 guidance,” Durkin told equity analysts during Tuesday’s earnings call. 

“And although we were surprised and disappointed by this news, this was not attributable to any cost cable product issues,” Durkin added. 

So who is the client?

“We presume Charter has taken a pass on including Casa in its upgrades,” Raymond James analyst Simon Leopold wrote in an investor note. 

For the quarter, Casa reported revenue of $84.4 million, beating consensus forecasts. ■

At Cable-Tec Expo, cable technologists continued to hammer home the manufactured marketing theme “10G,” a likeminded vision of the future in which hybrid fiber-coax networks, aligned in virtualized, distributed schemes, deliver broadband speeds in excess of 10 gigabits per second using next-generation DOCSIS iterations.

In fact, this is appears to be a near future for Comcast, which said it’s now reaching more than 100,000 customers with virtualized Converged Cable Access Platform and Distributed Access Architecture. But for the cable industry, that future isn’t necessarily the only future.

Related: Cable Access Equipment Spending Fell 40% in Q2

We finally caught up with one of the bigger vendors of cable access technology, Casa Systems, after the show. Speaking to the Boston-based Paul Hanna, chief marketing officer for Casa, for about 45 minutes, not once did he utter "10G," the term, coined last year by NCTA chief Michael Powell as a means of countering the wireless industry’s 5G hype.

In fact, Hanna described Casa as positioning itself for a 5G future, in which cable networks, focused on backhaul and wireless convergence, are configured with both HFC and fiber-to-the-home alignments, slowly evolving into virtualization and Distributed Access Architecture, as well new niche wireless opportunities like CBRS. Casa's product portfolio, he said, is adjusting to broadly span the core, access and edge needs of the various--and very different--service provider alignments.

Indeed, no two networks will look exactly alike, said Hanna, who views the recent slump in the cable access business as the cyclical culmination of years of investment by operators into DOCSIS technologies. Having been a leading proponent of the current iteration of DOCSIS, 3.1, Casa sees a rebound for the access tech business on an unspecified horizon.

“Our customers, writ large, view the process of network transformation and virtualization as a long term evolution,” Hanna said. “This is not an overnight phenomenon. And it’s not the path that Comcast is taking. Evolving one’s network to become web scale, that’s a decades long process. We’re going to be living in a hybrid environment for quite some time.”

Related: Cable’s 5G Backhaul Opportunity 'Moving From Concept to Reality,' Analyst Says

Casa, he noted, sees a very specific, immediate opportunity in 5G backhaul—a notion buttressed earlier this week, post-Expo, by Gregory Williams, analyst for equity research company Cowen.

“Cable is the only one that could deploy at scale at a reasonable cost, and expeditiously,” Williams wrote in a note to investors Monday. “Specifically, cable has the plant assets and unique footprint (reach) for small cell backhaul, mid-haul or fronthaul.”

As Williams noted, the cable industry, led by CableLabs, is currently working on “low-latency X-haul,” “a technology specifically designed to reduce the latency experienced by any mobile traffic while traversing the DOCSIS transport network on its way to the internet."

Meanwhile, ahead of the conference, the NCTA published a white paper noting that, not only does hybrid fiber coax (HFC) have a much larger footprint than fiber (around 3.5x more), fiber lacks the power supply needed to make backhaul happen.

“Capacity is a never ending requirement, and that will become increasingly so in 5G world,” Hanna explained, "and 5G is of absolute strategic synergy with coax. All of our customers are trying to figure out how to get revenue with the new capabilities that 5G networks can bring to the table.”

While unwilling to get too far into the weeds in regard to one of Casa’s customers, Hanna pointed to Charter Communications, and its multi-pronged trials of emerging tech including Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS), as a prime example.

Related: Charter’s Cowden: MSO Could Launch Fixed Wireless CBRS as Soon as the End of 2020

One application Charter is testing is using CBRS to provide broadband, within its footprint, but beyond the rural reach of its HFC infrastructure. At Cable-Tec Expo, Charter wireless chief Craig Cowden said the operator could, as soon as the end of next year, deploy multi-play services to these rural areas, complete with 25 Mbps downstream broadband, using CBRS.

On our call, Hanna sold the ability of Charter to use Casa’s Axiom software for unified, cloud-based network control across its virtualized, distributed HFC and CBRS infrastructures.

“What we have done is unify the cable data plane and the wireless data plane into a universal edge data plane,” Hanna said. 

Again, it's not a 10G thing. “We have built a converged 5G portal. And we’re in a position to uniquely tailor 5G solutions," he added.

Cable network access tech vendor Casa Systems is facing an investor class action suit over the way it handled its December 2017 IPO.

According to one investor complaint being administered by San Diego law firm Robbins Arroyo LLP, Casa misled stock buyers when it “stated that its core CCAP products and new technology initiatives would allow for a compelling market opportunity and touted the fact that these initiatives would prompt Casa Systems to experience continued rapid growth.”

In fact, the plaintiff claims, “These documents were false and misleading as Casa Systems failed to disclose material information about the state of its customers' spending. In reality, Casa Systems knew its key customers' spending had entered a ‘digestion’ period that curtailed any new product purchases.”

Related: Casa Systems Sales Rebound in Q2

On August 14, 2018, Casa reported disappointing financial data during its Q2 earnings call, cutting revenue guidance for the year by $50 million, the suit states. This resulted in a 23% decline in the company’s share price on the Nasdaq.

After opening at $14.40 in December 2018, stock for Andover, Massachusetts-based Casa Systems is trading at around $6.27 a share, as of Friday morning.

For its part, the Los Angeles-based Schall Law Firm has also issued a press release, and is also asking any investor who feels misled regarding Casa’s IPO to join the fight.

Casa Systems saw improved revenue performance in the second quarter of this year, following a miserable Q1 in which sales plunged over 50%. The company continues to struggle with the same market conditions as everyone else involved in making tech gear for the cable access business — customers are weighing complicated decisions to move toward Distributed Access Architecture network designs, along with a migration to virtualized environments. Product ordering has slowed as they mull these decisions. 

Casa Systems wild ride on the Nasdaq took a sharp upward turn after the technology company reported a sales rebound in the second quarter.

The telecom tech company reported Q2 revenue of $52.1 million, meeting guidance. The performance was off significantly from the year-ago revenue haul of $68.7 million, but represented a strong 47% increase over Casa’s moribund first-quarter sales. Casa and other cable access tech vendors reported stagnant orders in Q1, as operators stood frozen in place, mulling migration to distributed access architecture (DAA) and converged cable access platform (CCAP) virtualization. 

But orders are now coming in.

Casa’s stock price increased more than 15% Thursday after falling around the same percentage earlier in the week. That was after Raymond James analyst Simon Leopold downgraded the company, suspecting one of the large European companies now buying millions of dollars worth of DAA and virtualization gear and software from competitor Harmonic is actually major Casa client Liberty Global.

Casa CEO Jerry Guo told investors that he expects to see a continued sales uptick, “driven by capacity-related purchases by our cable customers and revenue recognition from wireless backlog.”

Guo said Casa is also establishing its own momentum with virtualization and DAA tech sales.

“In fact, our cable trials increased in the quarter by 53%, the vast majority of which was driven by existing and new consumer interest in our DAA, virtual CCAP core and new BDM products,” said Guo.

Global spending on cable access technology decreased 38% year over year in the first quarter to $275 million, with operators in North America and Europe delaying CCAP purchases as they mull moves into Distributed Access Architecture, according to research company Dell’Oro Group.

According to Jeff Heynen, the analyst behind the report, operators are “pushing off new capacity purchases while they determine how to move forward with distributed access architectures.”

This assertion certainly jibes with the explanation of leading Converged Cable Access Platform (CCAP) vendors including CommScope and Casa Systems, explaining first-quarter declines in CCAP revenue.

CommScope reported an 18% Q1 revenue slide in its network and cloud business, while Casa said its business declined 55.6% during the quarter.

“We’re seeing an industrywide slowdown as cable operators implement a shift to virtual CCAP and DAA,” Casa Systems CEO Jerry Guo told investors, describing a “quarter we’re not at all happy with.”

The Dell’Oro report said deployments of 10 Gbps-capable fiber-to-the-home networks, such as the one Altice USA is building in its Optimum footprint, drove increased shipments of XPON1, XGS-PON and NG-PON2 OLT ports.

Overall network access business was only off 2% to $2.9 billion during Q1.

“The 10 Gbps FTTH deployments continue to build momentum,” Heynen said. “The next-gen fiber increases nearly offset the weakness in cable CCAP spending.

And while tier 1 operators are like Comcast and Charter Communications are largely done with the CCAP purchasing needed to build their DOCSIS 3.1 networks, deployments of 1-gig-capable modems is ongoing.

Dell’Oro found a 19% uptick in CPE units shipped during the first quarter. 

Casa Systems became the latest cable access technology vendor to report a really tough first quarter, with revenue off a whopping 55.6% to $35.5 million.

The Q1 report from the Andover, Mass.-based Casa follows a similar call from competitor Harmonic earlier in the week, one which revealed a 30% slide in cable access sales for the first quarter.

“We’re seeing an industrywide slowdown as cable operators implement a shift to virtual CCAP and DAA,” Casa Systems CEO Jerry Guo told investors, describing a “quarter we’re not at all happy with.”

Related: Harmonic: Volume Deployment of CableOS is on the Way

Guo cited recent figures from S&P Global, which noted that cable access tech sales were off 26% combined in the fourth quarter for the category’s three biggest vendors, Arris/CommScope, Cisco and Casa Systems.

As Harmonic did two days earlier, Casa said his company’s clients are engaged in an abundance of active trials for virtualized Converged Cable Access Platform (CCAP) and Distributed Access Architecture. Guo cited 67 trials in all.

But as operators mull a revolutionary way to build out their networks, “we’re in a holding pattern,” Guo conceded.

Casa Systems has tried to diversify its product lines towards wireless convergence recently. But Q1 sales in this emerging category didn’t come close to offsetting the slowdown in the company’s core integrated CCAP business.

Speaking more broadly about the CCAP situation, Guo cited the massive investments made by MSOs in recent years to deliver gigabit speeds.

“The pace of network upgrades has slowed significantly as the industry has moved to capacity filling vs. the buildout phase,” he said.

Notably, also like Harmonic, Casa Systems is banking on MSO clients getting off the dime on the emerging cable access tech paradigms and rolling out some deployments later this year. Casa is still forecasting $250 million - $300 million in full-year 2019 revenue.

“We believe we are at an important juncture in the development of our business and I remain confident that our recent results are not indicative of the company’s large future opportunity,” Guo told investors. 

Casa Systems saw a 4.1% spike in third-quarter revenue to $71.5 million and said tariffs placed by the Trump Administration on select Chinese electronics imports are not hurting its business.

“I'm pleased to say that these tariffs have not--and we expect will not--have a significant impact on our business in 2018,” said Shaun McCarthy, interim CFO for Casa, speaking during the company’s third-quarter earnings call last week. (A transcript was provided by Seeking Alpha.)

Related: Casa Systems Files for $150M IPO

“We have completed our review of our supply chain and are not expecting a significant impact to our costs for 2019,” McCarthy added. “We have a flexible manufacturing and supply chain and plan to monitor developments in this area to minimize the tariff-related impact to our cost profile going forward.”

Andover, Mass.-based Casa makes cable modem termination systems and converged cable access platform equipment for the cable industry.

Related: Arris Says Trump Tariffs Will Add $200M/Year to U.S. Broadband Equipment Costs

McCarthy’s comments came a week after Arris told the FCC that the tariffs could drive up the annual industry cost for broadband components by $200 million a year.

Casa Systems cut its revenue guidance by $50 million for the rest of the year this week, explaining that its cable operator clients are putting off longterm investments on network expansion as they mull their big moves to virtualized architectures.

Speaking to investors during Casa’s second quarter earnings report, company president and CEO Jerry Guo said customers are making only short-term investments on network capacity expansion, eschewing high-capacity purchases of Converged Cable Access Platform hardware as they mull their strategy on next-generation Distribute Access Architecture (DAA).

Related: Casa Systems Shrinks IPO Size to 6M Shares at $13 Each

“Over the last few weeks, it has become clear to us that we are witnessing a pattern shift in procurement in the cable market,” Guo told investors, according to a transcript provided by Seeking Alpha. “While our customers weigh the timing for their large-scale rollout of the next network architecture, they are choosing to only procure capacity in a short-term basis. And they're not making very long-term upgrades of the chassis-based products in some cases.

“We do see DAA delayed industry wide in terms of large scale deployment,” Guo added. “And given that a lot of operators are contemplating DAA, they are slowing down their spending in their current capacity expansion.”

Guo said believes larger scale DAA deployment will begin in 2019.

Of course, none of this is helping Casa’s bottom line in the short term. The company’s stock is down around 23% since its Tuesday earnings report, during which it cut full-year revenue guidance to as low as $330 million.

Casa reported second quarter revenue of $68.7 million, up 3.1% from the year-ago quarter, but down 23% from the first quarter of this year.

After going public late last year, Casa Systems, a maker of cable and wireless network gear and software, said Q4 2017 revenues rose 18.9%, to $118 million, driven largely by software-based capacity expansions by cable operators.

RELATED: Casa Systems Shrinks IPO Size to 6M Shares at $13 Each

That was paired with GAAP net income of $28.9 million, down 27.6% versus the year-ago quarter.

For the full year, revenues rose 11.2%, to $351.6 million.

Though new wireless opportunities are starting to kick in, cable’s move to DOCSIS 3.1 to deliver gigabit-class speeds remains a key growth driver at Casa, company president and CEO Jerry Guo said Tuesday on the earnings call.

And while some operators, such as Comcast and WideOpenWest and Mediacom Communications, have moved aggressively with D3.1, Casa expects deployments to ramp up this year and into 2019.

Cable is generally at the “initial stage” of D3.1, Guo said, adding that there’s “a lot more to come.”

Though integrated Converged Cable Access Platform (CCAP) products have plenty of legs left, he also sees cable’s ramp toward distributed access architectures ramping up in 2019 and beyond.

RELATED: Ramping Up for Remote PHY

Casa also talked up its ongoing move into wireless – including a focus on 4G, small cells and cellular IoT cores -- recalling recently announced wins with Telefonica (for its 4G Apex Small Cells and small cell management platform); and with China Mobile and Sprint, which are both using Casa’s Axyom Small Cell Core product.

Casa said it expects revenues for fiscal year 2018 to be in the range of $380 million to $395 million, with non-GAAP net income of between $100 million to $111 million.

Some of Casa other known customers include Charter Communications (coming way primarily from Charter’s  acquisition of Time Warner Cable), Rogers Communications and Mediacom Communications in North America; Televisa/IZZI Mexico and Megacable Mexico; Claro Telmex Columbia; Liberty Global, Vodafone and DNA Oyj; and Jupiter Communications and Beijing Gehua CATV Networks in the Asia Pacific region.

Update: Via Twitter, Jeff Heynen, consulting director at SNL Kagan, noted that Casa’s turning in of a solid Q4 wasn’t a surprise, but wondered if Casa could maintain consistency throughout the year: 

Casa has historically had strong Q4s. The big question is whether the revenue troughs in subsequent quarters can be minimized. https://t.co/QyEjkbBGGs

— Jeff Heynen (@jeffheynen) March 7, 2018

Raymond James analyst Simon Leopold maintained his “Outperform” rating on Casa following its Q4 results, noting that the numbers exceeded expectations (sales of $118 million beat Wall Street consensus of $101.4 million), and Casa's 2018 forecast was a bit better than consensus.

“We expected seasonal strength in the software portion of Casa's business, which largely stems from capacity additions, but the results were well ahead of expectations at $50 million vs. our $38 million estimate,” he wrote, adding that the favorable mix fueled the gross margin to 77.1%, above his expectation of 69.9% and the Street's expectation of 68.5%.

Casa Systems’s IPO has apparently had a run-in with Dr. Shrinker.

Casa Systems, a maker of cable access and wireless network gear and software, said it has reduced the opening price of its IPO to $13 per share and cut the number of shares being offered to 6 million.

Casa Systems, which begins trading today on Nasdaq under the “CASA” ticker, announced plans earlier this month to offer about 8.4 million shares at $15 to $17 each.

UPDATE: Shares in Casa rose $1.40 (10.77%) Friday, closing at $14.40 each.

RELATED: Casa Systems IPO to Raise Up to $164.22M

Under the current plan, Casa Systems aims to raise about $78 million, well off the $164.2 million originally envisioned.

Casa Systems has also granted underwriters a 30-day option to buy up to 900,000 additional shares of stock at the IPO price. It added that Summit Partners, the company’s largest stockholder, has interest in acquiring up to 250,000 shares in the offering, “but in no event an amount that would have the effect of Summit Partners being the beneficial owner of 50% or more of Casa’s outstanding shares following the offering.”

Company president and CEO Jerry Guo has also expressed in interest in purchasing 100,000 shares in the offering, set to close on Dec. 19, 2017.

Morgan Stanley & Co. and Barclays Capital Inc. are acting as joint book-running managers for the offering, with Raymond James & Associates, Stifel, Nicolaus & Company, Macquarie Capital (USA), Northland Securities, Inc. and William Blair & Company acting as co-managers.

Casa, which has been pairing its wired network infrastructure portfolio with wireless systems, competes with vendors that include Arris, Cisco Systems, Harmonic, Huawei, Vecima Networks, and Nokia, which recently acquired virtual CCAP startup Gainspeed.

RELATED: Nokia Closes Gainspeed Buy

Casa’s customers include Charter Communications (coming way primarily from Charter’s  acquisition of Time Warner Cable), Rogers Communications and Mediacom Communications in North America; Televisa/IZZI Mexico and Megacable Mexico; Claro Telmex Columbia; Liberty Global, Vodafone and DNA Oyj; and Jupiter Communications and Beijing Gehua CATV Networks in the Asia Pacific region.

Casa generated revenues of $233.6 million through the first nine months of 2017 (with $125.3 million from North American customers), up 7.7%, and net income of $59.6 million, up 22% versus the corresponding year-ago nine-month period.

Cable and wireless tech vendor Casa Systems shed more details about its planned IPO, noting an S-1/A filing Monday (December 4) that it expects to price 8.4 million shares in the range of $15 to $17 per share.

Casa Systems, a key maker of cable modem termination system and converged cable access platform gear and software, filed its original S-1 on November 17.

The company plans to list its common stock on the NASDAQ market under the “CASA” symbol. Underwriters for the offering include Morgan Stanley, Barclays Capital, Raymond James & Assoc., and Stifel, Nicholas & Co.

Casa, which has also been investing heavily into wireless systems, competes with vendors that include Arris, Cisco Systems, Harmonic, Huawei, Vecima Networks, and Nokia, which recently acquired virtual CCAP startup Gainspeed.

RELATED: Nokia Closes Gainspeed Buy

Casa’s customers include Charter Communications (mostly via the Charter acquisition of Time Warner Cable), Rogers Communications and Mediacom Communications in North America; Televisa/IZZI Mexico and Megacable Mexico; Claro Telmex Columbia; Liberty Global, Vodafone and DNA Oyj; and Jupiter Communications and Beijing Gehua CATV Networks in the Asia Pacific region.

Casa generated revenues of $233.6 million through the first nine months of 2017 (with $125.3 million from North American customers), up 7.7%, and net income of $59.6 million, up 22% versus the corresponding year-ago nine-month period. The former TWC accounted for 36% of Casa’s revenues in the first nine months of 2017, compared to 11% coming from Liberty Global.

For all of 2016, Casa had revenues of $316.1 million and net income of $88.7 million, up 16% and 30.5%, respectively. 

Casa Systems, a maker of cable modem termination system and converged cable access platform gear and software, is aiming to raise up to $150 million in an IPO, according to an S-1 filed on Friday (November 17).

Casa Systems said it plans to list its common stock on the NASDAQ market under the “CASA” symbol. Underwriters for the offering include Morgan Stanley, Barclays Capital, Raymond James & Assoc., and Stifel, Nicholas & Co.

Founded in 2003, Andover, Mass.-based Casa cut its teeth on field programming gate arrays (FPGAs) alongside its eventual development of DOCSIS 3.0 CMTSs in 2008, an integrated CCAP in 2012, a DOCSIS 3.1 chassis in 2015, and, last year, its move into the distributed access architecture (DAA) and Remote PHY arena.

RELATED: Cable-Tec Expo: Gearing Up for Remote PHY

Casa, which has also been investing heavily into wireless systems, competes with vendors that include Arris, Cisco Systems, Harmonic, Huawei, Vecima Networks, and Nokia, which recently acquired virtual CCAP startup Gainspeed.

RELATED: Nokia Closes Gainspeed Buy

With an eye toward network virtualization, Casa has also developed Axyom, a software-powered architecture for a range of core and access network functions for fixed and wireless networks. Its Axyom software platform, for examples, supports apps such as security gateways, small cells and WiFi gateways, and the evolved packet core.

Casa, which has been holding its own over larger rivals such as Arris and Cisco in the cable tech sector, said its products are now commercially deployed in more than 70 countries by more than 400 customers. Examples or major customers include Charter Communications, Rogers Communications and Mediacom Communications in North America; Televisa/IZZI Mexico, Megacable Mexico and Claro Telmex Columbia in Latin America; Liberty Global, Vodafone and DNA Oyj in Europe; and Jupiter Communications and Beijing Gehua CATV Networks in the Asia Pacific region.

Though most of its revenues come way of its cable access (CMTS and CCAP) products, Casa has been branching into wireless technologies and products.

RELATED: Casa Systems Builds Wireless Annex

“We believe that the shift to software-centric ultra-broadband networks and fixed and wireless network convergence presents us with a compelling market opportunity,” Casa said in the S-1. “We intend to maintain our technological leadership through the enhancement of existing products and the development of new products in both our current and adjacent markets.”

Per the S-1, Casa pulled in revenues of $233.6 million through the first nine months of 2017 (with $125.3 million from North American customers), up 7.7%, and net income of $59.6 million, up 22% versus the corresponding year-ago nine-month period

For all of 2016, Casa had revenues of $316.1 million and net income of $88.7 million, up 16% and 30.5%, respectively 

Update: Casa has been heavily reliant on revenues from the operations that were formerly Time Warner Cable, the MSO acquired by Charter in May 2016. Through the first nine months of 2017, former TWC accounted for 36% of Casa’s revenues (and 23% for all of 2016). By comparison, Liberty Global accounted for 11% of revenues for the first nine months of 2017, and 10% for all of 2016. Sales to Rogers accounted for 11% of Casa’s revenues for all of 2016.

As of Sept. 30, 2017, Casa had cash and cash equivalents of $183.51 million, and long term debt of $298.14 million.

Casa had 664 full-time employees as of Oct. 31, 2017, with 347 located in the U.S.

Jerry Guo founded Casa and serves as its president and CEO. Before founding Casa, he was VP of broadband at River Delta Networks, a CMTS startup acquired by Motorola in 2001 for $300 million. Before that, he was a research scientist at Bell Laboratories’ research division. 

In 2016, Guo was paid total compensation of $5.3 million, including salary, bonus, stock awards, option awards and other compensation factored in.

Guo currently owns 2.39 million shares of Casa, or 15.9% of the company. Among other backers, Liberty Global Ventures Holding has a 6% stake.

Casa Systems is using this week’s Cable-Tec Expo in Philadelphia to introduce a virtualized core for the Converged Cable Access Platform as well as for 4G/5G cellular and WiFi capabilities.

Casa, which has previously centered efforts on more centralized forms of the CCAP, will demo a vCCAP that uses the vendor’s Axyom software architecture, which provides a common security framework for the independent scaling of control and data plane functions, the company said.

RELATED: Cable-Tec Expo: Nokia Puts Gainspeed Buy to Work

The supplier said its latest product line features virtual MAC layer data processing, control and management functions, and that its family of distributed access nodes for PHY layer processing in cable networks are supported by both the new vCCAP product and its chassis-based CCAPs, such as the C100G and C40G.

Casa Systems joins a group of access network suppliers focused on cable that have launched or are developing virtual CCAPs, including Arris and Nokia, among others.

Casa (booth 665) hasn’t announced any deployment deals for the virtualized approach, but some of its announced partners include Interop Technologies, Jupiter Telecommunications, DNA Ltd, Mediacom Communications, Wave Broadband and Time Warner Cable (now part of Charter Communications).

In addition to the vCCAP demos, Casa will also be showing off its Video over DAA (Distributed Access Architecture), DOCSIS 3.1 gear and Axyom LTE based Wi-Fi calling, and Secure Wi-Fi MDU products. 

Casa Systems said Jupiter Telecommunications (J:COM), Japan’s largest cable operator, are getting a bit tighter on the tech front. 

Casa said J:COM will tap its C100G converged cable access platform (CCAP) for the convergence of its data and video services on a unified platform. CCAPs are high-density platforms that support both the functions of the cable modem termination system and the edge QAM. 

Last April, J:COM picked Casa’s DOCSIS 3.1-capable C100G to support the rollout of broadband service that topped out at 320 Mbps in the downstream. 

J:COM’s deployment of Casa’s CCAP began earlier this year. J:COM serves over 5 million households. 

“Casa has proven its ability to deliver fully converged, commercial services over a CCAP,” Kazuhiko Masuda, J:COM’s senior corporate officer and GM of the MSO’s technology unit, said in a statement. “Now, we will be able to provide both video and data over one platform while reducing OPEX and network complexity.” 

Casa, which has been chasing Arris and Cisco Systems in the cable access network market, also counts customers such as Mediacom Communications, Wave Broadband and DNA, Finland’s largest operator. Time Warner Cable (now part of Charter Communications) has also been working with Casa. 

Tech news is starting to roll in as AngaCom gets underway this week in Cologne, Germany. Here’s a snapshot:

-Cisco Systems said Altice has begun a field trial of DOCSIS 3.1 with SFR in France using the cBR-8, the vendor’s flagship converged cable access platform (CCAP). Cisco said Altice used the platform in a field trial that hit speeds of more than 3 Mbps per sub. Elsewhere on the D3.1 front, VOO, a Belgian cable operator, is rolling out the cBR-8 for residential and business services.

-Separately, Cisco announced that Teracom A/S, a provider of digital terrestrial transmitted radio and TV in Denmark, has launched a new digital headend that utilizes Cisco’s D9902 Digital Content Manager.

-Huawei has launched a 10-gig HFC access platform that supports DOCSIS 3.1 as well as 10G PON. Its HFC access platform consists of a OLT (Optical Line Terminal), 10G PON interface board, DOCSIS 3.1- based distributed CCAP, 10G PON ONT (Optical Network Terminal), and is tied together with a unified network management system, the company said. Huawei said its D-CCAP has been deployed with MSOs in 29 counties, including Denmark, New Zealand, Finland, France, Japan, Russia, and Brazil, with a footprint that covers 40 million households.

-Arris said German MSO NetCologne has tapped its Touchstone TG2492 Gateway to deliver gigabit speeds and wireless broadband coverage to subs in the Cologne, area. The TG2492 is a EuroDOCSIS gateway supports speeds of up to 1Gbps (32x8 DOCSIS 3.0 channel bonding), dual-band 802.11ac WiFi, and an embedded multimedia terminal adapter (for voice, up to two lines).

-Casa Systems said DNA Ltd., Finland’s largest MSO, has deployed the vendor’s C100G converged cable access platform for broadband service. DNA, Casa noted, recently tapped the platform to show D3.1-based downstream speeds of 3.055 Gbps. Casa Systems said the C100G has been deployed by more than 135 service providers, including Liberty Global, Jupiter Communications (J:COM) of Japan, Mediacom Communications and Time Warner Cable (now part of Charter Communications).

-Emcore has introduced the Medallion 8100 Series DOCSIS 3.1  L-EMLTM 1550nm externally-modulated CATV transmitter. The L-EMLTM device consists of a high power, low-noise, narrow linewidth laser combined with a proprietary highly linearised modulator in a monolithic assembly, the company said.

-MaxLinear said its MxL370x chipset has been picked by Hirschmann Multimedia BV for a new line of bonded MoCA (Multimedia over Coax Alliance) 2.0-based home networking products that will carry the “MOKA” brand. The new line will include a MOKA plug-in module for its in-home amps, a MOKA WiFi extender, and a USB-powered MOKA mini.

-VeEX will use this week’s show to debut a network sweep system for DOCSIS 3.1 deployments. Its redesigned CaLan 3010H+ CaTV sweep system is a headend unit that is compatible with Sunrise Telecom’s CM2800 and CM3800 testers, which now form part of the VeEX CaTV product portfolio, the vendor said.

-Rohde & Schwarz said it’s expanding its DOCSIS test and measurement portfolio with a D3.1- signal generator.

CableLabs is holding court this week at the Rosen Shingle Creek in Orlando, where it's holding its annual Winter Conference.

Here’s a snapshot of what participating vendors are demonstrating to CableLabs and its contingent of MSO members:

-Casa Systems said it’s demoing upstream speeds of 400 Mbps-plus via its C40G, a more compact DOCSIS 3.1-capable converged cable access platform, that’s also outfitted with a 16x8 upstream module. That demo, it said, comes on the heels of a D3.1-powered demo of its C100G pumping out downstream speeds of more than 4.5 Gbps at the SCTE Cable Tec-Expo in New Orleans last fall.

-MaxLinear and Celeno Communications have teamed on a MoCA/WiFi extender reference design aimed at enabling whole-home gigabit WiFi. At the event, they’re demoing the design, which features Celeno’s Quicksilver CL2440 802.11ac Wave 2 4x4 Multi User MIMO Wi-Fi chip and MaxLinear’s low power EN2810 MoCA 2.0 SoC.

-AirTies Wireless Networks is showing its in-home WiFi solution that coordinates and optimizes performance across access points and addresses “bad apple’ WiFi performance issues that can degrade active devices on the home network.

-Video streaming company MediaMelon is showcasing MediaMelon QBR, a platform, it claims, can reduce bandwidth requirements by 35% using existing adaptive bitrate techniques without disrupting the underlying workflow. That will come in handy, it said, as operators deliver 4K fare and look to reduce storage costs. MediaMelon said its platforms are compatible with major streaming formats, including HTTP Live Streaming (HLS), MPEG-DASH, HTTP Smooth Streaming (HSS) and HTTP Dynamic Streaming (HDS).

-Big data specialist Guavus is demoing Service Reflex 3, an analytics application that enables service providers to improve service quality and enhance customer experience by ingesting, fusing and contextualizing network impacting events with subscriber data in real time.

-SMK Electronics is using the event to introduce two next-gen remote control product families – Evolution and Voice Navigator. Evolution, available in both 47-key and 9-16-key models, can use the service provider’s choice of IR, RF, Bluetooth, ZigBee, RF4CE or WiFi Direct wireless technologies, while the sleeker Voice Navigator, which supports up to 20 keys, utilizes Bluetooth Low Energy to bring voice command apps to pay TV applications.

-Greenlee Communications is showcasing AirScout, a WiFi test and measurement device that relies on multi-client hardware that communicates with a master client that gives an accurate reading of the WiFi environment. The tool, the company said, can reduce truck rolls and repeat service calls while also helping technicians better manage their workflow. 

More light is being shed on the technical underpinnings of a residential 1-Gig offering that Mediacom Communications launched last year.

Casa Systems said the MSO is using its C100G converge cable access platform (CCAP) to power the network-side of the offering in its Columbia and Jefferson, Mo., markets.

Mediacom is also using a DOCSIS 3.0-powered modem from Hitron Technologies Americas to support the service, which teams a 1-Gig downstream with an upstream that maxes out at 50 Mbps for about $150 per months.

The deployment is another key win for Casa Systems, which is battling for CCAP share with market leaders, Arris and Cisco Systems, as well with suppliers such as Harmonic and Huawei Technologies.

“We are excited to bring our long experience providing commercial-grade gigabit services to our residential customers beginning with these communities in Mid-Missouri,” said JR Walden, Mediacom’s SVP of technology, in a statement. “Casa’s C100G was the right CMTS solution given our timing, facilities requirements, performance needs and desire to support the future evolution of our network and services.”

The Casa C100G is also capable of supporting DOCSIS 3.1, the emerging multi-gigabit platform for HFC networks. 

Casa Systems said Wave Broadband will use its C100G converge cable access platform to deliver gigabit speeds to residential and business customers in the Pacific Northwest.

Wave Broadband is rolling out the C100G, Casa’s CCAP that combines the functions of the cable modem termination system and the edge QAM. The C100G uses DOCSIS 3.0 today, but Casa has developed downstream and upstream modules that put the platform in position to support DOCSIS 3.1, an emerging multi-gigabit spec for HFC networks.

Wave has about 450,000 Internet, TV and phone customers in Northern California and parts of Oregon and Washington, and said it’s swapping out its legacy CMTSs for the gigabit plan, which will help the MSO deliver new bandwidth-intensive apps, including IP video.

Notably, Wave recently raised about $130 million in debt to help fund an aggressive buildout of its fiber optic communications network and aimed at bringing higher-speed connectivity to business customers.

"Driven by the incredible growth of streaming video, social media and other rich content, the gigabit era can't wait. To reinforce our investment in expanding gigabit services across our region, it was imperative we have the right infrastructure in place," said Harold Zeitz, president and COO at Wave, in a statement. "The C100G CCAP from Casa Systems is the solution that paves a seamless path to scale and supports next-gen technologies such as DOCSIS 3.1, wireless, PON architecture and virtualization that are poised to become competitive differentiators."

The win with Wave comes as Casa grapples for markets share against access network rivals such as Arris, Cisco Systems, Harmonic, and Huawei. 

AT&T GigaPower. CenturyLink 1-Gig. Google Fiber. Driven by the overwhelming growth of over-the-top (OTT) video, social media and other rich content, the Gigabit Internet era is here for U.S. consumers. They want it now, they’ll switch providers to get it, and they most definitely will not wait for it.

As the longtime residential broadband leaders, MSOs are finally nearing the finish line of a technology that will completely disrupt the competitive landscape and market narrative for Gigabit Internet: DOCSIS 3.1.

The new standard will also finally put the benefits and capabilities of the next generation of broadband delivery technology – the Converged Cable Access Platform (CCAP) – in full view and allow MSOs to compete for Gigabit Internet customers.

As with any product with CCAP’s potential, it comes with competing claims and confusion. So let’s set a few facts straight so the industry can move forward and unleash the potential of Gigabit Internet services and the ultra broadband customer experience.

Will the Real DOCSIS 3.1 CCAP Please Stand Up?

The transition to the DOCSIS 3.1 standard is both imminent and crucial to enabling MSOs with the capacity and speed they need to step into the ultra broadband generation. The challenge is parsing through the reality of CCAP equipment: is it DOCSIS 3.1-compliant now or will it “evolve” there over time? Will it be able to do full spectrum to reach the maximum of 10 Gbps downstream, or is that a future consideration and additional cost?

Advice to MSOs: Networks are built with equipment, not slides. With Gigabit Internet competition heating up, look for CCAP solutions that are fully DOCSIS 3.1 compliant today for both upstream and downstream. Also, understand the roadmap to know what additional investments will be required down the road to actually deliver DOCSIS 3.1 from a CCAP, including potentially needing to rip and replace switch cards, line cards or PHY modules. Underdeveloped technology and expensive card overhauls could add costs, time and complexity to Gigabit rollout plans.

Think Open, Intelligent and Software-Defined

There is also a view that CCAPs designed on open Advanced Telecom Computing Architecture (ATCA) platforms are limited in their ability to scale with DOCSIS 3.1 compared to proprietary hardware designs.

Advice to MSOs: Nobody likes vendor lock-in. ATCA platforms are open and designed to incorporate the latest trends in high speed interconnect technologies, next generation processors and carrier-grade reliability and manageability. More importantly, they are purpose-built as CCAPs based on their intelligent software, which makes them inherently more cloud-ready than proprietary hardware. In fact, there are ATCA-based CCAPs that support full spectrum DOCSIS 3.1 downstream today.

Be Wary of “Headend Hogs”

While the focus is on delivering Gigabit services, the original premise of the CCAP specification cannot be overlooked: a super-dense edge architecture that combines edge QAM and CMTS functionality in a device that saves headend space and power while converging IP services.

Advice to MSOs: While some CCAPs can be up to 75% deeper or weigh four times as much, the key metric to impact the bottom line is power consumption with some CCAPs costing up to $1,200 more per year per chassis to power. Given the size of CCAP deployments in the coming years to support Gigabit services, understanding the cost difference in power consumption and what that adds up to over time is critical. One major U.S. operator that deployed CCAPs in a major market found that they saved more than $5 million in energy costs in just the first year.

It’s the Gigabit World, not the Gigabit Wait

While telco and fiber competitors have seized headlines over the past year through limited fiber-to-the-home deployments in very select markets, MSOs stand on the precipice of Gigabit-enabling their entire HFC footprint and leading the ultra broadband industry for another decade. It will be a game changer and leading the charge will be CCAPs that support full spectrum downstream DOCSIS 3.1 today, effortlessly scale and are ready for cable’s software-defined future while minimizing their headend footprint and power consumption.

--Lisa Garvin is a senior product manager for Casa Systems, a provider of next generation cable edge technologies.

Casa Systems staked its claim of the emerging DOCSIS 3.1 Wednesday with the introduction of a downstream module designed for the CableLabs-specified multi-gigabit platform.

Casa Systems said the D3.1-compliant module, called the DS8x192, is for its C100G (pictured) and C40G Converged Cable Access Platforms (CCAPs), which are high-density access network systems that combine the functions of the cable modem termination system and the edge QAM.  Last year, Casa debuted the US16x8, a module that supports DOCSIS 3.1 in the upstream direction.

The company said the first DOCSIS 3.1-facing software release on the new downstream module is expected to be ready for customer lab testing in the late third quarter of 2015.

The new downstream module appears as operators, including Comcast and Liberty Global, look to move aggressively with DOCSIS 3.1, a platform for HFC networks that will drive cable’s all-IP transition and shoot for capacities of up to 10 Gbps down and at least 1 Gbps in the upstream. Comcast expects to kick off field market trials of D3.1 by the fourth quarter of 2015

It also shows up as CableLabs announced this week that it has “opened the door” to official certification and qualification testing of DOCSIS 3.1-based modems and network equipment. Vendors must submit products to CableLabs by the week of October 5 to get into certification wave 116, the last one scheduled for 2015.  The results from wave 116 will be shared in mid-January 2016, according to CableLabs.

Casa plans to submit product for official DOCSIS 3.1 qualification testing at CableLabs this year, a company offiicial said via email. 

Casa Systems will face some stiff competition in the D3.1 arena, as it will be contending with companies such as Arris, Cisco Systems, Harmonic and Huawei. Casa has gained lots of ground during the DOCSIS 3.0 era. According to IHS/Infonetics, Arris nabbed a 53% share of CCAP/CMTS revenues in Q4 2014, followed by Casa (23.5%) and Cisco (20%).

Reaching a significant milestone in the deployment of next-gen cable access technologies, Casa Systems confirmed Monday that Time Warner Cable is delivering IP-based data and voice services and QAM-based video simultaneously in New York using the vendor’s integrated Converged Cable Access Platform (CCAP).

The achievement is significant because it’s the first known deployment in North America of a CCAP that is delivering both IP and QAM services via the same platform. The CCAP, a high-density, energy-saving platform, puts the functions of the edge QAM and the cable modem termination system under the same roof. While early CCAP-facing implementations have served as either super CMTSs or edge QAMs, the TWC/Casa deployment in New York is mixing both IP- and MPEG/QAM traffic on the same platform at the same time. 

According to Casa, TWC has “migrated hundreds of thousands of video subs” to the vendor’s C100G integrated CCAP (pictured), a product introduced in mid-2013.

Word of the achievement first emerged last month at a Light Reading event in Denver. “We still are the first to go out with CCAP with being able to provision MPEG-2 video on CCAP,” Mike Hayashi, the retiring executive vice president, architecture, development and engineering at TWC, said during a panel moderated by independent analyst and Multichannel News contributor Leslie Ellis. Hayashi also talked up the operational advantages of CCAP when it comes to assigning capacity to service groups and service types.

While Arris was the top provider of CCAP/CMTS gear in the fourth quarter of 2014, with a 53% share of revenues, Casa held about 23.5%, enough to move ahead of Cisco Systems’s 20%, according to Infonetics Research.

Time Warner Cable has completed an upgrade in the speed-crazy town of Austin, Texas, that is highlighted by a new 300 Mbps (downstream) DOCSIS 3.0 service that replaces its former 50 Mbps offering, Ryan Kelly, TWC’s integrated communications manager, noted Tuesday in this blog post.

TWC announced in May that more than 100,000 subscribers in Austin, or about 40% of its customers in the area, had access a new batch of broadband speed increases, including the top-end 300-Meg tier that is paired with an upstream that maxes out at 20 Mbps.

Among the “TWC Maxx” upgrades, which include an all-digital migration, an expanded VOD library, and the introduction of a new six-tuner HD-DVR, the operator’s Standard plan jumps from 15 Mbps down to 50 Mbps for no extra charge. Some customers will need a DOCSIS 3.0 modem to get the speed upgrades. Customers who lease modems from the MSO and need a new one to get the faster speeds can get one for no additional charge. TWC has set up a Web page dedicated to its modem swap program.

TWC is upgrading its plant in Austin as AT&T continues a limited rollout of its 1-Gig-capable, fiber-fed “U-verse With GigaPower” service, and Grande Communications expands the reach of a 1-Gig service that sells for $64.99 per month. Google Fiber is also in the process of building out a network in parts of Austin that will support 1-Gig speeds and a pay-TV service.

The FCC has been pressuring ISPs to deliver faster speeds and then deliver on the speeds it promises. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler has signaled that speed is a factor in determining whether broadband is being deployed in a timely manner.

TWC, which is in the process of being acquired by Comcast, has TWC Maxx upgrades underway in New York City and Los Angeles. TWC announced recently that  seven more markets are in line to get the TWC Maxx treatment in 2015: Charlotte, N.C.; Dallas; Hawaii; Kansas City, Mo.;  Raleigh, N.C.; San Antonio, Texas, and San Diego.

Kelly added in the blog post that upgrades in New York and L.A. are more than halfway done, and the MSO is on track to reach a goal of completing network upgrades that reach more than 3 million customers by the end of 2014.

Notably, a video embedded with Kelly’s blog post that explores upgrade activity at a hub in Queens, N.Y., shows a cable modem termination system from Casa Systems, a vendor that has been gaining ground on CMTS market leaders Arris and Cisco Systems.

If good things indeed come in small packages, Casa Systems (booth 1739) is testing out that axiom at this week’s Cable-Tec Expo with the launch of the C40G, a compact version of its integrated converged cable access platform (CCAP) that packs in support for MPEG video, IP video and DOCSIS over a single port.

Casa, which has been gaining ground on cable access market leaders Arris and Cisco Systems, claims that the C40G supports the same functionality of its larger integrated CCAP cousin, the C100G.

According to Casa, the C40G platform utilizes all of the existing C100G CCAP modules including: the downstream module (DS8X96); switching module (SMM8X10G); and upstream modules (US16X4 & 16X8)

“With the announcement of the C40G, Casa Systems is the first vendor to provide an extremely cost effective and highly economical CCAP platform for those operators who have smaller headends,” said Jeff Heynen, principal analyst of broadband access and pay TV for Infonetics Research, in a statement.

Buoyed by IP capacity expansions, the number of upstream and downstream DOCSIS channel shipments reached 1.2 million in the second quarter of 2014, a new quarterly record that stomped the one set in the first quarter of the year, Infonetics Research said in its latest roundup of the cable access sector.

Infonetics noted that this was also the first time those channel shipments eclipsed the 1 million market for the first time. That figure factors in sales of  DOCSIS-powered cable modem termination systems (CMTSs), Converged Cable Access Platform (CCAP) products, which aim to combine the CMTS and edge QAM functions, and Coax Media Converters (CMCs) -- stripped down CMTSs that don’t support the core routing functions typically found in a CMTS that are gaining steam in markets such as China and represent a product class that has been integrated with the primary CableLabs DOCSIS specifications.

Combined revenue for CCAP, CMTS, edge QAM and CMC equipment reached $411 million worldwide, up 24% from the previous quarter, the company noted.

Infonetics also found that global CCAP revenue climbed another 42% sequentially in the second quarter as MSOs continue to migrate to the higher density platform and take advantage of their lower per-channel prices. The push to CCAP is most acute in North America, which  saw revenue in the category rise 39% in the second quarter versus the previous quarter.

“The velocity of the shift from CMTS to CCAP remains phenomenal," Jeff Heynen, Infonetics’ principal analyst for broadband access and pay TV, said in a statement.

Infonetics did not initially announce how the market share leaders ranked in the second quarter, but did note that Arris, Casa Systems and Cisco Systems once again comprised the top three. Multichannel News will provide an update on the vendor leaderboard once those specifics are known.

According to Infonetics' report for the first quarter of 2014,  Arris was tops in terms of revenue share with 37%, followed by Cisco Systems (32%) , Casa Systems (21%), and Harmonic (7%).

Sales in Converged Cable Access Platform (CCAP) gear rose 177% in the first quarter, as MSO spending continued to slant toward a high-density next-gen architecture that combines the functions of the cable modem termination system and edge QAM and will pave cable’s path to an all-IP world, Infonetics Research said in its latest market report.

“In a dramatic shift, the vast majority of cable operator spending in the first quarter of 2014…went toward new CCAP equipment instead of the bedrock of cable broadband, CMTS,” Jeff Heynen, principal analyst for broadband access and pay TV at Infonetics, said in a statement.

He said cable operators are on a “steady path adding significant channel capacity” for DOCSIS 3.0, IP video, carrier WiFi, businesses services, and DOCSIS 3.1, a new CableLabs spec that will support multi-gigabit capabilities. Infonetics' latest forecast (see above graph) shows CCAP revenues dwarfing those from the traditional CMTS market.

Still, the quarter presented somewhat of a mixed bag. CMTS and CCAP channel shipments reached a record in the quarter, but the combined global market for CMTS, CCAP and edge QAM gear dipped to $332 million in the first quarter, off 6% from the fourth quarter of 2013, Infonetics said.

The North American cable market is feeling the effects of the CCAP shift. According to Infonetics, quarter revenue dropped 13% despite a 20% rise in CMTS and CCAP channel shipments.  

As bragging rights go, it was a good quarter for Arris, which overtook Cisco Systems in worldwide CMTS and CCAP revenues. Casa Systems, which has been gaining ground on Arris and Cisco, further solidified its position by increasing revenue by 13% in the quarter, Infonetics said.

The precise market share break among those suppliers was not immediately known.

Update: According to Heynen, Arris led the way with a 37% share of revenues for combined CMTS, edge QAM, and CCAP-pointing products,  followed by Cisco's 32%, Casa's 21%, and Harmonic's 7%.

At the end of 2013, Cisco represented 44% of CMTS/CCAP revenues, followed by Arris’s 33%, and Casa’s 23%.