Seemingly aware that self back-patting doesn’t present great optics right now, cable network operators and their associated vendors are at least indulging in well-earned sighs of relief.

With NCTA–The Internet & Television Association showing an aggregate traffic increase of 16% for downstream data and 34% for upstream, cable operators — which collectively control two-thirds of U.S. wireline broadband connections — are seeing the sharp usage increases on their networks during the COVID-19 pandemic hit a plateau, with few instances of major outage or service interruption.

“They probably should pat themselves on the back,” said CommScope Broadband Networks chief technology officer Tom Cloonan. “Their networks have helped hold society together at a crucial time.”

Speaking during a virtual panel event on April 28 conducted by Cisco, Cox Communications chief technology officer Kevin Hart conceded, “It’s been a mad dash over the last few months, but our networks have held up well.”

From virtually every point on the cable engineering spectrum, the message has been similar. Operators have designed their networks anticipating usage patterns 12 to 18 months in advance, with plenty of headroom built in.

In some cases, though, the margin of error hasn’t been all that thick.

Built to Survive

Hybrid fiber coaxial (HFC) network engineers have managed to “survive” a harrowing two months in which their networks — particularly on the upstream end, with suddenly house-bound residential customers engaged in vastly greater video-conferencing activity — “close to running out of stream,” Cloonan said.

CommScope, he said, has kept up a steady dialogue with engineers working for its operator clients, teaching them how to remotely fine-tune complicated configuration settings that had been merely adjusted to an “OK” performance level in the aftermath of the industry conversion to DOCSIS 3.1. (It’s akin to learning how to fine-tune the picture settings on your flat screen two years after taking the thing out of the box.)

This includes turning on additional channels at the cable modem termination system (CMTS) level, even those that had been in noisy “keep out” regions of the plant spectrum. They also include adjusting the buffer control settings on user modems.

“Operators have been calling us, looking for things they can do in the near term, remotely from a PC on a software level,” Cloonan said. “There have been a lot of phone calls covering a lot of topics over the last seven weeks. There are a few knobs you can turn and a few tricks you can perform. We’re all trying to squeeze every megabit out of the box we can right now.”

Beyond conducting fine-tune optimization initiatives, operators are beginning more aggressive node optimization projects that involve truck rolls and, perhaps, a bit more risk to staff.

Operators, Cloonan said, have been “kind of awakened” during the pandemic that while they’ve managed to pull through, their plants lack “infinite resources.” That has inspired some engineering teams, for example, to upgrade the upstream signals from their plants to 85 Megahertz from 42 MHz.

Hart said that “99%” of Cox’s network nodes “are in a healthy state.” But Cox did physically address “those having a problem with things like taking fiber deeper and doing node splits.”

Comcast, meanwhile, has been “running additional fiber and optical nodes” to “give us more headroom,” the company’s top technologist, Tony Werner, told reporters during a recent briefing. That work, Werner said, was in addition to a significant increase in the amount of remote “dial turns” conducted by Comcast engineers to the network.

Cloonan noted: “Every time you do a node split, you reduce the number of subscribers who have to share bandwidth. And I think we’ll be seeing a lot more note splits in the coming months. But this is something your techs can’t do from their homes. You have to roll trucks.”

Tomorrow’s Network, Today

Moderating the virtual panel presentation, Jonathan Davis, senior VP and GM of mass-scale infrastructure for Cisco, said, “As a result of COVID-19, we’re getting a glimpse of what the future of the internet is today.”

Most folks in the cable technology business seem to agree that, regardless of whether or not efforts are successful in tamping down COVID-19 and people return to their offices anytime soon, network usage will probably never again go down to February 2020 levels.

So assuming that — save for a few tweaks — the HFC network of today has proven up to the task of handling the worst crisis so far of the 21st century, will cable operators hold off on making major investments into new network technology?

The first very early indicator suggests the answer is … maybe. Harmonic just reported decelerating deployments in the first quarter for its disruptive converged cable access platform (CCAP) virtualization software, CableOS, with commercial deployments slowing to 17%.

Cloonan, though, believes the pandemic will only inspire operators to prioritize movements toward new technologies that include not just virtualization but also Extended Spectrum DOCSIS and Full Duplex DOCSIS, both of which are included in CableLabs recently published DOCSIS 4.0 specification.

“Every operator will look at what has happened and make a decision on how to analyze it and view,” Cloonan said. “But most will realize that they snuck through. Barely.” 

When the stock price of Zoom Video Communications zipped past $160 per share late Monday (March 23), up from $107 a week earlier and $68 at the beginning of this year....

And when I watched newscasts that were not only about working from home (WFH) but also featured anchors, weather, sports and news reporters who were themselves WFH...

And when I saw how DJ D-Nice's Instagram Live Saturday night (March 21) #ClubQuarantine online party (virtually attend by Oprah Winfrey, Michelle Obama, Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Naomi Campbell, among others) almost crashed the internet with more than 100,000 viewers...

And when I read a Brookings report that nearly 48 million K-12 students are studying from home because their schools are closed ...

And when our local high school invited us to a Zoom "Stressbusters" session...

And when I realized I was tuning into far more streaming meetings than I attended just a few weeks ago...

...several historic moments flashed through my mind. They all dealt with capacity management, well-intentioned efforts to deliver electronic home services and also human preferences for virtual connections versus pressing actual flesh. Among the potent memories:

• Cisco's annual Visual Network Index, now renamed "Annual Internet Report (AIR)." Just 18 months ago, Cisco's forecast predicted that video content would account for about 80% of Internet traffic. (It does now, up from about 60% three years ago.)

• "Cable in the Classroom," which debuted in 1989 and ceased operations in 2014, and the nearly 70-year legacy of "educational TV."

•  My own experience running a teleconference in 1970 (50 years ago!) at the "old AT&T" before satellites and way before internet delivery. Regional general managers appreciated the efficiency but preferred in-person meetings.

Related: Small Cable Operators Beef Up Broadband to Battle Coronavirus

In addition to Zoom, WFH platforms such as Cisco's WebEx, StreamYard, Microsoft Teams, Uber Conference, Google Hangout, Apple Facetime, YouTube, Facebook Messenger Video Calling have all surged as millions of self-incarcerated people around the world find the need to work, study or socialize-at-a-respectable-distance. The booming streaming entertainment audience market has suddenly been augmented - possibly eclipsed at times - by the WFH market.

Although providers are coy about revealing actual usage statistics, a few datapoints have materialized.

Cisco CEO Chuck Robins told CNBC last week that WebEx customers spent 5.5 billion meeting minutes on WebEx during the first 11 days of March. Cisco has also said that WebEx traffic in parts of Europe soared by as much as 80% compared to a year earlier. Its February traffic in China was 22 times greater than normal, and other Asian markets saw spikes of three and four times usual levels as COVID-19 spread during the past month, the company said.

Zoom has merely revealed that its monthly, weekly and daily "active user" base numbers are "at all time highs." Zoom's Cloud Meetings free app climbed to the top spot at Apple's App Store, ahead of Netflix and YouTube. KeyBanc analyst Alex Kurtz expects Zoom's revenue to see a 35% year-over-year boom based on the comparison between the first two weeks of March this year versus 2019, according to TheStreet.com.

On Monday, Zoom CEO Eric Yuan, who grew up in eastern Shandong Province of China, issued his "business continuity commitment." It included expanded support for online education (primarily in China for now) and telemedicine enablement. Yuan said that doctors from more than 1,000 public hospitals in China are using Zoom’s high-definition video meetings to conduct online consultations, remotely diagnose patients and provide treatment during the coronavirus epidemic.

Is WFH a Fad .. or Here to Stay?

Before the COVID-19 ordeal, about 16% of the U.S. workforce spent some time working remotely, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, which did not specify how much of that WFH time actually involved video connections.

Charles Wilsker, president of the Telework Coalition,  told Multichannel News that the current surge in WFH reflects companies' recognition of the need for a business continuity process. He also cited the network capacity challenges that emerged.

"This won't be gone overnight," he said, adding that "It's foolish to think something like this won't happen again. When it happens again, you don't want to be in the same situation."

TelCoa, which was established 20 years ago but has kept a low profile in recent years, has revived its activities in response to what Wilsker calls "the desperate need" of companies seeking to support WFH activities. Its research finds that up to 40% of the work force prefers the option of working from home.

"When companies bring everyone back into the office, people are going to recognize that some of these things worked very well with employees" who have operated remotely, he added.

Former FCC chairman and NCTA and CTIA president Tom Wheeler questioned whether the current telecom infrastructure is up to the job for the expanded WFH usage.

"What is sufficient bandwidth for a couple of home computers for a husband and wife may not be sufficient when you add students who are going to class all day long operating from home,” Wheeler fretted to the New York Times last week. "We just don't know."

Related: Senate Dems: Coronavirus Bill Needs Billions for E-Rate 

As for my own first teleconference experience when I was an AT&T newcomer, it was ultimately discouraging. Since Ma Bell owned/operated the nationwide terrestrial network that carried ABC, CBS and NBC video programs to local affiliates, and since every regional office in the Long Lines division where I worked was developing a closed circuit TV project, we had an idea. We could use the network time for a few hours between the end of the morning game shows and the start of the afternoon soap operas to run a video teleconference to replace the monthly headquarters meeting when the regional general managers all went to New York monthly for a two- or three-day gathering. In addition, their staffs could see the process and "virtually" meet their counterparts in other regions. That live participation also eliminated the need for a local staff debriefing in each city when the GMs returned from New York.

After the successful videoconference, the feedback was universal: they achieved as much in a few hours as they did in a day-long meeting. "Do you want to do it again next month?" "No, we prefer the trip to New York." We interpreted that as meaning they liked dining, drinking and rubbing shoulders in person - at rate-payers expense. (Disclosure: I quit Ma Bell a few months later rather than take a promotion to headquarters - and because I had an opportunity to get into the CATV business.)

My youthful takeaway from that experience was that business executives - at least in that era - were more comfortable at face-to-face meetings than on video. Obviously that hesitancy had eroded, and today's video-savvy executives seem to have little reluctance to use video. Yet I still wonder if the need to press-the-flesh (after the current no-handshake restrictions are lifted) will overcome the value and efficacy of video teleconferencing.

Endless analyses will emerge after this COVID-19 ordeal. The role of video in WFH business, education and medicine may finally find its position alongside entertainment.

That is a strong signal to build and market infrastructure that is up to "the job."

Cisco Systems said it will work with The Walt Disney Studios on the StudioLAB, an initiative focused on developing new technologies, designs and prototypes focused on video production.

The 3,500 square-foot StudioLAB facility will be based on the Disney studio lot in Burbank and lean on a mix of Cisco hardware and software products in areas such as storage, network, orchestration and collaboration.

Some areas of focus will include enhanced remote collaboration for creatives and studio leadership, more seamless and secure connections for filmmakers, the studio and third parties, and more efficient and reliable ways to deliver production data and assets from the set to the cloud, they said.

The Walt Disney Studios produces films for units that include Walt Disney Animation Studios, Pixar Animation Studios, Marvel Studios and Lucasfilm, and brings music and stage plays to consumers through The Disney Music Group and Disney Theatrical Group.

Cisco said it’s on board as a founding member and “Innovation Partner” of Disney’s StudioLAB, announcing the partnership during its first XR On the Bay Conference, hosted by Cisco’s Advanced Imaging Society at the company’s corporate campus in San Jose.

In March, Accenture announced it was selected as Innovation Partner for the StudioLAB project.

“We are very pleased to welcome Cisco as a StudioLAB Innovation Partner, as we combine the best of Silicon Valley and Hollywood to help our storytellers tell their very best stories. Through this partnership, we can push the boundaries of how content can be created and consumed,” Benjamin Havey, VP, technology innovation group, at The Walt Disney Studios, said in a statement.

“This partnership is a game changer for the media industry, and we are excited for the opportunity to work closely with The Walt Disney Studios team to prototype, develop and showcase new technology at StudioLAB,” added David Ward, SVP, CTO and chief architect at Cisco. “This will be the place where true innovation comes alive in media entertainment.” 

Private equity firm Permira has identified industry vet Yves Padrines and the designated CEO of a new company that will be formed from Permira’s proposed acquisition of Cisco Systems’s Service Provider Video Software Solutions business.

RELATED: Cisco Strikes Deal to Sell its Video Software Business

To say Padrines will be familiar with the new video software division being formed by Permira is an understatement. He most recently was VP of global service provider for Europe, Middle East, Africa and Russia at Cisco, and was also a long-time exec at NDS.

Padrines joined Cisco following its 2012 acquisition of NDS, the company where a good portion of the services and technologies Permira is acquiring from Cisco originated.

RELATED: Cisco Announces Deal to Acquire NDS for $5 Billion

The move will likewise reunite Padrines with Dr. Abe Peled, senior adviser to Permira, incoming chairman of the new company to be formed from the Cisco deal, and also the former CEO of NDS.

Cisco and Permira announced the deal in May. Under the plan, Permira will create a new, rebranded company focused on video products for the pay TV industry. The lineup will include Cisco’s Infinite Video Platform, cloud digital recording, video processing, video security, and middleware products and technologies.

“I am delighted and looking forward to working again with Dr. Abe Peled and Permira on this unique opportunity to help the company’s major DTH and Cable service provider customers embrace IP distribution to complement and expand consumer choice and convenience, as well as the company’s Telco customers and new entrants to Pay-TV take advantage of the new IP enabled distribution opportunities,” Padrines said in a statement. “At this pivotal time in the industry, the new company will build on Cisco’s SPVSS business, strong customer relationships and technology innovation to deliver an exciting next chapter for our industry, and I look forward to being part of it.”

“Yves is well known to many of the company’s major customers and is well positioned to ensure a smooth transition for Cisco’s service provider customers who will also become the new company’s video customers,” Peled added. “Furthermore, Yves will bring a wealth of experience, industry relationships and strategic vision to deliver on the significant opportunities we see for the new business.”

Seizing on the network functions virtualization trend, Cisco Systems this week introduced the Cloud-Native Broadband Router, billing it as a “containerized, full software rewrite” of Converged Cable Access Platform (CCAP) services.

Cisco, which rolled out the new offering ahead of next week’s AngaCom show in Cologne, Germany, said the approach will give cable operators a new way to support core broadband routing functions while also simplifying network operations, reducing power, cooling and space requirements, and, more generally, cutting down scaling issues associated with traditional purpose-built hardware.

Cisco is introducing the Cloud-Native Broadband Router as operators take a closer look at a new virtualized class of CCAP products that lean more heavily on software capabilities and work in tandem with new distributed architectures that push more electronics to the edge of the cable network.

RELATED: Cable Industry Preps Push to Next-Gen Access Networks, Virtualization

That shift will open up new opportunities for the major incumbent CCAP vendors such as Cisco, Arris and Casa Systems, and open doors to Harmonic, Nokia and other suppliers that are trying to elbow their way in.

RELATED: Nokia Touts Versatility with Virtualized Distributed Platform for Cable Operators

For its new approach, Cisco said it has built a set of microservices using standard tools such as Kubernetes for container orchestration and Docker for creating, deploying and operating containerized apps.

Jeff Heynen, consulting director at SNL Kagan, said Cisco's software-focused move is in the emerging virtual CCAP arena, noting that the idea being brought forth will help to ease cable operator transitions to distributed access architectures.

Cisco’s approach will also help operators with a major challenge with DAA – managing their optical nodes in the cloud in lieu of having to send a truck to the physical location.

He noted that Cisco’s expertise in the routing world enables it to tack on and apply microservices and containerization, and get a step ahead where some products on the market are today.

“But, ultimately, this is where they are all going to head to," he said.

Though the virtual CCAP market is targeting a model whereby off-the-shelf hardware can be powered by software, it’s also clear that Cisco will continue to move ahead with its cBR-8 chassis and evolve toward a cloud-native version.

That’s a smart move, Heynen said, because operators continue to buy and deploy integrated cBR-8 CCAPs and line cards. This, he said, provides a roadmap to a full, cloud-based platform, “which, in the future, everyone is going to adopt.”

That move toward visualization and distributed access networks will likewise support the move to Full Duplex DOCSIS, which is targeting symmetrical multi-gigabit speeds, as well as small cell networks and 5G networks that are on on the near horizon.

“Everything is moving towards distributed architecture,” Heynen said.

The approach also makes sense from a scalability standpoint, he added, because cable operators around the world are at different stages with respect to deployment and interest in DAA. Some are moving on that now, while others might not be ready for years. Some might target it at a handful of nodes, while others will be doing it for thousands of nodes.

“Taking the next step by disaggregating software from hardware and deploying software-based CCAP services is an opportunity for operators to embrace DevOps and to improve speed to market for new services,” Sean Welch, vice president and general manager for Cisco’s Cable Access Business Unit, said in a statement. 

Cisco Systems has agreed to sell its Service Provider Video Software Solutions (SPVSS) to Permira, a private equity firm with ties to Dr. Abe Peled, the former chairman and CEO of NDS.

Financial terms were not announced, but Bloomberg said Permira is acquiring the SPVSS unit from Cisco for about $1 billion, a fraction of the $5 billion Cisco spent to acquire NDS, a maker of video software and video security technologies, about six years ago. Cisco isn't commenting on the financials or how many employees are part of the unit that's subject to the sale. 

RELATED: Cisco Announces Deal to Acquire NDS for $5 Billion

Reports that Cisco’s video software unit was on the block surfaced last fall.

RELATED: Cisco Looking to Sell Video Software Unit

Under the deal announced Tuesday, Permira Funds will create a new, rebranded video software company focused on the pay TV market. Peled, an adviser to Permira Funds, will serve as chairman of the new company.

As part of its acquisition of Cisco’s SPVSS business, Permira will obtain Cisco’s Infinite Video Platform (a multiscreen video platform that was formerly branded as Videoscape), and as well as products that include cloud-based digital video recording, video processing, video security, video middleware and some services groups focused on this area.

Update:Reuters reported that the U.K.-based unit that Permira is acquiring has about 3,500 employees. Peled told Reuters that the business being acquired is profitable but didn’t elaborate on those details. “They [Permira] see opportunity for creating value through innovation and growth,” Peled told Reuters.  

Cisco said it will retain video and media technology tied to its “core business” in networking, multi-cloud, security, data, and collaboration.

The sale represents another alteration in Cisco’s service provider business, which was down about 5% in the company’s fiscal Q2 period. In late 2015, Cisco sold off a connected devices unit that made set-tops, cable modems and other consumer premises equipment, to Technicolor, for about $600 million.

RELATED: Technicolor, Cisco Seal the Deal

Examples of customers that use Cisco’s Infinite Video Platform (IVP) include Vodafone (for its GigaTV service in Germany), Canada’s Eastlink, and Israel’s YES. 

Of recent note, Cisco has been using IVP to head up an initiative that targets service providers that deliver pay TV services with Mediaroom, the IPTV platform acquired by Ericsson in 2013. Ericsson has since sold a majority stake in its Media Solution division, which includes Mediaroom, to One Equity Partners. 

RELATED: Cisco Attacks Ericsson’s Mediaroom Market

Cisco’s board has approved the sale of the SPVSS business. The deal is expected to close during Cisco’s Q1 for fiscal 2019.

“I’m very pleased to say that one of the major reasons for the selection of Permira is the belief that they are the right investor to benefit our customers and employees,” Yvette Kanouff, SVP and GM of Cisco’s Service Provider Business, said in this blog post about the transaction. “At the same time, Cisco will be able to clearly focus on its core priorities.”

"This is a unique opportunity to lead and shape the video industry during its transition with the flexibility as a private company," Peled said, in a statement. "The new company will have the scale, technology innovation, and world-class team to deliver outstanding go-to-market execution, customer engagement, and new end-user experiences.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch acted as financial adviser to the Permira Funds and provided committed financing; Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobsen LLP and Clifford Chance LLP acted as legal advisor to the Permira Funds.

Charter Communications plans to center its coming mobile and wireless strategies on an approach that will increasingly lean on a network of small cells that taps into both unlicensed and licensed spectrum.

“Eventually we’ll transition from a WiFi-first MVNO to a small cell-first MVNO,” Craig Cowden, SVP of wireless technology at Charter, said Thursday during a CableLabs-hosted webinar that focused on a new “Bandwidth Report” technique that aims to position cable’s DOCSIS networks as a viable backhaul platform for 4G and future 5G-based small cell deployments.

RELATED: CableLabs-Cisco Trial Successfully Extends Bridge Between DOCSIS and LTE

Charter plans to launch a mobile service later this year that uses its MVNO agreement with Verizon and the MSO’s own WiFi network.

“We’re wholesaling network capacity from a wireless carrier for the broad umbrella coverage of mobility service, but we want to put as much of our traffic onto our own infrastructure as possible,” Cowden said. “We want to put as much traffic onto our WiFi infrastructure as we can.”

That approach ties in tightly with Charter’s already stated “inside-out” strategy, which is on the opposite end of the mobile industry’s outside-in focus of building a macro architecture from the outside and then increasing their penetration indoors.

“We want to build our infrastructure from within the home and then opportunistically build outdoors, where there is traffic density to justify that build,” Cowden said, noting that about 80% of wireless traffic takes place inside homes and offices.

Though unlicensed WiFi will play a big role in that strategy early on, Charter will be looking to expand on that by using small cells that tap into licensed spectrum.

"We will first start with 4G small cells,” he said. “And then as 5G technology develops, we'll look at that as well…We believe we can offer a superior connectivity experience.”

And Charter will be looking at various spectrum options, including low frequency bands, as low as 600 MHz as well as millimeter wave.

RELATED: Charter Puts Wireless Broadband to the Test (subscription required)

Cowden said Charter is “particularly interested” in the Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) 3.5 GHz band, which is being set up as a shared environment for incumbents users (like the U.S.  Navy) as well as licensed (Priority Access License, or PAL) and unlicensed (General Authorized Access, or GAA) access. About 70 MHz of the 150 MHz in that band is being earmarked for the licensed PAL pool.  

The FCC is working on rules for that band and decisions that emerge will help to determine how it will be rolled out and impact how aggressive cable operators and others might pursue using it.

“Charter is certainly looking at that [CBRS] as a potential small cell technology that we would deploy both in the home and outdoor,” Cowden said.

RELATED: Comcast Wants to Test CBRS in Philly

He also talked up how the industry’s widely distributed wireline networks are well positioned to support a pervasive small cell infrastructure.

HFC “is an excellent vehicle for that because it provides power, right of way and backhaul for all of that small cell radio equipment,” he said. “Whether we're talking inside the home or outside the home, we believe cable is going to be the first truly scalable fixed mobile convergence platform.”

But in order to make that work across a DOCSIS network, operators need a low-latency solution, he stressed, referencing the recent BWR work that’s being done to close that gap.

Serving up a potential breakthrough that could factor heavily into cable’s future deployments of small cell networks, CableLabs and Cisco Systems said recent tests of a proposed technique called the “Bandwidth Report” (BWR) prove that super-low latencies can be achieved by extending a technical bridge between DOCSIS and LTE.

While the goal of the BWR test was to achieve upstream latencies of sub-5 milliseconds, the test, following some manual tuning of this “pipelining” of the DOCSIS and LTE schedulers, reduced latency to about 1.1 milliseconds.

“So, it worked,” John Chapman, a fellow at Cisco Systems who is also CTO of the company’s  Cable Access unit, proclaimed Thursday during a CableLabs-hosted webinar entitled Enabling Cable Networks for Mobile Backhaul.

The test, they said, shows that DOCSIS can become a viable backhaul for LTE and could play a major role as cable operators start to develop LTE-based small cell networks, and as they also look to complement their mobile and wireless strategies using the CBRS [Citizens Broadband Radio Service] 3.5 GHz band.

RELATED: Comcast Wants to Test CBRS in Philly

Notably, the BWR proposal is also extensible to future 5G networks, Chapman explained.

But the issue that’s being solved with BWR is to reduce inherent upstream latency in DOCSIS networks to a level that is required for 4G and 5G small cells – certainly beneath the 5 millisecond mark.

So, in order to play that key backhaul role, DOCSIS must provide a low latency path between neighboring small cells, Jennifer Andreoli-Fang, a distinguished technologist at CableLabs, said.

BWR, a method that was described in detail at last fall’s SCTE/ISBE Cable-Tec Expo in Denver, aims to overcome a mismatch between the schedulers for DOCSIS and LTE by having them work together and hit the latency goal.

And there’s quite a chasm to overcome.

For the DOCSIS upstream, 5 milliseconds has been the “minimum latency,” though it’s typical to see it at 11 milliseconds, and grow to 30 milliseconds or 50 milliseconds if there is contention in the upstream, Chapman said.

The goal with the BWR proposal is to shrink that number down 2 milliseconds or lower.

Fundamentally, BWR enables the DOCSIS and LTE schedulers to talk to each other through a technique called “pipelining,” with BWR serving as a request into the DOCSIS system.

“It’s fundamentally an API into the DOCSIS scheduler” that allows an external component, like a small cell, to ask for a certain number of bytes at some future point in time, Chapman explained.

While this allows the LTE and DOCSIS scheduling systems to communicate, the BWR method essentially “hides” the DOCSIS latency beneath LTE and reduces the latency by taking advantage of the predictive nature of the LTE scheduler, he said.

For the trial, CableLabs and Cisco set up a physical LTE and DOCSIS test bed that includes a commercial LTE user device talking to an open source LTE small cell that was being backhauled on a commercial DOCSIS 3.1 modem and a Cisco cBR-8 CCAP/CMTS.

A small amount of code was inserted into the LTE MAC layer, which didn’t change the scheduler, but instead sent out a scheduling decision that is put into the form of a BWR message, Andreoli-Fang explained.

That message was then sent out on the DOCSIS uplink and received by an API on the cBR-8. A series of packets were then sent from the LTE user device to the CMTS, and the results showed that the method provided a clear latency advantage.

The results showed that “DOCSIS is well positioned as a viable backhaul technology for LTE,” Chapman claimed. “The path to success is actually having mobile and DOCSIS technologies working together as one."

The proof-of-concept is now moving to the next phase, as CableLabs has kicked off a committee that will explore the possible specification of the BWR protocol and have it become part of the DOCSIS scheduling system, Andreoli-Fang said.

“It’s something we can define at CableLabs,” Chapman said, adding that LTE will also have the ability to write to that API.

What’s not known is when BWR might become a more formal piece of the puzzle.

Fellow webinar panelist, Craig Cowden, SVP of wireless technology at Charter Communications, stressed that there’s time for that to develop, noting that the FCC is still working out rules for the use of CBRS and that the broader product ecosystem still needs to come together.

RELATED: Charter Puts Wireless Broadband to the Test (subscription required)

“There is some time, for us anyway, to see this evolve,” he said.

But the underlying work is “incredibly important as we talk about how we could be able to enable our DOCSIS HFC networks for true fixed mobile convergence, particularly as we talk about 4G, and especially 5G, where those lower latency requirements are essential,” Cowden said earlier in the webinar.

Cisco Systems has wrapped up its $1.9 billion acquisition of BroadSoft, a deal that will broaden Cisco’s portfolio of cloud calling and contact center products.

Cisco is paying $55 per share, in cash, for each share of BroadSoft. Cisco expects the delisting of BroadSoft’s common stock from the Nasdaq to become effective on February 12.

Following the deal, announced in October, Cisco will integrate BroadSoft’s products into its own mix of calling, messaging, customer care, and services portfolio.

Former BroadSoft CEO Michael Tessler is joining Cisco's Unified Communications Technology Group, led by Vice President and General Manager Tom Puorro, under the Cisco Applications Group, led by Rowan Trollope.

RELATED: Cisco to Buy BroadSoft for $1.9B

In addition to broadening its portfolio, the deal enhances Cisco’s exposure to cable operators, such as Cox Communications, Charter Communications, and Comcast, that have been working with BroadSoft to deliver hosted-voice services to business customers.

In November, BroadSoft posted Q3 revenues of $91.5 million, up 9% versus the year-ago period, and a net loss of $2.7 million, or 9 cents per basic and diluted common share.

Ericsson isn’t the only company providing an upgrade path for Mediaroom, the IPTV platform it acquired from Microsoft in 2013.

Cisco Systems is applying some competitive pressure on Ericsson as it moves ahead with a replacement program that takes direct aim at Mediaroom’s market. In addition to converting those service providers to Cisco’s own cloud-based, multiscreen offering, the Infinite Video Platform (IVP), Cisco said it can help operators make the move without swapping out their old set-tops.

Cisco embarked on the Mediaroom replacement program after a number of its customers “expressed concerns around where Ericsson was with their media division” and asked if Cisco would be interested in providing an alternative offering, Ramin Farassat, director of product line management and product marketing for Cisco’s Service Provider Platforms & Applications unit, said.

Farassat said those conversations got underway about a year ago. Coincidentally, they were happening around the time a Bloomberg report suggested Ericsson had hired banks to review its media business, including the search for a possible buyer for its broadcast and media services unit.

Ericsson hasn’t confirmed those plans, but last year it renamed its Broadcast and Media Services business unit Red Bee Media, sparking fresh speculation the decision was tied to possible M&A activity involving that division.

UPDATE (1-31-2018): Ericsson Sells Majority Stake in Media Solutions Unit

Enabling the Move to IVP
The premise behind Cisco’s Mediaroom replacement program is to enable those service providers to move to IVP, which supports linear TV, video-on-demand, cloud DVR services (including 4K) and new interfaces and voice navigation for set-tops and mobile devices, in a way “that doesn’t actually reinvent the wheel,” Farassat said. “We didn’t want to introduce another completely new architecture to customers.”

While Cisco’s Mediaroom replacement approach leans on the IVP cloud backend for video management and distribution, it doesn’t require the operator to swap out most of the boxes they are currently using for Mediaroom. Those include boxes originally made by suppliers such as Arris, Technicolor and Cisco. (Cisco sold its consumer premises equipment business to Technicolor in late 2015.)

Cisco’s program calls for those operators to convert those legacy boxes to support IVP, a move that does require a changing out of the box’s operating system, middleware and user interface.

Farassat said Cisco did a survey of boxes now used by Mediaroom to see if they have the processing and memory required to run IVP. It found that most of them — save for a few first-generation models still in the field — are eligible for the conversion/upgrade.

Cisco is also looking to complement those older Mediaroom boxes (to be outfitted with a new Linux-based platform during the conversion) with new, more advanced boxes that run Android TV.

However, both environments — the legacy boxes and the new ones running Android TV — would use the same style of user interface. Those UIs “look identical and have the same performance,” Farassat said.

Making Newer Connections
In addition to operator-supplied boxes and smartphones and tablets, IVP’s converged core also would pave the way for operator partners to run services on TV-connected retail streaming devices.

For the set-top box conversion process, Cisco is setting up a way for operators to target individual boxes or groups of deployed boxes without requiring expensive truck rolls. For example, the consumer would get a message prompting them to reboot the box to receive the new software, then reboot it again for the new interface to be installed.

“Everything is done remotely,” Farassat said.

Service providers that opt for the program will be running Mediaroom and IVP in parallel until the conversion ends. After that, they can shut down the Mediaroom servers, encoders and other elements of the platform.

Cisco has not announced any takers for its program, though Farassat expects that trials will be underway as early as the end of Q1 2018 or by the start of Q2.

Don’t expect Ericsson to merely stand by as Cisco attempts to steamroll its Mediaroom market. Ericsson has had some success in getting Mediaroom partners to upgrade to MediaFirst, its new cloud-based, multiscreen platform.

Earlier this month, Bell Canada and Ericsson expanded a multiyear deal that will pave the way for BCE to upgrade to MediaFirst. Telus, another Mediaroom customer, is also upgrading to MediaFirst to augment Optik TV, its full freight-managed IPTV service. Telus is also using MediaFirst to power Pik TV, an IP-delivered skinny bundle service introduced last April that runs on smartphones, tablets and an Android TV-powered box sold by Telus.

J-Com, Japan’s largest cable operator, and Canada’s SaskTel are other announced MediaFirst customers. AT&T, a longtime Mediaroom user for its U-verse platform, said in 2015 it had tapped Ericsson to “enhance” its telco TV platform and evolve its satellite and wireline TV offerings in the wake of the AT&T-DirecTV merger. That announcement did not mention MediaFirst, but last year FCC documents revealed AT&T was working on an Android TV-powered device.

Though Cisco is using IVP to target the Mediaroom base, the vendor has already notched several deployments of it with service providers outside the Mediaroom universe that include Vodafone (for its GigaTV service in Germany), Canada’s Eastlink and Israel’s YES, among others.

Looking to give MSOs more flexibility on how they buy and deploy access network capacity, Cisco Systems this week launched Infinite Broadband Unlocked (IBU), a licensing program for the cBR-8, a flagship converged cable access platform (CCAP) that supports cable services and the new DOCSIS 3.1 platform.

Cisco said the program aims to improve the economics of delivering multi-gigabit services using emerging distributed access architectures that employ Remote PHY and push key electronics toward the edge of the network.

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

Rather than using traditional licensing models for CCAP devices that require MSOs to buy large numbers of new bandwidth licenses for every service group where they want to offer the expanded service, the IBU model has only one license type based on bandwidth consumption, Cisco said.

That gives cable operators the ability to provision all of the capacity of their CCAP platforms without restrictions or upfront licensing expense, the company claimed, noting that the IBU licensing plan is available for current and new Cisco cBR-8 customers worldwide.  

Further, Cisco believes that the approach will promote the provision of multi-gigabit service tiers across MSO footprints without the risk of stranding capital while also simplifying service group splits by eliminating the need to purchase additional license types.

“IBU helps cable operators be more competitive and gain subscriber market share,” Sean Welch, vice president and general manager, Cable Access, Service Provider Business, Cisco, said in a statement. “We have listened carefully to our customers, and with this new offer we have specifically focused on making DOCSIS licensing simple and aligned with their business objectives.”

Cisco Systems confirmed that Conrad Clemson, a top exec in its service provider video division, is leaving the company.

“We can confirm that Conrad Clemson, SVP of Service Provider Video Software and Solutions, is leaving Cisco to focus on an urgent family matter,” Cisco said in a statement. “Our thoughts and well wishes go out to Conrad and his family.”

Clemson’s team now reports to Yvette Kanouff, the SVP/GM of Cisco’s Service Provider business.

Clemson joined Cisco in 2011 via Cisco’s acquisition of BNI Video, a Boxborough, Mass.-based startup focused on multiscreen video backoffice technologies.

RELATED: Cisco To Acquire BNI Video For $99 Million

Clemson, who was BNI’s CEO, founded the video-focused company in February 2009. He is also late of Motorola, coming on board via Motorola’s acquisition of Broadbus Technologies, a VOD tech pioneer; Gotham Networks; and Lucent Technologies.

In his most recent role at Cisco, Clemson was responsible for the division’s work around video, mobility and network function virtualization.

Cisco Systems has put its video software unit on the block more than five years after the company bulked up in that area by acquiring NDS for $5 billion, Bloomberg reported citing people familiar with the situation.

Cisco said it doesn't comment on rumor or speculation. 

Cisco acquired NDS, a company focused on content protection/security and video software and user interfaces, in 2012. At the time, NDS fit strategically into a multiscreen platform/initiative called Videoscape at the time (Cisco no longer uses the Videoscape brand, as it now offers a suite of multiscreen video products under the “Infinite” brand).

RELATED: Cox Gasses Up its Guide 

The NDS deal came about six years after Cisco took over Scientific Atlanta, a maker of set-top boxes, conditional access systems and other video and networking technologies, for $6.9 billion.

RELATED: Cisco Announces Deal to Acquire NDS For $5 Billion

If Cisco is looking to unload the unit that came way of NDS, it would continue its selling-off of products that are or were once tied to its service provider video unit, which saw revenues drop 10%, to $227 million, in Cisco’s fiscal Q4. Service provider video represented just 2% of Cisco’s revenue mix in that period. Switching, at 28%, is the largest contributor.

In 2015, for example, Cisco closed its sell-off of a connected devices unit that made set-tops, cable modems and other CPE, to Technicolor, for $600 million. Tied in, Technicolor and Cisco struck a “strategic collaboration agreement” in which they will develop next-gen video and broadband technologies and cooperate on initiatives around the Internet of Things.

RELATED: Technicolor, Cisco Seal the Deal

And NDS might not fit into Cisco’s software-focused network strategy, which included a recent $1.9 billion play for Broadsoft, which makes cloud-based calling and contact center products for business customers.

Cisco Systems confirmed Monday that it has inked a deal to acquire BroadSoft, a maker of cloud calling and contact center products, for $1.9 billion in cash.

Under the deal, Cisco plans to buy the Gaithersburg, Md.,-based company for $55 per share, in cash, in exchange for each share of BroadSoft.

Cisco said the deal will bolster its Unified Communications business and help it address “millions of aging TDM lines” that are poised to pivot to IP technology and cloud-native solutions in the years ahead.

The purchase will also give Cisco more exposure to cable operators, such as Cox Communications, Charter Communications, and Comcast, that work with BroadSoft to deliver hosted-voice services to business customers. BroadSoft works with more than 450 telecom carriers in 80 countries, Rob Salvagno, VP of corporate business development at Cisco, noted in this blog post.

RELATED: Cox Business Mobilizes Its Hosted Voice Platform

BroadSoft pulled in Q2 revenues of $88.8 million, up 9% from the year-ago quarter, along with a net loss of $3 million, or 10 cents per share. It’s forecasting Q3 revenues of $84 million to $90 million.

"Together, Cisco and BroadSoft will deliver a robust suite of collaboration capabilities across every market segment," Rowan Trollope, senior vice president and general manager of Cisco's Applications Business Group, said in a statement. "We believe that our combined offers, from Cisco's collaboration technology for enterprises to BroadSoft's suite for small and medium businesses delivered through Service Providers will give customers more choice and flexibility."

Cisco and BroadSoft expect to close the deal during Q1 of 2018. They intend to continue to operate as separate companies, with BroadSoft employees joining Cisco's Unified Communications Technology Group, led by Vice President and General Manager Tom Puorro, under the Applications Group led by Trollope.

Like it is today with DOCSIS modems and network gear, interoperability between products from multiple vendors will again be a major focus for Remote PHY, an emerging access architecture that will push the electronics deeper into the network.

Read More: Complete coverage of Cable-Tec Expo 2017

Tied into that interop effort, Kyrio, a unit of CableLabs, opened up official qualification testing on October 1. Speaking at a seminar dedicated to Remote PHY in Denver at the SCTE/ISBE Cable-Tec Expo, Jorge Salinger, Comcast’s vice president, access architecture, stressed that interoperability between vendors will be a critical requirement for the MSO as it moves ahead with trials and, eventually, with deployments.

RELATED: Ramping Up for Remote PHY

Arris and Cisco Systems, two major cable suppliers, claimed this week that they have made progress on the interop front for Remote PHY and distributed access architectures that aim to help cable operators reduce power and space requirements at hub and headend sites, while also boosting the capacities of their HFC networks.

Remote PHY allows for a reduction of power, cooling and hub site sizing, providing significant total cost of ownership (TCO) benefits to cable operators. Silicon manufacturers, technology vendors and global cable operators have endorsed the Remote PHY architecture and are working toward a common goal for the distributed access architecture (DAA).

Here at the show, Arris and Cisco are demonstrating interoperability of their respective Remote PHY products, including core CCAP technology and PHY nodes.

More specifically, Arris is showing its E6000 Core working with a Cisco Smart PHY Node, and Cisco is demoing the cBR-8 CCAP Core supporting the Arris RPHY Node.

Signaling some early progress for an emerging HFC architecture, Cisco Systems said it has landed agreements with operators around the globe for its “Infinite Broadband” Remote PHY platform.

RELATED: Ramping Up for Remote PHY

Cisco said some early takers include South Korea’s D’Live as well as Blue Stream, a cable operator based in south Florida formerly known as Advanced Cable Communications that is pushing ahead with a 1-Gig broadband service deployment.

RELATED: Blue Stream Makes 1-Gig Waves

Cisco touted that deployment progress as Remote PHY becomes a priority for several MSOs. Rather than using a highly centralized architecture with massive chassis in headends and hubs, the new architecture places more electronics and network smarts toward the edge of the network, a move that can boost capacity on the HFC network while also reducing power and space requirements. It also puts cable operators on a path toward more agile network functions virtualization and software-defined networking systems.

Cisco’s version of the architecture removes the PHY circuit layer that is typically housed in a traditional Converged Cable Access Platform chassis and places that functionality into a Remote PHY Node or a smaller hub site, called an RPHY Shelf. Some vendors are also advocating architectures that placed the PHY and MAC at the edges.

RELATED: Nokia Touts Versatility With Virtualized Distributed Platform for Cable Operators

Cisco’s RPHY platform also features open, standardized software that was contributed to the CableLabs OpenRPD forum in 2015.

RELATED: CableLabs, Cisco Get Real About Virtualization

Along with the deployment update, Cisco also introduced the GS7000i Smartnode, a product that is based on its GS7000 Optical Node that adds in telemetry and proactive control automation capabilities.

Video will account for about 82% of all global IP traffic by 2021, up from 73% in 2016, Cisco Systems concluded in its latest Visual Networking Index.  

The study, which forecasts key IP trends from 2016 to 2021, also expects to see gaming apps gain ground, rising to 4% of all global IP traffic by 2021, up from just 1% in 2016.

Back to video, the global IP networks will be pumping out 3 trillion Internet video minutes per month by 2021, equal to 5 million years of video per month, or about 1 million video minutes every second.

More than half (56%) of connected flat panel TVs will be 4K-capable and up by 2021, versus 15% in 2016, with the installed/in-service base of 4K sets set to rise from 85 million in 2016, to 663 million by 2021. Ultra HD video, meanwhile, is expected to account for 21% of global IP video traffic by 2021, compared to HD video (57%) and standard-def video (22%).

Among other notable video-related findings, Cisco said a global cord-cutting household will generated about 117 gigabytes per month  in 2017, compared to 63 GB per month for an average Internet household.

Virtual reality and augmented reality IP traffic are also set to achieve a compound annual growth rate of 82% over the five-year span of the study. Though VR and AR traffic will generate about 1.72 exabytes per month by 2021, it will represent just 1% of “entertainment” traffic, Cisco said.

Bigger picture, Cisco forecasts that Internet users will rise from 3.3 billion to 4.6 billion, or 58% of the global population, during that span, while the adoption of personal devices and machine-to-machine connections jump from 17.1 billion to 27.1 billion.

The forecast also sees global average broadband speeds rising from 27.5 Mbps in 2016, to 53 Mbps in 2021.

Total global IP traffic is also expected to reach an annual run rate of 3.3 zettabytes by 2021, up from 1.2 zettabytes in 2016. To provide a sense of that scope, Cisco estimates that 3.3 zettabytes is equal to 14 times all the IP traffic generated in 2010 (232 exabytes), and all the movies ever made crossing global IP networks every minutes.

On the wireless front, WiFi and mobile-connected devices will generate 73% of Internet traffic by 2021. Cisco also expects total WiFi hotspots  (including homespots) to surge from 94 million in 2016, to 541 million by 2021.

Cisco Systems is using this week’s Anga Com show in Germany to demo Full Duplex DOCSIS, an annex to DOCSIS 3.1 that’s designed to deliver symmetrical multi-gigabit speeds over HFC networks.

A the event in Cologne, Cisco will show upstream and downstream running simultaneously in a 96 MHz slice of spectrum, located between 108 MHz and 204 MHz, John Chapman, Cisco Fellow and chief technology officer of the company’s Cable Access unit, explained in a blog post detailing the company's “proof of concept” demo.

RELATED: Cable-Tec Expo: ‘Full Duplex’ DOCSIS Speeds Ahead

Chapman noted that current technology is limiting the demo to a 96 MHz-wide swath of spectrum.

RELATED: Cisco Chips In For ‘Full Duplex’ DOCSIS

“Why a proof of concept that ‘only’ does 96 MHz symmetrical, when the end game is 576 MHz of shared spectrum?” he wrote. “Because by necessity, proofs of concept must rely on current technology -- and today’s cable modems ‘top out’ at an upstream spectral location of 204 MHz.”

He said the 96 MHz shared spectrum used for the demo will support a downstream rate of 890 Mbps (with 4K QAM) and an upstream rate of 680 Mbps (with 1K QAM).

Full Duplex DOCSIS, he added, factors into several tech trends underway, including the push toward passive N+0 (node plus zero) architectures whereby there are no amplifiers between the node and the home, and remote PHY, which places electronics at the node, toward the edge of the HFC network. Another trend, Chapman pointed out, is the placement of an echo canceller in the RPHY node, along with more upstream channels.

D3.1 already aims to deliver up to 10 Gbps downstream, and FDX will allow operators to deliver upstream speeds of up to 5 Gbps, and possibly more. 

“If a node were to contain one forward path and two reverse paths, then that optical node would have 10 Gbps capacity in both the downstream and upstream,” Chapman wrote. “This would match the 10 Gbps wavelength used to feed the digital optical node.”

That would enable symmetrical 10-Gig “and be equivalent to a fiber wavelength, and is a legitimate extension to fiber -- without actually running fiber,” he added.

With that in mind, Chapman also held that Full Duplex DOCSIS, as designed, will extend the life of HFC and DOCSIS and enable MSOs to put off having to pull fiber all the way to the premises, at least when the legacy network is concerned.

“We’ll have a lot more bandwidth for a long, long time,” he said, in an interview.

“FDX ultimately puts to rest -- both logically and economically -- the question of whether and when the time will come to sunset DOCSIS, and replace it with fiber to the premise,” Chapman amplified in the blog post. “The answer is probably never, because FDX creates what is essentially a fiber equivalent, throughput-wise, with coax.”

Though this week’s demo offers a glimpse at cable’s technology future, Chapman acknowledges that it’s not going to happen overnight.

He expects Full Duplex DOCSIS to see some field trials in 2019, and ramp up in 2020, with the caveat that MSOs will have needed to deploy DOCSIS 3.1, remote PHY and go “fiber deep” (N+0).

The “remote PHY” era is fully underway as two top cable access network suppliers – Arris and Cisco Systems – touted next-gen products that aim to help operators boost capacity while also keeping headend power and space requirements in check.

Both vendors touted their latest wares in conjunction with this week’s ANGA Com show in Cologne, Germany.

Arris’s approach uses the MAC core of its flagship converged cable access platform, the E6000, in tandem with new remote PHY modules that reside in the nodes. It’s also releasing a remote PHY shelf that’s targeted to smaller cable operators.

Arris also announced that Stofa, a Danish service provider, has tapped the vendor to migrate all its sites to DOCSIS 3.1 and a new distributed architecture that leans on the E6000 and Arris’s NC2000 nodes with the aforementioned remote PHY modules.

Cisco, meanwhile, launched “Infinite Broadband,” a remote PHY solution for cable operators that builds on its cBR-8 CCAP and GS7000 node products, noting that the combo establishes the “foundation” for virtualization and Full Duplex DOCSIS, an emerging annex to DOCSIS 3.1 that will enable symmetrical gigabit speeds on the HFC network.

RELATED: Cisco Chips In For ‘Full Duplex’ DOCSIS

Cisco said it RPHY has been shipping to customers in multiple countries since April 2017. Execs with Comcast, Cox Communications, and Liberty Global were referenced in Cisco’s RPHY announcement.

Update: Casa Systems, a vendor that competes with Arris and Cisco in the CCAP sector, announced Tuesday that it would demonstrate its DOCSIS 3.1 remote PHY solution at this week’s show.

Cisco also noted that its RPHY solution is based on “open, standardized software” contributed to the CableLabs OpenRPD forum in 2016 that, it claims, will create an interoperable ecosystem for remote PHY device vendors. Cisco said it’s also planning to provide interop testing for those vendors, with Vector Technologies, BKtel networks and Teleste already on board.

Cisco, Arris and other cable access network vendors are focusing on remote PHY as the architecture continues to become a bigger priority for cable operators. According to a recent survey of 35 cable operators around the globe conducted by Kagan Research, 61% of those MSOs said they plan to start virtualizing their CCAPs or begin the shift to a distributed access architecture (DAA) by the end of 2018.

RELATED: Cable Ops Poised for Push into Virtualization, Distributed Architectures

Arris expects remote PHY orders to start picking up toward Q4 with a commercial ramp up anticipated by the start of 2018, Dan Whalen, president of Arris’s Network & Cloud unit, said, noting that it pushes some of the space and power challenges faced by cable operators into the node while also paving the way for more capacity.

"We think the ramp starts next year,” Whalen said.

Arris, he added, is also pursuing a remote MAC/PHY strategy that could be ready to take hold by mid-2018, but acknowledged that there are some concerns about how much power consumption will be required inside the node to support both the MAC and the PHY.

The move to distributed architectures also create a more Ethernet-centric, open network, explained Daniel Etman, product marketing director for Cisco’s Cable Access Business Unit.

Cisco, he added, is also factoring in a new set of auto-configuration tools that enable field techs to update remote PHY nodes and enable operators to start to pivot to more distributed architectures.

Cisco Systems said it is cutting an additional 1,100 employees as the company endures a sales slump and continues its path to becoming a more software and services-oriented company.

The latest round of cuts, expected to be mostly completed by the end of Q1 of Cisco’s fiscal 2018, is in addition to the 5,500-job layoff it announced last August that, at the time, represented about 7% of Cisco’s workforce.

But the severity of those numbers is somewhat misleading. Cisco CEO Chuck Robins told The Wall Street Journal that the company’s headcount is actually higher now than it was when it announced the restructuring plan last August.

Cisco this month extended that restructuring plan to include an additional 1,100 employees, with $150 million of estimated additional pretax charges.

The new cuts came as Cisco announced fiscal Q3 revenues of $11.9 billion, down 1%.

Though switching revenue rose by 2%, several other areas saw revenue declines. Notably, Cisco’s Service Provider Video segment revenue plummeted 30% to $207 million in the period. A bright spot was Security, where revenues rose 9%, to $527 million.

Looking ahead to fiscal Q4, Cisco expects to post a 4% to 6% drop in revenue, and non-GAAP earnings per share of 46 cents to 51 cents, off by a range of 11 cents to 14 cents per share.

Cisco shares were down $2.60 (7.69%) to $31.22 each in after-hours trading Wednesday.

Cisco is preaching patience with its shifting business and product focus.

"I am pleased with the progress we are making on the multi-year transformation of our business," Robbins said, in a statement.  "The Network is becoming even more critical to business success as our customers add billions of new connections to their enterprises. We are laser focused on delivering unparalleled value through highly secure, software-defined, automated and intelligent infrastructure."

Video will continue to drive mobile traffic in the years to come, but a subset of traffic tied to virtual reality and augmented reality services and applications will also be on the rise, according to a new study from Cisco Systems.

Worldwide VR-related mobile traffic is expected to reach 141 petabytes per month in 2021, up from 13.4 petabytes in 2016, Cisco predicts its latest study -- Mobile Visual Networking Index (2016-2021).

Cisco also expects the number of VR headsets worldwide to rise five-fold during that span, from 18 million in 2016 to nearly 100 million by 2021, with more than half of them to be connected to smartphones.

AR-related traffic is also expected to grow to 20 petabytes per month by 2021, versus 3 petabytes in 2016.

Looking at mobile’s bigger picture, Cisco sees video consuming 78% of global mobile traffic by 2021, compared to 60% last year. The average mobile traffic per user is also expected to rise to 8,423 megabytes in that five-year timeframe, up from 1,456 MB last year. By 2021, there will be nearly 12 billion mobile-connected devices (including machine-to-machine modules) and 1.5 mobile devices per capita, versus 8 billion and 1.1 per capita in 2016.

From a raw data standpoint, global mobile data traffic will hit 49 exabytes per month, or 587 exabytes annually, by 2021. That annual run-rate would be equivalent to 122 times more than all global mobile traffic generated in 2011.

Live video is also poised to become 5% of mobile video traffic by 2021, representing a CAGR of 108%.

Also by 2021, Cisco believes that 53% of mobile traffic will travel on 4G networks worldwide, compared to 29% on 3G networks, and 9% on 2G networks. 4G will become the dominant mobile connection type by 2018, rising to 56%, Cisco predicts.

WiFi, a central component of most cable operator wireless strategies, will also continue to play a starring role with wireless.

Cisco sees fixed/WiFi traffic surpassing fixed/wired traffic starting in 2018, and 63% of mobile traffic to be offloaded by WiFi by 2021.

Total public WLAN and community hotspots reached 94 million last year, and will explode to 541.6 million by 2012, led by deployments in the Asia Pacific region, and driven in part by community WiFi/homespot growth, use of TV Everywhere apps, and public transportation access. Later, Cisco sees WiFi capacity trading, the Internet of Things and connected cars (in-car WiFi) also playing a significant role.

As for average mobile speeds, they are set to rise 3x worldwide – to 20.4 Mbps by 2021, while WiFi averages jump to 32 Mbps.

Cisco also found that 10% of mobile users consumed 10 GB per month in 2016, while 65% consumed more than 2GB per month. 

In a move that amplifies its software-driven focus, Cisco Systems has inked a deal to acquire AppDynamics for $3.7 billion and nab it just as AppDynamics was getting ready to pull the trigger on an IPO.

The deal, announced Tuesday, is consistent with Cisco’s stated strategy and our vision of the company’s evolution towards a more software centric business,” Raymond James analyst Simon Leopold said in a research note.

He said the price tag for AppDynamics isn’t “large relative to Cisco,” but considers the deal “expensive” (the mid-point of AppDynamics’s IPO range would have created a market cap of about $1.6 billion), despite the benefits it gives Cisco as its evolution of hybrid public-private cloud strategies become increasingly complex.

“The transaction may reduce the possibility of Cisco making other similarly substantial acquisitions for some time but may catalyze Cisco’s competitors (e.g., HP Enterprise, Dell, etc.) seeking similar targets,” Leopold said.

"Applications have become the lifeblood of a company's success. Keeping those apps running and performing well has never been more important. Unfortunately, that job has only gotten harder, as IT departments and developers struggle with a tangled web of disconnected, complex data that's hard to understand," said Rowan Trollope, Cisco senior vice president and general manager of Cisco's Internet of Things and Applications Business Group, said in a statement. "The combination of Cisco and AppDynamics will allow us to provide end to end visibility and intelligence from the network through to the application; which, combined with security and scale, and help IT to drive a new level of business results."

Cisco said AppDynamics will continue to be led by CEO David Wadhwani as a new software business unit of Cisco’s IoT and applications business, reporting to Trollope. Cisco expects to wrap the deal in its fiscal Q3. 

Get complete coverage of CES 2017

Keeping an eye on how TV will morph and evolve in the years to come, Cisco Systems is using CES to introduce Infinite Video Platform Labs, an initiative focused on service providers that use the vendor’s line of cloud video products that carry the “Infinite” brand.

Get complete coverage of CES 2017

Cisco said IPV Labs will let participating customers test new features with users before they become commercially available. Those participants will also have the ability to provide feedback on those new features and influence Cisco’s product roadmap.

YES, a provider based in Israel, has joined IPV Labs as a premiere customer, Cisco said. YES has already designed and tested a new feature that provides a personalized user interface to different audience segments.  Cisco and YES are demonstrating that handiwork this week at The Wynn Hotel.

“Gone are the days of costly professional services engagements to make minor changes with high downtime. Being able to provide immediate feedback, and adapt the functionality accordingly is a critical success factor in the new video world,” Yitschak Elyakim, CTO of YES, said in a statement.

“We are releasing new features for IVP every two weeks,” added Rajeev Raman, senior director of product and strategy, Service Provider Video Software, at Cisco. “IVP Labs demonstrates our commitment to a common code that continuously expands capabilities while improving quality. Our aim is simple: to create a community where our customers – and their customers- can directly contribute to shape the IVP roadmap, and help define the future of video.”

On Sept. 17, the WBO Light Middleweight Championship fight between Canelo Alvarez and Liam Smith was offered via pay-per-view at $65 a pop, with several news outlets estimating that maybe 300,000 people shelled out money for the boxing match.

But how many people watched the fight via illegal streaming online? An estimated 1.82 million, according to data from antipiracy company VFT Solutions, which tracks online streams in real time. VFT found a total of 710 illegal streams of the fight, with one stream alone drawing more than twice as many viewers as had paid for the legal telecast.

And PPV boxing is just the tip of the illegal streaming iceberg: VFT sees regular, linear and OTT broadcasts of everything from the NFL to college football to English Premier League and UEFA Champions League soccer streamed illegally on a regular basis. Millions of consumers are taking advantage of these free streams, risking malware and dealing with poor quality, rather than paying for the channels.

HD STREAMS, TOO

Moreover, more than 12,000 pirated HDTV streams were served in the past month, according to piracy-monitoring firm Friend MTS, which shows that even 1080p resolution isn’t safely in the realm of pay TV operators.

To date, content owners have been left dealing with this problem by employing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act takedown process, with websites, search engines and hosting companies notified of the offending streams. But that whack-a-mole approach can’t eliminate every offending stream, due to the sheer volume of what’s become available.

Enter Cisco Systems.

The networking technology company is now testing a solution to fight streaming piracy that works directly with the service providers distributing content, rather than rightsholders. Called Streaming Piracy Prevention (SPP ), the service’s technology locates illicit content on both the open Internet and in closed networks that might require a subscription.

Once identified, the source is tracked down using forensic watermarking and then shuttered via Cisco’s video security system, “essentially revoking entitlement,” according to Amit Wohl, the video security product manager in Cisco Systems’ service provider organization.

“The ability to do this in near-real time is what makes this solution different, better and more effective at dealing with piracy, especially when you talk about live events,” Wohl said. “The ability to detect that someone is [pirating] an event from your network and dealing with it within seconds is what makes the difference.”

KNOWING WHERE TO LOOK

Asked how the solution differentiates between legal and illegal streams, Wohl stressed that Cisco’s team “knows where to find illegal content.” Sites and services that stream illegally don’t hide themselves all that well, he said.

“Once we know where they are, we can sample the video and compare it with the [legal] content,” Wohl said. “If it’s coming from our service … and once we know the identity of the source device, we can shut it down.”

Essentially, development of Cisco’s offering — which is currently in pilot testing — came about after the company’s service- provider customers expressed concern that their services were being used to steal content. Since legal remedies haven’t been able to keep up with the illegal streams — and as pirate services begin delivering channel packages to connected devices and IPTV set-tops — a technological solution became the best recourse, Wohl said.

There may not be a silver bullet to eliminate digital piracy, but Cisco and Wohl said they hope their solution will at least put a dent into the problem, if it goes to market.

Cisco Systems announced Wednesday a reorganization plan that will result in the elimination of up to 5,500 jobs, or 7% of its workforce --  far fewer than the 9,000 to 14,000 that CRN reported on Tuesday.

Cisco said the reorg will help it “optimize our cost base in lower growth areas” and invest more in “key priority areas” such as security, the Internet of Things, collaboration, and next-gen data center and cloud products and technologies.  Cisco, which is also shifting focus as customers move toward software-based off-the-shelf platforms and away from purpose-built hardware, said it will “take action under this plan” in Q1 of its fiscal 2017.

Cisco posted Q4 revenues of $12.6 billion, up 2%, on net income of $2.8 billion, or 56 cents per share. Revenues excluded Cisco’s service provider video CPE business. Cisco sold its set-top and CPE business to Technicolor late last year.

Q4 revenues at Cisco’s Service Provider Video unit dipped 12%, to $444 million, and represented just 4% of total revenues in the period.

Cisco expects Q1 revenues to be down 1% to up 1% year-on-year, with GAAP earnings of 42 cents to 47 cents.

Cisco shares were down 37 cents (1.20%) to $30.35 each in after-hours trading Wednesday.

Cisco Systems plans to cut up to 14,000 jobs, or 20% of its global workforce, in the “next few weeks,” CRN reported Tuesday, citing unnamed sources close to the company.

Cisco’s been asked to comment on the report, but CRN said the company has already offered early retirement packages to employees.

Update: Cisco declined to comment.

CRN said the cuts will range from 9,000 to 14,000 employees, and will come as Cisco shifts its focus and skillset to support the move toward more virtualized, software-defined networks and away from purpose-built hardware.

Cisco is scheduled to post fiscal Q4 results Wednesday (August 17). The company, which sold its CPE business to Technicolor in late 2015, posted Q3 revenues of $12 billion, up 3% year-on-year, and said it expects Q4 revenue growth of up to 3%.

Cisco, helmed by CEO Chuck Robbins since July 2015, announced it would cut 6,000 jobs, or 8% of its global workforce, in August 2014, a year after the company laid off about 4,000 workers.

Earlier this year, Cisco expanded its service provider organization amid a broader reorganization.

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.

Video will continue to deepen its dominance of Internet traffic as volumes increase four-fold between 2015 and 2020, according to a new report from Cisco Systems.

Internet video will account for 79% global Internet traffic by 2020, up 63% in 2015, Cisco found in its latest Visual Networking Index, a study that bases its findings on a mix of independent analyst forecasts and “real-world” network usage data.

Viewed another way, the Internet will support 3 trillion Internet video minutes per month by 2020, which equates to 5 million years of video per month, or about 1 million video minutes every second, Cisco said.

HD and Ultra HD Internet video will make up 82% of Internet video traffic by 2020, up from 53% in 2015, the report forecasted.

Broken down by sector, consumer video traffic will rise to 82% of all consumer Internet traffic by 2020, up from 68% in 2015, while business Internet video traffic will represent 66% of traffic in that category by 2020, up from 44% in 2015.

Virtual reality will also take a bite of bandwidth. VR-based traffic quadrupled in 2015, and is expected to increase 61-fold by 2020, Cisco said.

On a broader basis, global IP traffic will nearly triple at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 22% over the next five years, as more than 1 billion new Internet users join the mix worldwide – growing from 3 billion in 2015 to 4.1 billion by 2020. Apps such as video surveillance, smart meters, digital health monitors and other machine-to-machine services will all contribute to big traffic boosts, Cisco predicted.

Global IP traffic is expected to reach 194.4 exabytes per month by 2020, up from 72.5 exabytes per month in 2015, Cisco said.

Global broadband speeds are also poised to nearly double from 24.7 Mbps in 2015 to 47.7 Mbps by 2020, the report found. Notably, 71% of total IP traffic will original from non-PC devices, such as tablets, smartphones and TVs, versus 47% in 2015. Smartphones will pump out 30% of total IP traffic by 2020, Cisco said.

Over the next five years, global IP networks will support 10 billion new devices and connections, increasing from 16.3 billion in 2015 to 26.3 billion by 2020, Cisco said, adding that there will be 3.4 devices and connections per capita by 2020, versus 2.2 per capita in 2015.

On the WiFi front, Cisco sees total public hotspots including home spots, surging from 64 million in 2015, to 432 million by 2020. Home spots are expected to grow from 57 million (2015) to 423 million by 2020.

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A year after Cisco Systems used INTX in Chicago to trot out its next-gen cable access platform, the vendor announced ahead of this year’s confab in Boston that the cBR-8 is approaching 100 customers worldwide, with 30 already in deployment.

Cisco said cBR-8, a high-density  Converged Cable Access Platform (CCAP) product Cisco is now also referring to as its “Giga box,” is also employing DOCSIS 3.1, the industry’s new multi-gigabit CableLabs spec for hybrid fiber/coax networks.

The device, Cisco added, is deployed with operators in countries and regions that include the U.S., Europe,  Asia Pacific, and Latin America, and is now being used to deliver services to more than 7 million pay TV subs. Recent wins include Midco, which has kicked off 1-Gig trials in Fargo, N.D., with plans to expand trials to Sioux Falls later this year. Quickline AG, meanwhile, has completed a migraiotn to the cBR-8 and is using it to help 21 cable operators deliver multi-Gigabit services for 400,000 customers in Switzerland.

Per a blog from Todd McCrum, senior director, strategy and product management at Cisco’s Cable Access Business Unit, the cBR-8 hardware shipping today also supports “Evolved CCAP” functionality, which includes DOCSIS 3.0, voice and MPEG video, plus DOCSIS 3.1 downstream and upstream and remote PHY.

Cisco is battling for dominance with other suppliers in the cable access market. Among individual companies, Arris held 53% of total revenues in the category at the end of 2015, followed by Cisco (26%) and Casa Systems (15%), according to SNL Kagan. In March, Jeff Heynen, senior research analyst for SNL Kagan, said Cisco has been picking up momentum in recent quarters as the cBR-8 gets into the field.

Cisco Systems and Roku said they are working together to enable Cisco’s Cisco VideoGuard Everywhere video service protection platform on Roku’s streaming players and integrated Roku TVs.

Cisco VideoGuard Everywhere, a software-based video security product whose roots stem from Cisco’s $5 billion acquisition of NDS in 2012, will also be used to support Charter Communications’ Spectrum TV app for Roku devices, they said.

Cisco and Roku added that they are collaborating to pre-integrate  VideoGuard Everywhere, a security system that compasses both conditional access and digital rights management, into Roku firmware starting next month. All Roku devices will be automatically upgraded to include Cisco security software.

Initial features and services the security integration support on Charter’s Spectrum TV app for Roku devices will include secure video-on-demand and linear TV playback, as well as control the number of devices that can be used simultaneously per subscriber account.

Charter is deploying the VideoGuard Everywhere solution across its systems, including the MSO’s new IP-capable “Worldbox” and Charter Spectrum TV apps offered on a variety of consumer electronic devices such as PCs, tablets and phones.

In February, Charter shed a bit more light on its downloadable security system, telling the FCC in a filing that it had completed two national centralized data centers to support the MSO’s new platform. Pursuing a retail option for that downloadable system was part of a set-top waiver that the FCC granted to Charter in 2013 that allowed the MSO to deploy dual-security boxes as it developed and deployed the new downloadable security platform. The FCC, meanwhile, is trying to move forward on new set-top rules that would apply to cable operators and other MVPDs and aim to "unlock" the set-top and spark a more vibrant retail market for video devices (the cable industry has argued that a new government mandate is unnecessary because the retail market for video devices that are capable of supporting pay TV is evolving amid natural market forces.). 

“We are always looking ahead for ways to make our customer experience better, providing more flexibility and options for accessing the television content people want to watch,” said Jim Blackley, Charter’s executive vice president, Engineering and IT, in a statement. “By expanding the Cisco downloadable security solution to our Spectrum TV App channel on Roku streaming devices, we can better control device streaming rights and functions within the home without compromising on the experience.” 

“We have been working closely with Roku to deliver a lower-cost, easy-to-deploy software security solution leading to innovative services like the Spectrum TV app on the Roku platform,” said Rajeev Raman, senior director of Strategy, Studio Design, and Product Management, Video Software and Solutions, Cisco. “Charter has been a pioneer in the industry for downloadable security to give its customers more options to watch what they want on the devices they want in their homes.”

“Utilizing the fast growing Roku streaming platform in combination with the Cisco VideoGuard Everywhere security solution enables operators to simply and securely deliver their branded video streaming services to the home, and optimally manage digital sharing rights for their content library,” added Andrew Ferrone, vice president of pay TV at Roku. “With this powerful combination, Charter continues to offer its pay-TV customers unique options to watch TV in ways that fit their lifestyles.” 

Cisco Systems said industry vet Sean Welch has been appointed vice president of cable access, the unit that focused on cable modem termination systems as well as newer, high-density converged cable access platform (CCAP) products.

Welch succeeds Brett Wingo in that role. Wingo, the company said, has moved to Cisco’s Services Organization, led by VP of Services Joe Cozzolino.

Welch most recently was president and CEO at Kwicr, a cloud-based mobile network acceleration service. Before that he was SVP/GM of video infrastructure solutions for Arris, and also held VP/GM roles with Motorola, where he was focused on video and data solutions for service providers. 

Industry vet Yvette Kanouff is leading an expanded service provider organization at Cisco Systems as part of a broader reorganization announced internally by the company.

In her new role, Kanouff will head up a new organization that combines Cisco’s SP segment, SP cloud, mobility and Service Provider Video Software and Solutions (SPVSS), according to an email posted by Business Insiderfrom company CEO Chuck Robbins, who took the reigns of the company last July. Multichannel News has verified the contents of the email.

Kanouff, an exec late of SeaChange International and Time Warner Cable,  joined Cisco in June 2014 to head up its SPVSS unit, and was recently promoted to also head up Cisco’s recently combined cloud groups.

As part of the reorg, Kelly Ahuja will no longer head up Cisco’s service provider business.

Update:  Cisco confirmed that Ahuja is leaving Cisco. "We would like to thank Kelly for his leadership over the SP segment that led to significant acceleration for our SP strategy and portfolio. We wish Kelly the best in his future endeavors," the company said, in a statement. 

“I’d like to express my deep gratitude to Kelly Ahuja for his 18 years of leadership in Service Provider,” Robbins said in the email, whose contents were confirmed by Multichannel News. “Our customers have deep respect for Kelly’s expertise, and he has been critical to our success. I know you’ll join me in wishing him the best as he takes the next steps in his career journey.”

Robbins also announced that Cisco is reorganizing the engineering division to “better reflect our strategic priorities,” aligning it in four key areas: Networking and Market Segments; Cloud Services and Platforms; IoT; and Applications, and Security.

Under the new structure, David Goeckeler will continue to head up the company’s Security business, while Rowan Trollope will stay at the head of IoT & Applications. Zorawar Biri Singh, named SVP and CTO last year, is now heading up heading up Cisco’s newCloud Services & Platforms unit and will retain his role as CTO and lead efforts around the company’s next-gen data center strategy. 

Cisco Systems is shoring up its cloud platform by putting up $260 million for CliQr, a privately held company that has developed a cloud orchestration platform for virtualized environments.

Cisco said it has already integrated CliQr with a number of its data center switching and cloud platforms, including Cisco’s Application Centric Infrastructure and its Unified Computing System.

Cisco believes  the acquisition of the San Jose-based company and its CloudCenter platform will help its customers simplify and accelerate their private, public and hybrid cloud deployments.

CliQr’s platform, Cisco added, will help its customers create a single application profile across data centers and public or private clouds.

Cisco said the CliQr team will join its Insieme Business Unit, reporting to Prem Jain, the unit’s senior vice president and general manager. Cisco expects to close the deal in its fiscal third quarter.

"Customers today have to manage a massive number of complex and different applications across many clouds," said Rob Salvagno, vice president, Cisco Corporate Development, in a statement. "With CliQr, Cisco will be able to help our customers realize the promise of the cloud and easily manage the lifecycle of their applications on any hybrid cloud environment."

As Mobile World Congress gets rolling, here’s a snapshot of what’s making news in Barcelona.

-Ericsson launched OTT Cloud Connect (OCC), an “open” cloud service that enables mobile operators to link up with multiple over-the-top players to deliver services. Ericsson said OCC “strives to fill the gap” between operator networks and OTT services by  “exposing” the OSS and BSS capabilities of players on both sides of the equation. Ericsson said Google/YouTube is among the first partners to get on-boarded on the OCC platform.

-Casa Systems, a company known for making cable modem termination systems and converged cable access platforms, is pushing deeper into wireless with the launch of the Axyom “virtualized” edge platform and Apex, a multi-standard, low-power small cell solution.  Casa said Axyom a virtualized multi-access solution for 3G/4G and trusted/untrusted WiFi access.

-Cisco Systems said it will work with  Ericsson and Intel to develop and trial what’s it’s billing as the industry’s first 5G router, claiming it will achieve faster speeds, lower latency and be able to handle “exponentially more Internet-connected devices.” As members of the Verizon 5G Technology Forum, Cisco, Ericsson and Intel are partnering with the carrier on an ecosystem aimed at accelerating the pace of 5G innovations.

-Ericsson said a 5G trial held with Verizon of new radio prototypes earlier this month achieved multi-gigabit speeds. The field trials of those prototypes used a mix of advanced beam forming, beam tracking,  new antenna designs (128 antenna elements and 64 radio chains in each prototype), and Multi-User MIMO technologies to enable speeds of more than 10 Gbps, the vendor said. 5G signals an evolution of today’s LTE technology, plus new radio access technologies that are often operating in higher frequency ranges.

-Elsewhere on the 5G front, T-Mobile and Ericsson said they’ll team on field and lab trials in the U.S., expecting them to get underway in the second half of 2016. Ericsson said it has already notched more than 20 memorandums of understanding to test 5G with operators worldwide.

-AT&T said it is growing its Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystem by integrating tools and developer solutions with Cisco, Intel, and Microsoft. AT&T said, for example, that its developer tools, including AT&T Flow Designer and AT&T M2X, will now work with Cisco’s Fog agent, Fog apps, and Fog analytics systems, Intel’s IoT Developer Kit, and with Microsoft's cloud, analytics, and visualization tools.

-Adobe has added MPEG-DASH support and dynamic ad insertion to Adobe Primetime, its multiscreen TV platform, noting that the implantation will use the same workflows and business rules used to insert ads into HLS streams. The resulting work will enable streams with stitched ads to reach devices and browsers that support MPEG-DASH, including HTML5-complaint browsers, Adobe said.

CableLabs and Cisco Systems have announced the creation of a new software project aimed at enabling virtualization on cable networks.

That new software project, labeled "OpenRPD" and originally developed by Cisco, is targeted at what's called the Remote PHY Device (RPD). The RPD, they explained, is a physical layer converter commonly located in an optical node of the cable network. The open source software will reside in the Remote PHY Device and will be available to cable operators and RPD vendors around the world, they said. 

CableLabs said president and CEO Phil McKinney detailed the initiative at his keynote at this week’s CableLabs Winter Conference in Orlando, Fla.  

The effort will build on the original work around the Converged Cable Access Platform (CCAP), a high-density architecture that combines the functions of the cable modem termination system and the edge QAM. The open source software will help to virtualize those functions as they are distributed toward the edge of the network.

“More and more of the telecommunications infrastructure is running on open source platforms,” said Ralph Brown, CTO, CableLabs, in a statement. “CableLabs has a history of contributing to and hosting open source projects. The OpenRPD project helps launch CableLabs increased focus on open source projects for the cable industry.”

“This is open source for cable access. Not only does it help move the industry toward the future architecture but it also enables a new developer community,” added Dave Ward, CTO of engineering and chief architect, at Cisco. “Open standards, open source and an open ecosystem community for developers is a key trajectory for networking. We see the Remote PHY architecture and RPD evolving to a more generalized and virtualized architecture that can be applied to all types of access networks.”

“Our collaborative industry effort is about helping cable networks scale,” said John Chapman, Cisco Fellow and CTO of the company’s Cable Access business. “Remote PHY, OpenRPD and DOCSIS 3.1 are playing a pivotal role in expanding the capacity of the HFC plant in a reliable, cost-effective and scalable way.” 

Following recent DOCSIS 3.1 lab trials, Midco is moving ahead with plans to roll with a field trial of the emerging multi-gigabit platform next month in Fargo, N.D., and follow by a pilot in Sioux Falls, S.D., before the end of 2016.

As previously announced, Midco will be using Cisco’s cBR-8 converged cable access platform to power the network-facing side of DOCSIS 3.1. Midco hasn’t revealed which modems it will use, but CableLabs recently certified products from five suppliers, including Technicolor, which recently acquired Cisco’s CPE business.

Midco (formerly known as Midcontinent Communications) has committed to delivering gigabit to its entire service area by the end of 2017. The MSO serves more than 330,000 customers in nearly 350 communities across Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin.

“Speed matters to our customers, and we have made it a priority to reshape our network to deliver the fastest, most reliable Internet service possible,” Jon Pederson, Midco’s CTO, said in a statement. “Cisco shares our vision for a fully scalable, efficient network that will take us into the future and manage the bandwidth demands of our increasingly connected lives.”

“Midco has been full speed ahead with its plans to deliver a DOCSIS 3.1-ready network,” added Kelly Ahuja, senior vice president, Service Provider business, products and solutions, at Cisco. “Through our collaboration, Midco customers will be among the first in the country to enjoy the fastest Internet connection available, unleashing a host of new experiences that can help make their lives better.”

Among other U.S. cable MSOs, Comcast announced plans to deploy DOCSIS 3.1 to a handful of markets this year. 

In a deal designed to flesh out its  Internet of Things platform, Cisco Systems is putting up $1.4 billion to buy Jasper Technologies, a company founded in 2004 that has developed a cloud-based IoT service that's been deployed by a large group of enterprise partners and service providers.

Jasper manages connected devices (everything from cars, vending machines, jet engines, implanted pacemakers, and printers)  and services for more than 3,500 enterprises worldwide, and works with 27 service provider groups, Cisco said. Japser’s customers include Alarm.com, China Unicom, Garmin, Vivint, Nissan, Amazon, GM, Heineken, Ford, and  Starbucks.  

Jasper CEO Jahangir Mohammed will  head up the new IoT Software Business Unit at  Cisco under Rowan Trollope, Cisco’s senior vice president and general manager, IoT and Collaboration Technology Group.

Cisco said the acquisition of the Santa Clara-based company, expected to close in the third quarter of its fiscal Q3, will help it to complete an IoT platform that interoperates with a variety of devices, IoT service providers and app developers.

“I am excited about the opportunity for Cisco and Jasper to accelerate how customers recognize the value of the Internet of Things,” said Chuck Robbins, Cisco’s CEO, in a statement. “Together, we can enable service providers, enterprises and the broader ecosystem to connect, automate, manage, and analyze billions of connected things, across any network, creating new revenue streams and opportunities.”

Former Cisco CEO John Chambers declared at the 2014 CES that the Internet of Things represents a $19 trillion opportunity.

Technicolor’s acquisition of Cisco Systems’ consumer premises equipment unit isn’t off to the best of starts.

Brazil's competition authority, CADE, said it has fined Technicolor and Cisco Systems BRL 30 million (US $7.2 million) for “gun jumping" on the transaction prior to CADE’s approval.

Technicolor and Cisco Systems announced the closing of the $600 million transaction on November 20, 2015, in which Technicolor took over Cisco’s Connected Devices unit, which makes set-tops cable modems and gateways.  

“The integration of the Cisco Connected Devices assets is starting immediately and the strategic collaboration agreement between Technicolor and Cisco is now moving into the implementation stage,” they said in the press release, adding that the transaction “has closed in all operating geographies, with the exception of Brazil, where closing remains subject to local approvals, and Colombia where Cisco Connected Devices’ operations have been carved-out pending a decision by the antitrust authority.”

CADE referenced that PR in its gun-jumping fine announcement, holding that excerpts from the release were “considered sufficient proof of gun jumping.”

"In addition, Cade discovered the incident on their own, having been notified by the company just three days after the publication of the press release," Cade reporting commissioner for the case, Paul Burnier, said, according to an English-translated version of the Cade announcement.

CADE said another question was raised by the “carve-out” agreement referenced by the companies – “ a contractual term with the intention to isolate the effects of a global transaction in jurisdictions where the transaction has not yet been approved by antitrust authorities,” CADE explained, adding that most antitrust authorities don't accept them because they usually aren't effective and are difficult to monitor.  

Cade said Cisco and Technicolor have agreed to pay the fine. Cisco and Technicolor have been asked for comment.

Update: A Cisco spokesman responded Thursday with this comment:

"Technicolor and Cisco acted in good faith when we isolated Brazilian operations during the transaction’s close, believing we could meet all global antitrust requirements and complete the transaction in Brazil when local regulatory approval was received. Both companies proactively reported the transaction close and carve out to CADE, and cooperated fully with CADE’s related investigation.

We acknowledge CADE’s announcement yesterday and accept the terms of the settlement. Both Technicolor and Cisco respect local law, and view the terms of the settlement as an additional commitment to our operations in Brazil." 

Brazil, he added "is an important market for Cisco, and we are very committed to the market’s long-term success." 

Update: Technicolor issued this statement on Friday (Jan. 22): 

"The Brazilian market is extremely important to Technicolor.  We are committed to being a good corporate citizen in this market. Based on the absence of antitrust issues with United States, Canada, Netherlands, Ukraine and Colombia, Technicolor was confident about receiving regulatory approval from Brazilian authorities.

"The decision by Technicolor and Cisco to carve out of Brazil – in order to respect and accommodate the Brazilian regulatory authority's timelines -- was made in good faith. It was publicly announced as well as reported to CADE. Technicolor accepts the terms of the settlement, and respects Brazilian laws."

Technicolor and Cisco announced the deallastJuly, noting that it also calls for them to create a strategic partnership that will allow both companies to develop and deliver next-gen video and broadband technologies, with a specific focus on Internet of Things (IoT) solutions and services. A long-term patent cross-licensing agreement is also factored into the deal.

Prior to the closing, Technicolor tapped former Alcatel-Lucent exec Luis Martinez Amago as president of its Connected Home division for the North American market, supporting Technicolor’s business with the region’s cable operators, telcos, satellite service providers and OTT players.

There’s some good news and bad news in store for telecom suppliers in 2016 – capex spending by U.S. carriers is expected to rise, but not by much.

“For 2016, our forecast call for annual U.S capex spending growing 3% year-over-year, with Telcos (wireline + wireless) up 2%, Cable TV up 1% and Web Scale expenditures up 6%,” Raymond James analyst Simon Leopold forecasted in a research note issued last week.

This year looks a bit more challenging outside the U.S., amid anticipated weaker spending from China (down 11%) and Europe (down 7%).

“We think that U.S. telcos will continue to focus on expanding wireless capacity, as evidenced by the premiums paid for Advanced Wireless Services (AWS) spectrum,” he noted.

As for the cable vertical, “the advent of DOCSIS 3.1, and the industry trend towards embracing hybrid architectures with the ultimate goal of transitioning to an all IP video distribution could increase capex allocations to networking,” Leopold said.

Operators such as Comcast and Liberty Global are expected to be among the early-movers with DOCSIS 3.1 following last week’s CableLabs certifications of D3.1 models from five suppliers – Askey Computer, Castlenet, Netgear, Technicolor and Ubee Interactive. 

Leopold also served up his top picks for 2016: Cisco Systems (thanks in part to its diversified portfolio, strong balance sheet and cash-generating ability); Arris (despite a “misperception regarding changes to video services”); and Applied Optoelectronics (“offers the highest potential reward for risk tolerant investors).

Suppliers have yet to report Q4 numbers, but Leopold said he expects calendar 2015 telco spending to drop 3% year-over-year, with cable TV capex growing 6% and web scale data center rising 10%.

Cisco Systems is taking an important spot in Sky’s video cloud after locking in a deal to provide security for the U.K.-based provider’s coming next-gen, multiscreen offering, Sky Q.

Under the deal, Sky will use the Cisco VideoGuard Everywhere security platform (Cisco nabbed VideoGuard technology via its 2012 acquisition of NDS) for broadcast TV, streaming and video downloading. Sky is also tapping Cisco’s headend platform for service delivery and its set-top middleware for Sky Q.

Set to launch later this year, the premium-level Sky Q service will hit the traditional big screen TV as well as other connected devices- something Sky called “fluid viewing.” Sky Q will also let subs watch up to five screens at once while recording four other channels . Per The Guardian,Sky will launch it first in the U.K, and then expand it into other countries, including Germany and Italy.

Cisco also announced a third element to its Infinite Solutions suite for cloud-delivered multiscreen video – Infinite Broadcast, a system for one-way and hybrid satellite and cable TV service providers. D-Smart, a Turkish TV provider, is an early taker, using Infinite Broadcast to update its D-Smart Blue multiscreen service.

Infinite Broadcast complements Cisco's Infinite Home (multiscreen video solution for two-way telcos and cable MSOs) and Infinite Video (OTT delivery to platforms such as Roku, Apple TV and Amazon Fire TV) solutions. 

Follow our continuing CES coverage at our CES news site.

Ericsson shot down a report claiming that Cisco Systems and Ericsson are talking about a merger just days after the companies forged a far-reaching technology and business partnership.

Swedish daily Dagens Industri reported that Cisco is seeking a deal with Ericsson's board and major shareholders on a possible takeover.

"We note that there are rumors in the market regarding an acquisition of Ericsson by Cisco possibly spurred by the recent announcement of a partnership between our two companies,” Ericsson president, CEO and board member Hans Vestberg said in a statement issued Monday.  “The talks leading up to the partnership announcement have been ongoing for a year and there have not been any discussions whatsoever on a merger or an acquisition."

The business agreement, announced on November 9, covers joint development, product reselling, and collaboration in key emerging markets, and seeks to create an additional $1 billion in incremental sales for each company by 2018.

The day it was announced, Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins said a partnership, rather than a merger, was the option that that would enable both companies to pursue their business goals at the most rapid pace.

“We think that this brings the innovation from both sides and allows us to move now. It allows us to absolutely deliver solutions to our customer immediately,” Robbins said.

Noting that the lines between traditional pay TV services and over-the-top video are continuing to blur, Cisco Systems announced Wednesday that it is acquiring 1 Mainstream, a startup that specializes in cloud-delivered on-demand and live multiscreen services.

Financial terms were not disclosed, but Cisco said the acquisition will help its customers tap into cloud-based systems to accelerate the evolution of their own video offerings. Cisco added that 1 Mainstream’s technology complements its “Infinite” cloud video suite/platform.

Cisco expects to close the deal in Q2 of its current fiscal year, noting that 1 Mainstream will join Cisco’s Service Provider Video Software and Solutions Cloud Engineering Group, now led by Conrad Clemson, the unit’s senior vice president and general manager.

“OTT is fast becoming the new normal, where open, cloud-based technologies allow innovation at a rate simply not possible with traditional TV technologies,” Rob Salvagno, vice president of coporate business development at Cisco, said in a blog post about the deal.

Cupertino, Calif.-based 1 Mainstream was founded in 2012 by several former execs from  Roku, Apple and TiVo, with the goal of providing a platform that enables partners to rapidly spool up video services for a wide range of supported streaming platforms, including smartphones, tablets, gaming consoles, connected TVs and media players such as the Apple TV and Android TV-powered Nexus Player.

1 Mainstream’s financial backers include DCM, Menlo Ventures, BSkyB and Luminari Capital. In March, Sky invested an additional $5 million in 1 Mainstream, following a $2 million investment made in 2013.  Known 1 Mainstream customers include Sky News, Tastemade, Young Hollywood, Foxtel Play, NowTV (Sky), ACC Digital Network, Screambox, Acacia TV, and Universal Sports Network (which is shutting down).

“1 Mainstream’s rapid growth shows the huge opportunity for technology that helps premium content owners reach audiences across multiple platforms and devices, quickly and efficiently,” Alun Webber, managing director, product design and development at Sky, said in a statement. “As a major customer, we are pleased to have been so closely involved in their development and we look forward to continue working with them as they become part of our long-standing partner Cisco’s Service Provider Video Team."

The video marketplace is growing increasingly fragmented as traditional players develop multiscreen offerings and new over-the-top providers enter the fray.

While this dynamic has applied new kinds of pressure on the multichannel universe and caused incumbent players to pivot and introduce new bundles and services, it’s a welcome development for companies like Ericsson, which is now poised to support providers that are pursuing any and all angles.

“In general, [the video opportunity] is broadening, and it’s gotten broader based on the acquisitions we’ve made,” Simon Frost, head of media marketing and communications at Ericsson, said, noting that the opportunity spans content owners that are going over-the-top, cable programmers and broadcasters, as well as more traditional multichannel video programming distributors. “We focus on all of them, but in different ways.”

Ericsson, which competes in this sector with other giants such as Cisco Systems and Arris, has shored up its multiscreen-video capabilities by pairing internal development with a string of recent acquisitions, keyed by its 2013 acquisition of Microsoft’s Mediaroom business.

“We’ve been building up the armory to come up with a sufficient next-generation set of technology platforms that enable a common set of needs,” Frost said.

A key need across the board is to be more like Netflix, hesaid — at least in terms of going with an operational model that’s a cloud-based and software-driven platform, enabling the service provider to make changes quickly, experiment more often and move away from rigid, old-school development cycles that might allow it to make a significant change once or twice a year.

“Everyone wants to be able to move at the speed of some of the new startups and become ultra-agile,” Frost said. “If you want to compete with Netflix, you have to be prepared to go that extra mile, and go to continual development models.”

While Mediaroom helped to expand Ericsson’s reach into the world of managed IPTV services, much of Ericsson’s focus moving forward will be on MediaFirst, a platform that’s more focused on the cloud and support for a wider range of devices.

Mediaroom “is a relevant, short-term solution,” Frost said. “But the energy is going into MediaFirst.”

Coming out of the earlier IPTV era, Mediaroom’s architecture largely relies on thick client set-tops and an interface that resides in the device. By comparison, MediaFirst’s premise is that every “client” is based in HTML5 and agnostic in terms of which device it’s connecting to, whether it’s an IP-based set-top, tablet, smartphone or PC.

Frost said Ericsson has several MediaFirst-facing deals in the queue, but so far has announced one trial, with Telus in Canada. One other possible candidate is AT&T, which uses Mediaroom today for U-verse TV but recently tapped Ericsson to help evolve its IPTV platform and the satellite-based one acquired in the merger with DirecTV.

While Ericsson will also try to secure MediaFirst deals with an emerging crop of OTT providers, the solution can also be applied to other traditional MVPD players, such as cable operators. Opportunities could come by way of MSOs that adopt the Reference Design Kit (RDK), the preintegrated software stack for IP-capable set-tops and gateways managed by Comcast, Liberty Global and Time Warner Cable.

Ericsson is an RDK licensee — one of a group of about 150 that holds that distinction — and believes RDK can provide a foundation for MediaFirst.

“RDK is one of several different standardized environments that create a common platform for devices that operators can get some cost scale out of,” Frost said.

M&A PLAYS

Ericsson has built its video platform by pairing internal development with a string of recent acquisitions.

September 2015: Put up $125 million for multiscreen video processing specialist Envivio, a company that went public in 2012. The deal gives Ericsson increased exposure with some tier 1 service providers, including Comcast, Cox Communications, Liberty Global, Telstra, Sky and Time Warner Cable.

September 2015: Deepens its cloud DVR and video-on-demand expertise via $95 million acquisition of Israel-based Fabrix Systems, whose known customers include Cablevision Systems, which offers a network-based DVR product that lets customers record as many as 15 shows at once.

February 2014: Buys Azuki Systems, a startup that specializes in adaptive bit rate technology and content protection, enabling Ericsson to shore up its ability to support authenticated TV Everywhere services and OTT video.

September 2013: Closed acquisition of Microsoft’s Mediaroom business, a deal that, at the time, spanned IPTV systems and software that power video services in about 13 million homes and 24 million set-tops and customers such as AT&T U-verse, Deutsche Telekom, Telefonica and Telus Optik TV.

SOURCE: Ericsson and Next TV research

Charter Communications continues to move forward on a video strategy that incorporates cloud-based user interfaces and applications, and it now appears that a “remote” DVR is also starting to factor into that game plan.

In a filing with the Federal Communications Commission to show its support of Charter’s proposed merger with Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks, Cisco Systems noted that it’s working with Charter “on a remote DVR trial for IP video to the home, and on backbone and regional access network upgrades to enhance Charter’s ability to support streamed video traffic through its network to the customer premises.”

The filing, first spottedFierceCable,  also mention that Cisco and Charter are working together to enable IP distribution via WiFi in and out of the home.

Cisco, one of Charter’s suppliers for a next-gen  “Worldbox” that supports a cloud-based interface and apps and is outfitted with a new downloadable security system, doesn’t get into specifics about Charter’s rollout plan for a remote DVR product.  A Cisco official told FierceCable that work continues in the lab as Charter prepares for field trials.

But word of the trial does appear to indicate that Tom Rutledge, Charter’s CEO, is still a fan of the general concept of the network-based DVR. Rutledge, as some might remember, championed the “remote-storage” DVR when he was the chief operating officer of Cablevision Systems.

Cablevision’s product, branded as the Multi-Room DVR, allows customers to record as many as 15 shows at the same time. Those customers can manage their DVR remotely, but playback is currently limited to the set-top box.

Comcast, meanwhile, has been pushing ahead with a “Cloud DVR” for its X1 platform that supports set-tops as well as tablets, smartphones and laptops and lets customers access their recordings at home or when they’re on the go.

Technicolor  said it has appointed Luis Martinez Amago as president of its Connected Home division for the North American market.

That division, which support cable, telecom, satellite and OTT operators in the region, will also include  the set-top and CPE division of Cisco Systems that Technicolor is in the process of acquiring for $600 million. That deal is expected to close by the end of 2015.

Martinez Amago joins Technicolor after 27 years with Alcatel-Lucent, where he served in roles including CEO of the Alcatel-Lucent Shanghai Bell joint venture, and president of its Europe, CIS, Middle East and Africa regions. As president of the Alcatel-Lucent’s Fixed Broadband Access Networks Business Division, which included IPTV and consumer premises equipment, he was responsible for major deals with US customers such as AT&T and Verizon, Technicolor said.

“Luis Martinez Amago is a highly skilled international executive with an impressive track record in key roles from Sales to General Management, in different technological areas and in several challenging markets,”  Frederic Rose, CEO of Technicolor, said in a statement. “Luis will be tasked with growing our Connected Home market position in NA and his decades of valuable experience in CPE and network will serve him well in his exciting new role.”

Martinez Amago holds a technical degree in telecommunications engineering from the University La Salle, Barcelona.

Looking ahead to the DOCSIS 3.1 era, Midcontinent Communications said the Fargo-Morehead West area in North Dakota will be its first market to offer residential gigabit broadband services.

The announcement comes soon after Midco said it would deliver gigabit Internet speeds to its entire footprint by the end of 2017. Sioux Falls, Rapid City, Bismarck and Grand Forks have been identified as Midco markets that would be among the first to get gigabit service.

MidCo noted in July that it would shift to DOCSIS 3.1, an emerging multi-gigabit platform for HFC networks, using the cBR-8, a new Converged Cable Access Platform (CCAP) from Cisco Systems that combines the functions of the cable modem termination system and edge QAM. 

The MSO has not set a precise launch date for gigabit service in the Fargo metro area, noting that it must first deploy DOCSIS 3.1 modems, which will be hybrids that support both DOCSIS 3.0 and DOCSIS 3.1-based transport. As was shown at an interop at CableLabs earlier this week, CMTS, modem and chip vendors are making speedy progress with D3.1 as operators prepare to test the platform ahead of initial deployments that are expected to get underway in 2016.

In this week’s announcement, MidCo VP of technology Jon Pederson said in the release that the operator is “collaborating” with Cisco on the new modems (Cisco, by the way, is in the process of selling its CPE division, which includes set-tops and modems, to Technicolor).

Midco has been using fiber to deliver gig speeds, but said DOCSIS 3.1 will enable it to offer those speeds to a wider range of customers. The operator is going all-digital to free up spectrum for DOCSIS 3.1.

“We chose the Fargo metro area as the first area for Midco Gig because of the state-of-the-art technology we’ve been installing in the metro area during our Fargo build-out that started in 2014 and will continue through 2016,” says Pat McAdaragh, president and CEO of Midcontinent.

Midcontinent has more than 300,000 customers and serves parts of Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin.

Cisco Systems has promoted Yvette Kanouff to a new role in which she will head up the company’s recently combined cloud groups, Multichannel News has learned. 

Cisco has not announced a new title Kanouff, but the company confirmed that she will now lead up a unit that combines Cisco’s Cloud Virtualization Group and Cloud Infrastructure Services teams. Cisco’s Service Provider Video Software and Solutions (SPVSS) business is also part of the group now led by Kanouff.

Additionally, Conrad Clemson, who joined Cisco following its acquisition of multiscreen video backoffice startup BNI Video (Clemson founded BNI Video), is now the head of Cisco SPVSS.

Cisco, which is selling its set-top unit to Technicolor, said scale is a key driver for the decision to combine these groups under Kanouff.

"Cloud is a key priority for Cisco and its customers,” a Cisco spokesperson said in a statement. “This is the right time and opportunity to bring together our cloud groups under one leader to drive scale, sharpen our focus and unify our priorities. We are combining our Cloud Virtualization Group (CVG) and Cloud Infrastructure Services (CIS) teams under Yvette Kanouff. She will lead this new organization, which will also include the SP Video Software and Solutions (SPVSS) business. Yvette will be relocating to San Jose. As part of this change, Conrad Clemson will be the new leader of SPVSS. He will not be relocating at this time."

Kanouff joined Cisco in June 2014 to head up its SPVSS unit, and has been based out of London.

Prior to that, she was executive vice president of corporate engineering and technology at Cablevision Systems, and was a longtime exec with SeaChange International. She is also late of Time Warner Cable, where she worked on The Full Service Network, a pioneering pilot program in Orlando that paved the way for cable’s shift to digital video and interactive services, including video-on-demand.

Cisco Systems has dipped into the M&A pool again, this time pulling out MaintenanceNet, a privately held company that markets a cloud-based platform that uses data analytics and automation to track, manage and renew customer contracts.

Cisco will pay $139 million in cash and retention based incentives to acquire MaintenanceNet, and expects to complete the deal during the first quarter of Cisco’s fiscal year 2016, Debbie Dunnam, Cisco’s SVP of global customer success, noted in this blog post detailing the deal.

The acquisition follows a business history between the two companies. Since 2009, Cisco and MaintenanceNet have worked together to offer Cisco distribution and reseller partners an automated way to “improve service renewals and identify uncovered product opportunities,” Dunnam explained, noting that the solution enables automated quoting, notifications, and, ordering online.

Once the deal is closed, MaintenanceNet will join Cisco’s Global Customer Success (GCS) organization.

Carlsbad, Calif.-based MaintenanceNet was founded in 2004.

Less than a month after Cisco Systems named Chuck Robbins as its next CEO, two company presidents are on their way out the door as the tech giant looks to simplify its operational structure.

Robbins announced on the company’s corporate blog Monday that Cisco’s presidents – Rob Lloyd and Gary Moore – will be leaving Cisco at the end of the company’s fiscal year, retaining their current rules until July 25.

And that's not all, apparently. Re/code reported Monday that Padmasree Warrior, Cisco's chief technology and strategy officer, will be leaving the company sometime this summer and has been weighing new job opportunities. Warrior joined Cisco in 2008, and previously served as EVP and CTO at Motorola. Update: “Per Chuck’s blog of earlier today, he plans to announce his full leadership team within two weeks. We won’t be commenting on rumors on who might be part of that team or not in the interim," Cisco spokeswoman Robyn Blum said in a statement. 

“Going forward, we will move to a flatter leadership team designed for the speed, innovation and execution that is required of us over the next decade,” Robbins wrote, thanking the execs for their “tremendous leadership.”

"Looking ahead, I will announce my next generation organizational structure and my leadership team within two weeks. This simplified structure will allow us to move with speed to accelerate our innovation and help our customers transform in the digital age," he added. 

A 21-year vet of Cisco, Lloyd has been serving as president of sales and development and leading Cisco’s Internet of Everything business. He was a keynoter at the SCTE Cable-Tec Expo last September, in Denver.

Moore was Cisco’s first president and COO, and joined the company in 2001. Cisco Services has seen annual revenues rise from $3 billion to $10 billion during his tenure, Robbins pointed out.

Lloyd and Moore bid their farewells in the form of complimentary blog posts on Monday.

Lloyd said he decided to leave Cisco “to begin the next chapter in my career,” recalling that he joined as president and general manager of Cisco Canada in 1994, inheriting a team of 40.  

“I feel that Cisco is very well positioned to lead yet again in the world of Software Defined Networking and Network Function Virtualization as we begin to monetize our vast software assets in new and exciting ways,” Lloyd wrote.

“Cisco’s future is very bright and with Chuck’s leadership, you will seize the opportunities ahead," Moore added in his post.

Cisco named company vet Robbins as the next CEO of Cisco on May 4. He’ll come into that role full-time on July 26, succeeding long-time company leader John Chambers, who will become Cisco’s executive chairman and remain chairman of Cisco’s board.