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. 

Looking to expand its opportunities in the commercial services sector, Comcast Business this week launched ActiveCore, a software-defined networking platform that, it says, will help its customers manage their networks across multiple locations while keeping costs in check.

Comcast Business is billing it as the first “cable-delivered, gig-ready SDN platform in the country, and said Software Defined Wide Area Networking (SD-WAN), an alternative to multiprotocol label switching (MPLS) running over T1 lines, is the first business product powered by its ActiveCore platform.

As an SDN approach, ActiveCore delivers services and changes in software, rather than relying on purpose-built hardware. Comcast Business said ActiveCore can be paired with the operator’s new DOCSIS 3.1-based gigabit broadband service, which has been launched in the company’s Northeastern, Mid-Atlantic and Central regions, and will reach Comcast’s full service area by the end of 2017.

RELATED: Comcast Rolls DOCSIS 3.1 to More Businesses

Early SD-WAN customers include Jim Ellis Automotive Group in Atlanta, Ga., which operates 15 locations across the state with more than 1,000 employees, Comcast Business said.

Comcast Business is adding ActiveCore as it looks for more ways to stoke unit of the company that is already growing and seeking ways to move up-market and serve enterprise customers that operate in multiple locations. Comcast generated $1.5 billion in business services revenues in Q2, up 12.6% year-on-year, though much of it is still tied to small business customers.

RELATED: Comcast Business Bows New Unit Targeting Fortune 1000

“ActiveCore and SD-WAN represent a ‘generational moment’ for our industry and are designed for businesses that embrace the consumerization of IT, SaaS and cloud services to run their enterprise operations,” Kevin O’Toole, senior vice president of Product Management for Comcast Business, said in a statement. “We now offer enterprises a robust, future-proof alternative to legacy MPLS solutions; allowing them to easily add capacity to branch offices at scale and unlock the potential of virtualized networks for today’s connected economy.”

Comcast also released this video promo about ActiveCore:

Juniper Networks said Liberty Global will use its vMX platform to support a network functions virtualization (NFV) effort at the cable operator, which serves about 20 million customers across Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean and manages more than 10 million WiFi access points.

Juniper said the deployment marks a NFV-based approach, as Liberty Global will use the vendor’s vMX, billed as a software-based, virtualized MX Series  Universal Edge Router that runs on off-the-shelf x86-based servers, across its footprint. 

Using the vMX as a “virtual route reflector” will help the operator scale its control plane by spinning up new ones on an on-demand basis, they said.

"Virtualization solutions streamline our infrastructure, our operations environment and our global business outcomes,” Andy Grotzke, VP of core network strategy and engineering at Liberty Global, said in a statement. “While our first NFV deployment is for virtual route reflection, we are also evaluating the vMX to rapidly add network capacity and new customers. The ability to leverage a broad set of virtual routing capabilities is very important to Liberty Global as it will enable agile service innovation and increased operational efficiency."

Liberty Global is an existing Juniper customer that uses gear such as its MX Series 3D Universal Edge Routers and PTX Series Packet Transport Routers.

Offering a way for cable operators to migrate to a more efficient, virtualized platform, Calix has introduced a product that can plug into their legacy access networks and utilize software-defined capabilities.

Calix said that product, the AXOS DPx Connector, is a DOCSIS Virtualized Network Function (VNF) that can be woven into existing OSS (operational support systems) for HFC and PON networks deployed by MSOs.

Cable operators are eager to shift to software-defined networking and virtualized apps and systems, but they are challenged with how to develop a framework that can fit that into those legacy OSS environments, Shane Eleniak, vice president of product line leadership at Calix, said.

Calix has already done some work with DOCSIS Provisioning of EPON and DOCSIS Provisioning of GPON, which enable operators to utilize their DOCSIS backoffice systems for PON deployments, but want to move away from a classic, monolithic software approach, he said.

MSOs, Eleniak added, “want to invest in something that is SDN-aware…The tricky part for an operator, is how do I bridge?”

Calix claims that the AXOS DPx Connector can be plugged into the existing architecture and virtualize the applications without altering the underlying backoffice systems. MSOs would also use the same servers, but the new connector would add scale and tie it back to a data center or network operation center (NOC).

To aid the effort, Calix has teamed up with Momentum Telecom, a company that supplies DOCSIS management/provisioning products and hosted voice services to cable operators.

Eleniak said the primary, early targets for the new product are cable operators that have been deploying PON or have it on their roadmap for certain scenarios in a way that complements the HFC side of their business. He said it will also fit in as operators deploy DOCSIS 3.1 and starting to pursue “virtual” Converged Cable Access Platforms (CCAPs) and distributed access architectures.

Calix said it has field trials underway. It will be using a two-pronged approach for trials and deployments – working with Momentum and its base of MSOs as well as direct engagements with the operators, according to Doug Blue, Calix's solutions marketing director for cable. 

 “As an industry, we know that SDN is the way of the future of service providers and this partnership between Calix and Momentum Telecom will allow our customers to more easily move to an SDN architecture as soon as they are ready,” Scott Helms, senior vice president of advanced services at Momentum Telecom, said in a statement. “The service agility enabled by SDN has become a key strategic goal for cable operators, and the combined solution allows our joint customers to immediately begin to reap the benefits of an SDA architecture without the complexity of high costs of integration.“  

With twosessions dedicated to it here today at INTX, network virtualization is a hot topic for service providers and their array of vendors.

Kyrio, the recently rebranded CableLabs for-profit spin-off, has also been taking aim at network functions virtualization (NFV) and software-defined networks (SDN) in the form a new interoperability lab based at the organization’s Louisville, Colo., and Sunnyvale, Calif., facilities.

Multichannel News recently caught up with Phil McKinney, CEO of CableLabs, and Mitch Ashley, president and general manager of Kyrio, to learn more about Kyrio and the aims and plans for the new lab and why they think it will be important not just to cable, but to other industries as well.

Multichannel News: In February you rebranded your for-profit NetworkFX subsidiary as Kyrio as it pursued areas like wireless roaming and WiFi testing.  And recently you announced that it will open an SDN]/NFV interoperability lab. Can you offer a bit more detail on the goals of that new effort?

Mitch Ashley: Kyrio is a wholly owned subsidiary of CableLabs and what we're doing is building off the phenomenal technology transfer model that CableLabs has had for the cable industry of creating technologies and innovations that show up in vendor products and show up in cable operator networks and in customer homes. 

NetworkFX (the former brand of the Kyrio spin-off) was started originally around taking the PKI (public key infrastructure) service that CableLabs had done for the entire cable industry -- coming up on over 500 million security keys for devices like cable modems, CableCARDs... That sort of proved out the model for Kyrio. In January we announced the rebranding of the company but also that we were expanding into other lines of business, like wireless testing. 

[For the NFV/SDN lab], we're providing a vendor-neutral laboratory environment where hardware manufacturers, software providers and even chip manufacturers can come in. Much like we do with cable modems and other technologies, now we can interoperable with each other and go through test deployment scenarios, do basic testing across devices in a friendly environment where they know that the confidentiality of their information is maintained. What we focused on was how do we help those vendors get their products to market in a mutli-vendor environment. 

It's pretty difficult for one manufacture to get the bevy of SDN and NFV devices into their labs to do testing with. We provide that platform, where they can maintain an ongoing presence in our interop lab or do some remote testing. And we'll do hosted events -- like the OPNFV interop...on May 9. 

We can also provide remote access to both hardware and software manufacturers and provide new builds and loads onto their equipment and test that across multiple hardware manufacturers and software solutions.

Phil McKinney:  The SDN and NFV worlds are moving fast. We see it having a great opportunity to have an impact on the MSOs but the overall cost of network infrastructure and encourage the vendors to...move quickly. That's why we brought that expertise and opened it up to anybody and everybody not related or tied to cable operators.

MCN: Will there be a qualification stamp that comes out of this like CableLabs does with DOCSIS? 

PM: Even on the cable side when we do an interop, there's no certification or stamp. Anything that happens inside the interop, stays inside the interop. But there are still some gaps in the NFV world around interoperability. They can get access to a set of configurations that they wouldn't be able to afford on their own in order to do a better job of bringing the entire industry together. The focus, step one, is just on interoperability.

MCN: How would you characterize the cable industry's work with SDN and NFV with respect to competing industries? Are they in lock-step, ahead of the curve, behind the pack? 

PM: I can tell you that most of the major MSOs are keenly interested in taking advantage of the SDN and NFV worlds. The main driver there is can you speed up the process of deploying new products and new services.

The bigger operators are very involved in SDN and NFV; they are all having discussions with their vendor suppliers. Many of them have their own labs set up. Some are doing deployments...but it's in the early days. That's why I think there's so much excitement about the interop labs.

In this case, we're trying to bring everyone along together and it actually shortens the timeframe of going from, this is a nice concept, one in which I can actually commercially deploy this in a broad-based format. 

If you’re reading this, you’re likely at or on your way to the 2016 Internet & Television Expo, a.k.a. INTX. As is usually the case, the tech-talk scene is oozing with impressively nerdy gibberish. May this handy decoder ring help you navigate it with aplomb.

Let’s start with APSIS — pronounced “app-sis” — which stands for “Adaptive Power System Interface Specification.” It hails from the world of energy sustainability, specifically the SCTE’s Energy 2020 program. The gist of it is this: A lot of the big stuff in broadband/cable networks use electricity all the time, and not as a function of usage.

But what if you could “turn down” or turn off certain components when they’re used less, say, in the middle of the night? That’s the aim of APSIS. It’s a big deal because it’s that outside plant — the “access plant” — that represents about 80% of a typical service provider’s annual spend on electricity.

Capacity is perennially a trending topic at gatherings such as INTX, and this year offers no shortage of tech-talk around it. Watch for a lot of discussion about threading fiber deeper and deeper into neighborhoods, thus making serving areas smaller and smaller — so that at some point, when Bandwidth Hungry Harry wants a direct-fiber connection, it’s not a budget-buster to get it to him.

Related gibberish that’s good to know: When people start talking about “N+0,” or “N+1,” they’re talking about the number of amplifiers after the node (where fiber optics hand off to coaxial cable). The lower the better, and it doesn’t get much lower than zero.

Taking fiber deeper also means an assured increase in the number of nodes — by 3 times, in some estimates, and depending how deep the fiber reaches. That’s why energy efficiency is a constant refrain in design discussions about next-generation gear. It’s also why the term “remote PHY” keeps popping up, too, where PHY stands for “physical layer.”

“Remoting” the “PHY” sits (as one of several terms) in the vast bucket of tech-talk that is Network Functions Virtualization and Software-Defined Networks. The idea: Take some of the stuff out of those nodes and put it “higher up” in the network. Two INTX tech sessions will attempt to tackle that chewy topic.

Speaking of the tech-paper scene at this week’s Spring Technical Forum — it’s the mother lode of solid engineering information, every year, and this year doesn’t disappoint. My favorite for the oh-so-nerdy title: “4096 OFDM implementation on the HFC Plant with Fiber Deep and Distributed Access Architecture,” by Cisco’s Maxwell Huang.

My personal/professional favorite 2016 tech paper — and as someone with a long and deep history of concern about the super-skinny “upstream path” (Internet-facing, from the home) — especially as webcams proliferate: “Full Duplex DOCSIS,” by John Chapman and Hang Jin, with bonus points for the uber-succinct title.

Here’s why this matters: “Full duplex” is when a transmission medium can transmit in both directions, simultaneously. (By contrast, a walkie-talkie is “half duplex,” as in, “hello, over.”) You can’t do full duplex if there are amplifiers anywhere along the communications path, because they contain the (diplex) filters that define the downstream and upstream signal directions (which brings us back to “N+0”).

Yes, there are ways to widen the upstream from its current boundary (42 MHz) to other, higher/wider boundaries — but with full duplex, there’s no need to keep revisiting amplifiers to change out the filters, to go to the next step wider, and the next one after that. It’s immediate, dynamic, and adjustable. That’s pretty big stuff. The question to ask, should this come up in your cocktail conversations, is this: “Sure, Joe, but how non-trivial is it to get there?” (Engineers tend to cleave to that word “non-trivial.”)

Relatively new this year but big for automation and, initially, making customer care and product development better is the landscape of machine learning, artificial intelligence and cognitive/neural adaptations; there’s a whole session on it on Tuesday at 3:30 p.m., led by Comcast executive vice president and chief technical officer Tony Werner.

For the show floor — mind you, this is being written the week before INTX — here are a few pointers on some “under the hood” things that matter: Almost all talk about “smarter WiFi,” and “better/smarter connectivity,” will be anchored by the next version of the Reference Design Kit (RDK). That’s what gave rise to Comcast’s X1 line, Liberty Global’s “Horizon” navigation and all the stuff that’s generally received as “gorgeous navigation.”

Next up is “RDK-B,” where the “B” stands for “broadband,” and aims to do the same level of “making stuff better” for cable modems, gateways, WiFi spigots, and all the stuff that feeds our online lives.

That’s a quick look at the tech talk of this year’s INTX. You are now in a good position to play “stump the chump” with impressively nerdy fare! Good luck and see you there.

Stumped by gibberish? Visit Leslie Ellis at translation-please.com..

(Photo Credit: Captain Midnight Decder Ring, by Sobebunny - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7274827)

As the information-driven and connected world has evolved, and the cloud has proliferated, customer expectations have become more demanding and immediate. The movement of commerce and customer support into the digital realm has also put pressure on the industry as a whole, changing the way business gets done.

Service Providers (SPs) have found themselves at a crossroads. Many are turning to Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) to fundamentally transform the economics of their business.

As these transformations take place, there are three things SPs need to know about the changing market and what they can do to adapt.

(1) Agility Is Key

Over-the-top (OTT) providers and other more nimble SPs are leading the way in this new era of immediacy with cloud and virtualization technologies that give them more agility and a better way to address the market’s demands for instant fulfillment. These providers are striving to, first, rapidly roll out new and customized services almost instantaneously to address anticipated — or in some cases, unanticipated — customer needs. When done in an environment where they can leverage automation, this can be accomplished in such a way to keep a tight lid on operational costs. Finally, leveraging an open environment with strong partners is critical to ensuring the flexibility to manage their risks and options in this multi-year evolution.

These technologies are very “forgiving.” Since the service investment is more closely aligned with the expected revenue, if a new service doesn’t take off, providers can “fail fast,” rapidly scaling down and redeploying assets without missing a beat. But if the new service is a success, they can “scale fast” to quickly capture maximum value.

As a result, “value” migrates to rapid service innovation with plain old network connectivity increasingly becoming a commodity. Providers who follow this new approach will meet the needs of their existing customers quickly and efficiently, reduce operational costs and reduce the financial and operational risk on their organization.

The simple truth is that SPs need to adopt this new mindset, and for many, the right technology partner will power their ability to do so.

(2) The Automation Imperative

While quickly harnessing the capabilities mentioned above to capitalize on innovative ideas is the future, successfully implementing them is another story. SPs are burdened by costly planning and development cycles that don’t match the pace of today’s escalating requirements. Most service and network infrastructures are designed and deployed in a rigid, manual, step-change fashion that can take from 12 to 18 months to roll out, require large upfront investments and are difficult to modify midcourse or after completion.

It’s no surprise, then, that service providers take a risk-averse approach to service development — these large investments of time and money aren’t recoverable if the market changes or demand does not materialize.

But market demands, combined with this approach, have created an innovation gap between customer expectations and what network providers can realistically deliver. Many application vendors have eagerly filled this void, ironically by using existing SP networks for connectivity to deploy their services.

There are a few systemic reasons behind this innovation gap, including legacy environments based on complex manual workflows, which limit speed and increase cost; and the use of a fixed physical infrastructure that requires stringent testing and time-consuming modifications. Finally, SPs have limited network intelligence and visibility, precluding them from fully leveraging the information running through their networks.

More nimble SPs are automating and virtualizing their environments not just to reduce operational expenses but to rapidly iterate and test new services; then, depending on the success of the service, these providers decide whether to scale or “fast-fail.” The contrast is striking.

While network providers — constrained by a lack of experience with new technologies, as well as an operational structure and culture that evolved for a different marketplace—take months or years to identify a new service and source the technology to address it, companies that grew up on the web embrace DevOps environments, resulting in more agile service creation.

Again, partnering with a technology provider who already possesses these capabilities can jumpstart or augment an SP initiative.

(3) Future Proof With a Physical-Virtual Infrastructure

For SPs that remain mired in the old approach, the gap will only widen; they will be further marginalized and, as pricing pressures intensify, their already dwindling profits will continue to erode. At the same time, they must continue to invest in connectivity to deliver existing services or risk getting blamed for poor customer experience. It is truly a quandary.

Network providers need to take a different approach. The current network investment cycle is slow, with investments made in advance of demand; the new network model, on the other hand, is responsive to demand and keeps its options open. In order to advance with agility in today’s market, network providers need to adopt a carrier-grade, open network platform — one that accelerates delivery cycles and reduces operational and upfront expenses while minimizing risk.

This evolution requires software-driven workflow automation that strengthens and streamlines service delivery. Workflow and systems automation not only reduces operational expenses, it allows customized services to iterate quickly — moving from concept to testing in a matter of days rather than months, and with a smaller cost footprint designed to match expected revenue.

Such an approach requires a mix of physical and virtual infrastructure that optimizes investments while dynamically changing the network to meet service needs. Virtualization enables variable cost business models, which means lower up-front costs and lower risk. While dedicated boxes can deliver better price-performance and higher potential margins, they also come at a premium; the higher fixed-cost model means higher risk — especially when demand is uncertain and customer needs are dynamic. Smart providers follow a simple rule of thumb: virtual for flexibility and options; physical for efficient scalability.

The bottom line is that today’s SPs can compete and win when they pivot their businesses to quickly develop new services, implement greater efficiencies and reduce risk. Strong technology partnerships that allow SPs to take advantage of breakthroughs such as SDN and NFV to run across and build upon legacy systems are key for rapidly adapting to customers’ changing demands.

And ultimately, the answers to ongoing questions about which direction to take in a changing market will come from data. Indeed, network analytics can be used to predict where the market is going and anticipate what your customers need before they even know it themselves. This unique and direct connection to customers is a distinct competitive advantage that allows innovative SPs to eclipse what their competitors are delivering and thrive in our changing economy.

Paul Obsitnik, is vice president of service provider portfolio marketing at Juniper Networks This contributed article is based on awhite paperpublished by the company.

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.” 

Representing the next step in the evolution of DOCSIS-powered cable broadband networks, CableLabs recently released a new family of specs that cover a range of “distributed” architectures for the Converged Cable Access Platform (CCAP), a high-density system that combines the functions of the cable modem termination system and the edge QAM and will play a key role in the industry’s all-IP transition.

The new distributed architectures, which expand on today’s more centralized deployments,  will provide “significant scale advantages and flexible deployment options supporting…both DOCSIS 3.0 and DOCSIS 3.1 networks,” Karthik Sundaresan, a principal architect at CableLabs, explained in this blog post about the new specifications, which aim to facilitate multi-vendor interoperability.

The distributed approach, Sundaresan wrote, fits with the software-defined networking (SDN) and networks functions virtualization (NFV) initiatives operators are pursuing, and will run parallel to a wide range of wireless infrastructure architectures.

He noted that distributed DOCSIS deployments are already underway in some markets that use  C-DOCSIS, a modified approach that was originally developed for China’s cable market that has since been formally integrated with CableLabs’s broader DOCSIS initiatives.

CableLabs, Sundaresan explained, is specifying several different Distributed CCAP Architectures (including Remote PHY and Remote MAC-PHY) and will release the set of technical reports and specifications throughout this summer.

The specs will apply to DOCSIS and CCAP vendors such as Arris, Cisco Systems, Casa Systems, Harmonic and Huawei, as well as Gainspeed, a startup that is developing a “virtual” CCAP.

CableLabs issued the Remote PHY family of specifications last month (the technology is covered via six specs and one technical report describing the overall architecture). Labeled as “MHAv2,’ they represent an evolution of the original Modular Headend Architecture specifications.

Remote PHY  paves the way for an integrated CCAP to be separated into two components -- the CCAP Core and the Remote PHY Device (RPD) – along with an interface that weaves them together using “pseudowires.”  

A common location for an RPD, which contains elements such as the downstream QAM and OFDM modulators, upstream QAM and OFDM demodulators, is the optical node, located at the junction of the fiber and coax plants, Sundaresan wrote.

Sundaresan said vendors have begun architecting ASIC designs, device platforms and software to implement the RPD and CCAP-Core devices. The specs for the OSS that will manage the devices are under development and will be released this summer.

Comcast has become the first service provider to join the OpenDaylight Project, an open source platform for software-defined networking (SDN) and network functions virtualization (NFV) technologies aimed at building more automation and programmability into the network.

OpenDaylight also announced that Lenovo has become a member of the initiative.

“We have been testing ODL since the project launched to see where it might fit in and have been impressed by the improvements in functionality and stability with each successive release,” Chris Luke, senior principal engineer at Comcast, noted in this blog post about the MSO’s involvement. “We have also been participating with our partner CableLabs on the OpenDaylight sub-project PacketCable PCMM, which aims to develop a southbound plugin for ODL that can manage service flows across Cable Modem Termination System (CMTS) devices.”

“With an ever-growing number of endpoints to manage, evolving our SDN and NFV capabilities becomes increasingly important,” said Rakesh Puri, executive director of network applications and systems at Comcast, in a separate statement.

Comcast, Luke emphasized in the blog, is motivated to reduce the operational complexity of its networks, noting that the near-term work involves making improvements to network automation under the operator’s Programmable Network Platform, a framework that outlines a stack of behaviors and abstraction layers that software uses to interact with the network.

“It is our hope that by harmonizing on a common framework and useful abstractions, more application groups within the company will be able to make use of better intelligence and more easily interact with the network,” noted Luke, who is also part of an OpenDaylight Advisory Group formed to provide technical and strategic guidance to the ODL community on the challenges of running real-world networks. “Longer term, we’re working toward creating an architecture where the core of the network is not intimately involved in the operation of virtual networks.” 

Software-defined networking (SDN) and network functions virtualization (NFV) – technologies that are playing an important role in the evolution of telco networks and rapidly becoming a point of emphasis for cable, is going to be a huge business, according to a new forecast from Infonetics Research.

The carrier market for SDN and NFV will reach $11 billion by 2018, Infonetics said in a report that takes a deep dive on SDN router and switch hardware and software and NFV-facing elements, such as policy, deep packet inspection, and security.

"For three years, the telecom industry has been abuzz over SDN and NFV, with anticipation and hard work developing the vision, goals, architectures, use cases, proof-of-concept projects, field trials, and even some commercial deployments. We've been gathering data in this early market for nearly two years and are projecting the global service provider SDN and NFV market to reach $11 billion in 2018,"  Michael Howard, Infonetics Research's co-founder and principal analyst for carrier networks, said in a statement.

Infonetics is breaking down spending in the emerging market into new SDN and NFV software, which it expects to comprise 20% of the total SDN and NFV market in 2018, as well as “displaced” revenue (12% by 2018) that comes from purchases other than traditional network hardware such as routers and firewalls. The third revenue segment – predicted to be the largest (68% by 2018) will come from “newly identified segments of existing markets,” which mostly includes virtualized network functions (VNFs), as well as ports on routers, switches, and optical gear that have become SDN-capable.