Giving the cable-modem retail market a shot in the arm, Cable Television Laboratories Inc. announced last week that it had granted Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification 1.0 certification to its first set of PCI (peripheral-component interface) internal cable-modem cards.
The manufacturers-GVC Corp. and Zoom Telephonics Inc.-have the green light to seek OEM (original-equipment manufacturing) deals with PC manufacturers such as Gateway Inc. and Dell Computer Corp.
That same PCI equipment is also expected to ease self-provisioning for cable-modem customers, cutting cable-modem costs and reducing the need for installation truck rolls.
"This is a real milestone for consumers who want their cable modems preconfigured inside their PCs and ready to use right out of the box," Comcast Corp. president Brian Roberts, chairman of the CableLabs board of directors, said in a press release. "This should further increase the momentum of the cable Internet business."
CableLabs CEO Richard Green added that the PCI milestone also falls in step with CableLabs' business-to-business initiative, "Go2Broadband," which links retailers, PC vendors and cable operators to an Internet-based "one-stop shop" for cable-modem service-deployment information.
In addition to Zoom's and GVC's internal cable modems, CableLabs also certified 11 external models during certification wave 14, including "plug-and-play" USB (universal serial bus) units built by Ambit and Com21 Inc., as well as two from Ericsson Inc. and Terayon Communication Systems Inc.
Models from Ambit, D-Link Co. Ltd., Ericsson, PowerCom and Zoom all received the thumbs-up the first time they submitted products for certification, CableLabs said. Meanwhile, Com21, DX Antenna, GVC, Samsung Electronics America Inc. and Terayon had products recertified for upgrades.
CableLabs also requalified cable-modem-termination systems from Arris Interactive LLC and Cisco Systems Inc. Broadband Access Systems Inc., 3Com and Motorola Inc. received CMTS qualification during previous waves.
