Gathering some momentum in an emerging next-gen cable access network product category, Cisco Systems said it has won a deal to supply Danish MSO Stofa with a “modular” version of its Converged Cable Access Platform (CCAP) that supports video and broadband traffic on the same platform.
Stofa, an operator with more than 600,000 subscribers, said the platform will reduce operational costs, enable it to double broadband speeds, and help it develop new bandwidth-intensive services such as 4K TV.
Stofa is deploying a modular version of Cisco’s implementation of the CableLabs-specified CCAP, a super-dense platform that combines the functions of the edge QAM and the cable modem termination system. Cisco, which is making CCAP progress in the U.S. with MSOs such as Cox Communications, said Stofa marked its first CCAP deployment across the pond.
In this instance, the MSO is pairing the Cisco’s flagship CMTS, the uBR10012, with RF Gateway-10 universal edge QAMs outfitted with high-density DS384 line cards that provide 128 QAMs per port. To boost densities on the CMTS end, the uBR10012 has been paired with Cisco’s 3G-Shared Port Adapter, which effectively doubles the downstreams in the chassis, and the PRE5, a routing engine that quadruples the CMTS’s’ routing functions (from 10 Gbps to 40 Gbps).
Cisco is also developing a fully-integrated CCAP called the cBR-8. Last October, the company said it was gearing up for cBR-8 lab trials with three major cable operators ahead of the product’s commercial launch sometime in 2014.
Cisco is competing in the emerging CCAP market with Arris, Casa Systems, CommScope and Harmonic. Cisco Systems held 51% of the CMTS market in the second quarter of last year, followed by Arris (42%), and Casa Systems (8%), according to Infonetics Research. Cisco was also tops in edge QAMs, with 32% market share, closely followed by Harmonic and Arris.
