Much of the new revenue growth in the cable industry is currently being driven by 'Business Class' services—providing voice, video, and high-speed data services to small and medium businesses. As with other areas of innovation, CableLabs is working to accelerate the industry's growth in this strategic market by developing interoperable technology solutions that facilitate the deployment of new business services.

Specific initiatives include:

• Business Voice

  CableLabs is creating opportunities for cable to re-invent voice by extending the PacketCable service architecture to support the needs of commercial customers. Business SIP Services (BSS) and Enterprise SIP Gateway (ESG) provide extensions to PacketCable 2.0 defining communication interface requirements for business telephone features and enterprise IP-PBX interconnection over broadband networks. Additionally, CableLabs is actively participating in the SIP Forum SIPconnect effort.

• Business Ethernet

  The Business Ethernet projects within CableLabs are intended to enable the Cable Operators to provide Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF) compliant services through specifications development and certification. By working within the Metro Ethernet Forum and refining the operation of Business Services over DOCSIS, CableLabs is ensuring the carrier-grade quality of Cable's Ethernet services.