CableLabs® Announces Successful PacketCable™ Multimedia Event

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Less than a year after issuing the PacketCable™ Multimedia specification in mid-2003, CableLabs® held a successful PCMM interoperability event at its new facilities here at the end of Q1 ’04. Eight supplying companies participated in the three-day non-certification event.

The Multimedia specification defines how cable operators may deliver enhanced multimedia services over DOCSIS® (Data over Cable Service Interface Specification) 1.1 or 2.0 networks with guaranteed bandwidth via Quality of Service (QoS). The PCMM effort will enable a wide variety of graphically-rich services such as video communications and interactive games to be delivered via cable’s Internet Protocol (IP)-based network.

The companies that participated in the interoperability event were cable modem termination system makers Arris, Cisco Systems and Motorola; policy server firms Camiant, Telcordia and CableMatrix; and PCMM-defined application managers Ellacoya, Syndeo and Telcordia.

“These interoperability events are very helpful to our efforts,” said Glenn Russell, Director, Multimedia Applications in the CableLabs PacketCable initiative. “We saw a wide range of product implementations during the event, Russell added. “It is very evident that the manufacturing community has made considerable progress.”

CableLabs-based interoperability events provide open forums for manufacturers to: (1) work together to achieve interoperability, (2) accelerate product development, and (3) identify new technical requirements needed in the specifications.

“PacketCable Multimedia enables us to add new real-time services in a scalable fashion on top of our DOCSIS and PacketCable platforms,” said Steve Craddock, Executive Vice President of Comcast New Media. “It’s a lightweight framework that provides us with enormous capabilities for service management.”

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