CableLabs® Hosts Inaugural PacketCable™ Application Lab Interoperability Event; Welcomes Additional IMS Core Providers

CableLabs® announced recently that it has successfully completed the first in a series of PacketCable™ 2.0 interoperability events in the PacketCable Application Lab (PAL). This inaugural event focused on pre-PacketCable 2.0 IMS core networks, voice application servers, and voice clients.

The weeklong session, held at the end of August, achieved an impressive level of interoperability for SIP based voice services across equipment combinations from ten different participating manufacturers. Included in the testing was voice interoperability with PacketCable 1.5.

Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, Gallery-IPT, and MetaSwitch provided the networking foundation for the event with their pre-PacketCable 2.0 IMS core networks. Alcatel-Lucent was recently welcomed by CableLabs as the second major equipment manufacturer to permanently install their pre-PacketCable 2.0 IMS core in the PAL.

Voice Application Servers were provided by Alcatel-Lucent, BroadSoft, Cedar Point, Gallery-IPT, IP Unity, MetaSwitch, Sonus, and Sylantro. Voice CPE in the form of Embedded Digital Voice Adapters, or E-DVAs, were provided by Broadcom and Motorola. An E-DVA is a DOCSIS cable modem with an embedded PacketCable 2.0 SIP client for making voice calls.

“This event was highly successful, thanks in large part to the excellent level of participation and support provided by the equipment manufacturers,” said Ed Miller, CableLabs Vice President of Broadband Network Services. “Having established a solid base of voice interoperability, we're looking forward to upcoming events when we begin exploring applications that extend beyond voice to cover areas such as cross-platform features, unified messaging, and presence.”

The PAL provides an application showcase and development test bed for the cable industry. It serves as a venue for network equipment providers and application developers to test and demonstrate innovative applications for voice, multimedia, wireless, business, and converged services across PacketCable 2.0 core networks from multiple suppliers.

“The ability to rapidly innovate advanced IP services is an important part of the cable industry roadmap,” said Tony Werner, Chief Technology Officer of Comcast Cable Communications. “Comcast appreciates the support that the vendor community provided for this first event and looks forward to their continued involvement.”

CableLabs will host additional events for the lab and will also make it available on an ongoing basis for participating vendors to use as a development and testing resource. The PacketCable 2.0 Application Lab and the CableLabs Development Laboratory can work together to support cross-platform broadband application development testing including digital set tops, VoIP terminals and personal computers.

About PacketCable 2.0
PacketCable 2.0 is an architecture and set of specifications developed by CableLabs, cable operators, and leading communications equipment vendors that extends cable's VoIP platform's capabilities beyond basic telephony in support of new services such as wireless, fixed-mobile convergence, business communications, video communications, and cross-platform features. The development of this foundation will fulfill the industry's vision of having an IP-services delivery platform that allows cable operators to rapidly deploy new services in a cost-effective manner.

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