CableLabs^® Concludes Largest Modem Certification Wave

Six new companies—Castlenet, Dakos, Global Teleman, Matsushita, Scientific Atlanta, and Texas Instruments—joined the large list of DOCSIS cable modem equipment suppliers with certified products. Eleven companies—3COM, Askey, Cisco, Elsa, Ericsson, Motorola, Nortel, Powercom, Samsung America, Samsung Electronics, and Terayon—were re-certified for modems that adhere to the DOCSIS specification.

Tellabs’ headend equipment was qualified in this wave for the first time. Four companies—Arris, Cisco Systems, Riverstone, and Terayon—had CMTSs re-qualified.

These announcements mean that 130 versions of DOCSIS 1.0 cable high-speed data devices have been certified by CableLabs for retail sale. Included in this ever-increasing array of certified cable modems are stand-alone modems with Ethernet, USB ports, and PCI modems built inside personal computers by manufacturers. A total of 22 CMTSs have been qualified.

"This amount of certified modems and qualified headend equipment, coupled with acceptance as an international standard, squarely places DOCSIS as a global force in the cable high-speed Internet access market," said Rouzbeh Yassini, executive consultant to CableLabs and DOCSIS project leader.

The certification process, begun in January for DOCSIS 1.1, continues as an ongoing process until a supplier achieves modem certification. Any suppliers that are new to the 1.1 process and that wish to seek certification, will be accepted into the next certification wave (certification wave 18). That wave, which will accommodate 1.0 and 1.1 products, will begin according to the published schedule available at the cable modem (www.cablemodem.com) Web site. A total of four discrete certification waves are scheduled for 2001.

There are several major differences between products under DOCSIS 1.0 and DOCSIS 1.1, which builds upon, and is compatible with, DOCSIS 1.0. Chief among these differences is that 1.1 modems have increased capabilities to facilitate delivery of multimedia services, such as voice communications, video telephone calls, multimedia conferencing, telecommuter services, other integrated multimedia applications and interactive games. DOCSIS 1.1 modems form the platform upon which the cable industry’s PacketCable™ set of services will ride. The PacketCable project has begun conducting compliance testing. PacketCable interface specifications are available both on the PacketCable (www.packetcable.com) and the CableLabs (www.cablelabs.com) Web sites.

A Certification Review Board, comprised of representatives of CableLabs member companies, grants certification status to DOCSIS™-compliant modems, and qualified status to headend equipment, based on lab tests completed by CableLabs as well as on field data.

The qualification process provides the cable operator or broadband service provider with information on how the CMTS will interoperate with multiple vendors’ certified cable modems using different silicon.