Three Call Management Servers Among 5 New PacketCable™ Certified/Qualified Devices
The three companies achieving qualified status for CMSs are Cedar Point, Cisco, and Telcordia; Scientific-Atlanta received certification for an embedded multimedia terminal adapter (E-MTA). There have now been 23 devices certified/qualified in four PacketCable certification events.
The MGC provides critical call signaling functionality to facilitate off-net calling in a PacketCable network, and communicates with other call control elements such as the CMS and signaling gateway to manage and control connections to the public switched telephone network (PSTN). It instructs the media gateway how to establish physical connections to the PSTN to allow voice calls to originate from and terminate on the cable IP network.
"The cable industry has more PacketCable-based field trials under way at this point in time than ever, and it now has end-to-end elements of the PacketCable network certified as conforming to the CableLabs specifications," said Cameron Gough, Vice President of Advanced Voice Services, Comcast Cable Communications. "The industry is well positioned to move out with this technology," he added.
The CMS functions as a "soft-switch" in the PacketCable architecture and performs many critical functions necessary for voice communications, including connection management, implementation of subscriber features, and call accounting.
PacketCable is a CableLabs-led initiative to define a common platform to deliver advanced real-time communication services, such as VoIP, over two-way cable plant. Built on top of the industry's DOCSIS® 1.1 (Data Over Cable Service Interface Specifications) cable modem infrastructure, PacketCable networks use IP technology as the basis for a multimedia architecture. A DOCSIS 1.1 network with PacketCable extensions enables cable operators to deliver data and voice traffic efficiently and economically using a single high-speed, quality-of-service (QoS)-enabled broadband architecture.
The PacketCable initiative has followed a similar process to that employed in the successful DOCSIS program. Manufacturers that receive CableLabs certification or qualification for their MTA, CMTS, CMS, MGC, or MG, have successfully completed an extensive series of interoperability tests supported by CableLabs membership. These PacketCable devices were tested for interoperability in combination with other PacketCable components.
As part of the certification test process, vendors were asked to work in CableLabs facilities in pre-market, pre-competitive testing and evaluation in order to demonstrate compliance with the industry-supported program and technology.
CableLabs® Certified™ or CableLabs Qualified means that the device has passed a series of tests for compliance with the indicated version of PacketCable and has thus demonstrated interoperable functionality with any other "CableLabs certified/qualified" device. Many of these devices provide other functions or are designed to comply with other specifications, in each case tailored by the manufacturer to meet the growing needs of consumers or cable operators in an evolving communication/entertainment sector. While CableLabs encourages such innovation and diversity, the phrase CableLabs certified/qualified should not be understood as an endorsement of these other attributes (or that the product is certified to other specifications or versions), which are solely the responsibility of the company making the additional claims.
About CableLabs: Cable Television Laboratories (www.cablelabs.com) was founded in 1988 by members of the cable television industry. A non-profit research and development consortium, CableLabs delivers innovations that enable cable operators to be the providers of choice in their markets. Cable operators from around the world are members. CableLabs maintains web sites at www.cablelabs.com; www.packetcable.com; www.cablemodem.com; www.cablenet.org, and www.opencable.com.
CableLabs® is a registered trademark of Cable Television Laboratories, Inc. Other CableLabs marks are listed at http://www.cablelabs.com/certqual/trademarks. All other marks are the property of their respective owners.
