Arris said SK Broadband of South Korea is tapping its next-gen network access platform, the E6000, to deliver 1 Gbps broadband service and to provide the necessary capacity to support an IP-based 4K video offering that was announced by the service provider last August.
SK Broadband services about 2.6 million customers with an IPTV service.
Launched in 2013, the Arris E6000 started off as a high-density cable modem termination system, but will evolve into a fully integrated Converged Cable Access Platform that will also combine edge QAM functions. CCAP-related revenues rose 997% percent, to $1.4 billion, in 2014 versus the prior year, according to Infonetics Research.
"SK Broadband is the first company to break through the 1Gbps speed barrier in Asia-Pacific and exceeds the high-speed data service levels of most other regions of the world,” Tim Gropp, Arris’s SVP of sales for Asia Pacific said in a statement.
The companies have been working together for years. In 2011, SK Broadband tapped Arris’s previous flagship CMTS, the C4, to bond 16 downstream channels – enough to deliver 800 Mbps in the operator’s labs.
The 1-Gig work also amplifies some recent momentum for Arris in the region. NBN Co, a government-owned entity tasked with bringing next-gen broadband to millions of homes and businesses in Australia, is leaning heavily on Arris to upgrade HFC networks connected to about 3.4 million homes and businesses. Last week, NBN announced that it will factor DOCSIS 3.1, a platform that will be capable of multi-gigabit speeds, into its HFC network upgrade plans.
