Signaling some early progress for an emerging HFC architecture, Cisco Systems said it has landed agreements with operators around the globe for its “Infinite Broadband” Remote PHY platform.
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Cisco said some early takers include South Korea’s D’Live as well as Blue Stream, a cable operator based in south Florida formerly known as Advanced Cable Communications that is pushing ahead with a 1-Gig broadband service deployment.
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Cisco touted that deployment progress as Remote PHY becomes a priority for several MSOs. Rather than using a highly centralized architecture with massive chassis in headends and hubs, the new architecture places more electronics and network smarts toward the edge of the network, a move that can boost capacity on the HFC network while also reducing power and space requirements. It also puts cable operators on a path toward more agile network functions virtualization and software-defined networking systems.
Cisco’s version of the architecture removes the PHY circuit layer that is typically housed in a traditional Converged Cable Access Platform chassis and places that functionality into a Remote PHY Node or a smaller hub site, called an RPHY Shelf. Some vendors are also advocating architectures that placed the PHY and MAC at the edges.
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Cisco’s RPHY platform also features open, standardized software that was contributed to the CableLabs OpenRPD forum in 2015.
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Along with the deployment update, Cisco also introduced the GS7000i Smartnode, a product that is based on its GS7000 Optical Node that adds in telemetry and proactive control automation capabilities.
