Aiming to beat U.S. cable tech suppliers to the punch, Taiwan's Hitron Technologies is launching two DOCSIS 3.0-based cable modems that use Intel's Puma 6 Media Gateway chip to deliver more than 1 Gigabit per second downstream speeds.
Hitron's CDA-32372 cable modem and CDE-32372 wireless gateway support up to 24 bonded downstream channels and eight upstream -- the full capabilities of the Puma 6MG. In a EuroDOCSIS 3.0 configuration, which uses 8 MHz channels, the devices provide more than 1 Gbps downstream and 320 Megabits per second upstream.
The company did not announce pricing or availability. Hitron is showing the high-speed cable modem product this week at the ANGA Cable Show in Cologne, Germany.
The cable modems will allow cable operators "to compete with the increasing FTTH [fiber-to-the-home] competition they face in a manner that shows their customers and the investment community that cable still has a lot of headroom on the plant to reach higher speeds," Hitron Europe chief technology officer Rudy Zijlstra said. "The added network processor allows for new innovative services to be deployed by our customers."
In North America and other regions that use 6 MHz channels, Hitron's products would provide a maximum theoretical downstream bandwidth of 960 Mbps down and 240 Mbps up. The CDA-32372 is a standalone cable modem, while the CDE-32372 is a gateway with dual-band 3x3 Wi-Fi.
Other cable modem suppliers are developing products with similar specs. For example, Arris Group targeting a 1-Gbps gateway -- also based on the Intel Puma 6 -- in 2013.
Hitron, established in 1986, is based in Taiwan with development and operation centers in Denver, Amsterdam, Switzerland, Korea and China. The company said it delivers 3 millions units of DOCSIS-related products annually for both residential and business applications to major MSOs worldwide.
Also at ANGA, Hitron is demonstrating Anyfi Networks' Anyfi.net technology integrated in a DOCSIS 3.0 embedded multimedia terminal adapter to provide a "zero sign-on" feature that uses credentials stored in the mobile device for authentication.
