Comcast chairman and CEO Brian Roberts used the INTX stage Tuesday to offer a glimpse at a DOCSIS 3.1-powered, multi-purpose gateway that will enable the MSO to deliver gigabit speeds via its widely deployed HFC network.
“Developed by our teams here in Philadelphia and Silicon Valley, the DOCSIS 3.1 modem goes into production this year and will be available to customers in early 2016,” Tony Werner, Comcast’s EVP and CTO, noted in this blog post that provides more info about the device. “When combined with a DOCSIS 3.1-enabled network, the Gigabit Home Gateway is capable of delivering speeds greater than 1 gigabit per second (1 Gbps).”
Because it runs on the HFC network the Gigabit Home Gateway will enable the operator to bring gigabit speeds “to virtually all Xfinity customers once the DOCSIS 3.1 networking standard is deployed nationally,” Werner added.
Comcast is also using fiber-to-the-home in a targeted fashion to offer Gigabit Pro, a residential broadband service that supports symmetrical speeds of 2 Gbps and become available to 18 million homes by year-end.
According to Werner, the new D3.1-powered gateway will also feature gigabit WiFi, support IP video, and integrate home automation and security capabilities. It’s also the first Comcast device to integrate home networking control and monitoring software that the operator acquired in 2014 via its purchase of PowerCloud Systems. It’s also equipped with RDK B, a new flavor of the Reference Design Kit, a preintegrated software stack, that can be applied all-purpose gateways.
