| Vol. 15, No. 4 - July/August 2003 | ||
PacketCable™ Media Gateway Among |
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Marking another major PacketCable™ milestone, a media gateway (MG) from Nuera gained qualification status in Certification Wave 26 held by CableLabs®. This was the first time that media gateways were eligible for submission for qualification at CableLabs. The achievement of qualified status by a media gateway is another important step in the cable industry's PacketCable project that is focused on helping cable operators deliver voice services using Internet Protocol (IP). A total of three PacketCable™ devices were certified or qualified in Certification Wave 26. Five other devices received qualifications: call management servers (CMS) from Nortel and Cedar Point, a cable modem termination system (CMTS) from ADC, and an embedded multimedia terminal adapter (E-MTA) from Scientific-Atlanta. The media gateway is a critical element in the PacketCable network architecture. It serves as an interconnection point where IP voice calls originating from a cable subscriber are terminated and handed off to the public telephone network. 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. Glenn Russell, Director of PacketCable and project leader, said: "It's great news for our suppliers and for our members that we have in consecutive waves now qualified new, key elements in the PacketCable network. We look forward to continuing to provide suppliers and our members with an efficient path to the cable telecommunications marketplace." 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 CMTS, CMS, or MG, have successfully completed an extensive series of interoperability tests supported by CableLabs membership. These PacketCable components were tested for interoperability in combination with other PacketCable headend 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. |
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