TelcoTV: Vendors rethink home networking technologies

ANAHEIM – In conjunction with the TelcoTV conference, broadband connectivity provider Actiontec Electronics this week introduced a new line of triple-play VDSL2/ADSL2+ universal DSL wireless gateways to provide service providers with up to 100 megabits per second of symmetrical bandwidth in the home. The service is designed to drive the high-speed data, high-definition television and voice-over-IP-equipped homes of the next generation.

“Fundamentally, we’ve been able to take advantage of a new technology and enable a universal DSL platform,” said Brian Henrichs, vice president of business development at Actiontec. “People have talked about it before; some people have done it before, but it wasn’t truly cost-effective, and performance was compromised in that. We’ve cleared all those hurdles now, so there’s a number of customers excited about this platform because it enables them to streamline their operations and carry one skew independent of whether the end consumer is able to get ADSL2+ or VDSL-type service feeds.”

Actiontec’s gateway works over existing copper access lines, so carriers can deploy ultra-broadband service via any access architecture, including central-office-based DSLAMs, remote DSLAMs or fiber-to-the-node or -home, as well as any access protocol. The DSL gateway also uses Broadcom’s PhyR impulse noise protection and physical layer retransmission technology, which Actiontec said can yield a ten-fold improvement in impulse noise resilience and up to 15% service reach improvement for carriers. The device itself integrates an ADSL2+/VDSL/VDSL2 modem, a four-port Ethernet switch, an 802.11b/g/n wireless router and a firewall into one piece of hardware.

The announcement comes as consumers are using more bandwidth-intensive applications than ever before. Services like over-the-top video streaming, HDTV, online games, social networking and VoIP require more capacity and increased strain on the network. And while telcos are looking to appeal to this next generation of consumer households, they also have to cut costs to stay viable in a credit-crunched economy. Several vendors are rethinking their method of delivery to help telcos achieve this careful balance.