Features make the difference in cable phone

Most cable operators would agree that their industry is headed squarely for cable Internet protocol telephony-eventually. The obstacles vary-providing lifeline service, the lack of accepted voice-over-IP standards from the Data Over Cable Service/Interoperability Specification and PacketCable groups, the wait for a fully featured cable IP platform. But the upshot is pretty much the same among all U.S. operators, including would-be cable telecom titan AT&T: Cable IP is the future-but we'll wait for it, thanks, while we concentrate on circuit-switched systems.

Cable modem manufacturer Terayon Communication Systems isn't waiting. Terayon sells modems based on a proprietary technology that leapfrogs circuit-switched cable IP. It's a platform that may be a bit ahead of the curve. But when cable IP standards such as DOCSIS 1.1 and 1.2 finally appear-which many expect this year or in early 2000-Terayon may just find itself tanned, tested and ready.

"At this point, when people think of voice over cable, they don't think of Terayon," acknowledged Zaki Rakib, the company's co-founder and CEO. Terayon shipped 62,800 modems in 1998 and 459 headends, mostly to North American operators.

Terayon has announced a project with Canadian multiple systems operator, Rogers Communications, to test and develop subscriber and headend equipment for voice over IP. Rogers will test the integration of Terayon's modem with its hybrid fiber/coax cable system, which passes 2.8 million homes in Toronto, Ottawa, Vancouver and southwestern Ontario.

"This test with Rogers gives us a closeness to the real action, the real world that we think will put us up there with the Lucents and Ciscos of the industry," Rakib said.

Terayon has contributed its technology, synchronous code division multiple access, to CableLabs' royalty-free pool, enabling S-CDMA to be integrated into the draft DOCSIS 1.2 standard which Rakib expects to be accepted by the end of the year.

Currently Terayon is the only vendor offering this S-CDMA system. But Rakib said that will change by the end of next year, when others will have access to DOCSIS 1.2 chipsets for their products.

"So now is the time for Terayon to accelerate the development of features and applications that will differentiate our product in a standards-based world," Rakib said.

Rogers won't begin testing until Terayon produces a DOCSIS-certified modem, said Alexander Brock, vice president of telecom service development for Rogers. He said he's confident that will happen during one of CableLabs' DOCSIS certification waves this year. Then, lab testing will begin, followed by field tests, he said.

Rogers chose to stay out of circuit-switched telephony, Brock said. While circuit-switched telephone equipment works now over HFC, it adds another proprietary layer to a company's network-without really adding value for its customers other than a bundled bill.

"With IP telephony, I can combine voice, video and data with videoconferencing, PBX extension services, multimedia capabilities call centers and the like to create a really compelling product," saidBrock. "I can't do that on a circuit-switched system."

The DOCSIS 1.2 specification will be critical for packet telecom services, both for the robustness it adds to the physical layer and for the added symmetrical capacity, said Michael Harris, president of Kinetic Strategies. "If you have a finely groomed, fully upgraded cable system with advanced modems, you can be running a symmetrical 27 Mb/s service in two 6 MHz channels," he said. While DOCSIS 1.1 can provide many of the same packet fragmentation techniques in the upstream, that standard doesn't offer the same RF noise resiliency or bandwidth optimization that equipment built to a DOCSIS 1.2 standard would.

"The Terayon product adds those fine capacity and performance gains, which are important," Harris said. "The folks at Rogers recognize that. They'll be looking squarely at the value that this 1.2 platform will add for packet telecom applications."

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