Voice, data play smaller role

If digital cable was last week's budding technology, cable modems were in full bloom at the Western Cable Show, with several major MSO and vendor announcements.

Cox Communications announced plans to deploy up to 30,000 LANcity Personal cable modems in Phoenix during the first quarter of 1997 and has signed a contract with Motorola's Multimedia Group to deliver up to 50,000 CyberSURFR cable modems and the associated infrastructure next year. U S West's MediaOne cable TV division in Atlanta also announced plans to commercially deploy CyberSURFR modems during the first quarter of 1997.

The industry also took a major step toward interoperability, as CableLabs announced that it has developed a set of specifications for high-speed data delivery. The set includes a radio frequency interface specification and a network security specification. The operations support system interface will be released by the end of the year.

And while telephony over cable seemed to take a back seat to digital video and data on the show floor, Northern Telecom announced that it will provide Cox with an estimated $65 million worth of switching and access products for data and telephony services.

Cox will deploy Nortel's DMS-500 local/long-distance switching systems for local telephony services and AccessNode systems to support voice and data services for multidwelling units and business customers.