ARRIS Announces Downstream Density Upgrade

ARRIS has announced its downstream module upgrade, significantly increasing the downstream density of the DOCSIS 3.0 C4 CMTS. Adding increased downstream density gives cable operators the ability to deliver more bandwidth per subscriber at a much lower cost than previously possible. For customers, it will provide higher speed service tiers, especially for eight channel bonded services – enabling speeds up to 304 Mbps for North American DOCSIS (Annex B) and 400 Mbps for European DOCSIS (Annex A). Additionally, the C4’s support for IPv6 is critical for the industry since the supply of available IP addresses has shrunk significantly while the demand for new addresses keeps rising.

DOCSIS 3.0 was initially introduced in 2008 on the C4 CMTS with a 16 downstream channel single slot Cable Access Module (CAM). With this second generation DOCSIS 3.0 capability, the capacity of the 16D CAMs can be increased to 32 Annex B or 24 Annex A downstream channels.

ARRIS is also announcing C4 software release 7.4, which provides IPv6 support as well as support for DOCSIS 3.0 Multicast traffic.