ARRIS Previews Optics, Video and Data
ARRIS previewed several products on Monday, including an optical network unit (ONU) aligned with the cable industry’s radio frequency over glass (RFoG) initiative.
Already a player in corresponding optical headend equipment, ARRIS added the FTTMax 1000 RFoG ONU as the subscriber endpoint.
"It completes our portfolio," said ARRIS Access and Transport Division Vice President Bill Dawson. "We have enough pieces to get started implementing systems."
The ONU is the subscriber premises device in the RFoG framework, as established by working group (WG) 5 of the SCTE Interface Practices Subcommittee (IPS). The IEEE also refers to an ONU in its Ethernet passive optical network (EPON) architecture. For its part, the ITU-T uses the optical network termination (ONT) nomenclature for the end device in its various PON standards.
Dawson said that the FTTMax 1000 complies with the direction being set by IPS WG5, using a 1,610 nm wavelength in the upstream and 1,550 nm in the downstream. "It works outdoors, has an LED to indicate power, can put DC power on a separate F-connector or directly on the connector that is taking off the RF," he added.
The device also has a "PON Pass-Thru" optical output. "The PON and RFoG wavelengths don’t interfere with each other," Dawson said. "You could have both RFoG and EPON nearby."
(For more background on PON and RFoG, click here to download a Tech Guide on the subject at the CT Extras Archives.)
The second optical device ARRIS previewed on Monday is a "third generation" transmitter.
Dawson said the first generation product used standards-based CWDM, delivering two wavelengths for a distance of between 15 and 18 km. The second generation became the CoreWave platform that retained the "intention" if not the "details" of optical wavelength standards, using the O-band (1,260 nm to 1,360 nm) to deliver four wavelengths to 25 km, or two to 30 km. (For more on O-band optics, click here.)
The CoreWave II unveiled on Monday applied "this same technique in the 1,550 nm range … to get still more reach and more wavelengths." Specifically, Dawson said the equipment could transmit four wavelengths to 65 km; eight to 45 km; and 16 to a shorter distance.
Basic economics is the driver of this full spectrum optical multiplexing technology. "You’ll never have enough fiber," Dawson said.
More convergence
Under the new ConvergeMedia brand for its video application and distribution platforms, ARRIS also introduced a media distribution switch (MDX) built by partner company Verivue, which separately announced the launch of the MDX 9000 series. (For more, click here.)
ARRIS Media Communications Systems executive Paul Delzio paired the Flash-based MDX 9200 with the company’s XMS "origin servers" as a combination that can handle today’s potent combination of legacy and Internet video. The XMS label applies to the storage and streaming technology that ARRIS acquired via C-COR.
"We can now manage multiple formats of media; we can now switch high concurrency requests for that media," Delzio said. "These both work together in a very large, distributed environment."
On the application side of ConvergeMedia falls a three-part suite of video application software that manages on-demand assets and resources; linear and advanced advertising; and device applications and tools.
On the high-speed data side of the house, ARRIS used this "Media Day" to introduce a compact DOCSIS 3.0 platform optimized for small headends. This C4c uses the same software and control and access modules as the C4 CMTS, but in seven rack units, serving 16-80 downstream and 12-60 upstream channels.
ARRIS also debuted the 3.0 release of its D5 edge QAM modulator, claiming a 400 percent improvement in density over the previous release and a 50 percent reduction in per-channel power consumption.
Edge QAM devices are designed to enable converged (data and video) services and promote the delivery of narrowcast video. (For more background, click here to download a Tech Guide on the subject at the CT Extras Archives.)
– Jonathan Tombes
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