Ten industry vendors recently took part in the first DOCSIS Provisioning of EPON (DPoE) interoperability testing event at CableLabs’ Louisville, Colo., headquarters last month.
CableLabs said the Jan. 24-28 interop was the first in a series of interoperability events scheduled for this year. The next interoperability event for DPoE products is slated for April 11.
Version 1.0 of the DPoE specifications provided the basis for the interoperability event. DPoE specifications provide requirements for Ethernet passive optical network (EPON) equipment to be provisioned using current DOCSIS provisioning systems and service concepts. The specifications also define requirements and functionality to support Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF) Ethernet Private Line (EPL) service for business customers.
“One of the major goals of the DPoE specifications is to facilitate multi-vendor interoperability. The success of this event has demonstrated that the cable vendor community, and in particular the EPON vendor community, have embraced the DPoE specifications,” said Curtis Knittle, director of digital video services at CableLabs.
Vendors that participated in the interop included Atheros, Broadcom, Cisco, Finisar, Hitachi, Huawei, MRV, PMC-Sierra, Sumitomo and ZTE.
During the interop event, CableLabs said the companies exhibited a high level of interoperability between eight DPoE systems, seven DPoE ONUs and four demarcation devices. Interoperability focused on PON-layer registration, provisioning and operational systems support interfaces (OSSI).
“The DPoE specifications will allow cable operators to deploy EPON equipment for business services and use the same back office servers used by DOCSIS networks to provision the equipment. This interop was an excellent first step toward validating the version 1.0 specifications, and it clearly shows the cable industry is going to benefit from a greater degree of interoperability,” said Robert Harris, vice president of network planning and architecture for Time Warner Cable.