CableLabs is set to release specifications for DOCSIS Provisioning of EPON (DPoE) for business services, which will give cable operators a common method of using DOCSIS back office specs and service concepts to provision and operate Ethernet Passive Optical Network (EPON)-based products when delivering IP and Ethernet services.
“Time Warner Cable, Comcast and Bright House have strongly supported this endeavor, along with the supplier community, and we are accelerating finalization of this first set of specifications for DPoE,” said Glenn Russell, vice president of business services at CableLabs.
In addition to CableLabs’participation in this initiative, Broadcom, Hitachi-CTA, ZTE and Finisar (formerly Broadway Networks) served as vendor members of the development team and were directly involved in writing the DPoE specifications.
“It became apparent to us, while working on EPON interoperability, that we had already solved the problem of multi-vendor interoperability when we developed the DOCSIS specifications,” said Robert Harris, vice president of network planning and architecture for Time Warner Cable.
“The DPoE specification effort capitalizes on cable operators’existing back office infrastructure, provisioning and operational processes from the DOCSIS network, offering a much higher level of service velocity and scaling of commercial services over IEEE standards-based EPON, while making an efficient use of outside plant fiber assets,” added Shamim Akhtar, director of network architecture and engineering at Comcast Cable Communications.
“We’ve embraced DOCSIS and EPON technologies and are focused on delivering IP- and MEF-based services for business and commercial applications. The DPoE specifications give us the ability to support multiple products and services based on those foundations,” said Craig Cowden, corporate vice president of network engineering and operations at Bright House Networks.
Goals for future versions of the DPoE specifications will be to add additional features and functionality to DPoE technology that allow support of a greater variety of data and voice services in the commercial space.