At last month’s SCTE/ISBE Cable-Tec Expo, two themes that kept surfacing were cable’s wireless ambitions and the role that new technology like software defined networks (SDN) will play in supporting next-gen network efforts.

There are various networks being deployed all around consumers. There’s home WiFi, public WiFi, traditional wireline and wireless services. Additional prominent network types of the future will include small cells and those that support Internet of Things (IoT) connectivity. It is likely that cable operators will have responsibility for managing most or all of these networks in some locations. Allowing these networks to remain disparate and continuing to manage them on a one-to-one basis would mean not fully exploiting the unique capabilities and distinct benefits that each brings. But how can these networks be brought together and controlled in a seamless, unified way? The answer lies in SDN.

Where We Are, Where We’re Going

Networks today are a hodge-podge of technologies, devices and companies. There was never a grand plan for making them all work together because market and technical forces simply don’t work that way.

At first, cable companies connected houses via HFC networks to provide video. Today, these same networks also provide voice and data communications.

By the 1990s, telecommunications companies built cellular networks to offer wireless voice services to users, and they were eventually upgrade to offer data as well. In the 2000s, homeowners added WiFi networks, creating a third popular connectivity option in neighborhoods. Most recently, homeowners have begun using new specialized networks (like Zigbee and ZWave) to add additional services like home security and home automation, leveraging IoT device connectivity.

As data communications needs have increased, so has demand for capacity. Cable operators will continue to boost HFC network capacity by increasing the number of nodes and reducing the number of homes supported by each node size. Importantly, each of these new nodes could support micro or pico-cell sites that would enable even more wireless communications.

Within the next four years, 5G small cells could operate from these cable HFC nodes, providing an overlay on top of existing cellular, cable, WiFi, and home security networks. With this explosion of capacity and flexibility, an increasing number of small WiFi and IoT networks will be enabled. Each of these modes of communication has a purpose especially suited to the devices and applications they connect.

Without careful coordination though, they will not work well together and will be difficult to operate. Enter SDN. Software Defined Networks will allow data to flow seamlessly between mode boundaries. It provides a mechanism for securely managing the interfaces between IoT, Wi-Fi, cable and cellular networks.  IBB Consulting is calling the combination of small and large, wired and wireless networks the “dense multi-mode network.”  It’s enabled by being controlled by SDN servers in the cloud that help to ensure security, rapid provisioning and reliability. These networks weren’t built to work together, but SDN provides the framework to manage a virtual infinite number of endpoints for improved service delivery and network efficiency opportunities.  

Dense multi-mode networks provide advantages for customers and operators alike. For customers, these networks enable fast, wireless communications anywhere in the home or neighborhood, whether downstairs in the basement, out in the yard or driving down the street – even on the highway, in some cases. Dense multi-mode networks also enable fast communications for devices that customers use in these areas.

For cable operators, this dense multi-mode network represents an opportunity to sell any kind of service to any kind of customer, and carry it over the existing HFC network. In fact, it may only be the wired operators that are able to make these disparate networking modes work together in a productive and efficient way. And at the heart of these efforts, will be SDN.

There will be much tech development, debate and standards work that will need to happen before the industry will be able to pursue some of the network management opportunities discussed here. In the meantime, cable’s networking future is gradually coming into focus, providing a common destination for key stakeholders.

Dan Dodson is a fellow with IBB Consulting, leading next-generation network architecture work with cable operators.