Smart networks of the future will be characterized by their ability to adapt to the ever-changing needs of businesses and consumers. Powered by advanced network telemetry and automation, these networks will be highly visible and resilient, able to withstand disruptions and attacks without compromising performance. 

Achieving the goal of pervasive intelligence, security and privacy across networks will ensure information and data security, unmatched performance and reliability in any connectivity context. Security will be built into the network from the ground up, and security policies will be defined and implemented using scalable solutions that evolve with the network.  

Watch the video below to learn how pervasive intelligence, security and privacy — a core pillar of the CableLabs Technology Vision — will ensure that users are always protected, even as the network changes. 

Networks of the future will protect users with intelligence at every point, using AI and machine learning to identify and resolve problems before they impact users. CableLabs fosters collaboration across the industry to achieve these goals, driving industry alignment and prioritizing interoperability.  

Explore our working groups and learn how you can get involved in architecting the future. 

Did you know that there is more to Wi-Fi than plugging in your router and choosing your internet service provider? To unlock faster speeds and get the best connection, it’s helpful to understand how Wi-Fi works and what you can do to improve performance in your home.

Wi-Fi operates using a complex system of radio waves. Like sound waves, these waves can experience interference from environmental factors. Signals can bounce off or be absorbed by walls, metal appliances and even water-filled items like aquariums. This interference weakens the signal leading to slower speeds and connectivity issues, especially as the distance from the router increases.

For most users, simple adjustments like moving your router to a different location in your home can improve signal strength and connection quality.

Watch our video, “How Does Wi-Fi Really Work?,” to learn more about how you can reduce interference and enjoy a better Wi-Fi experience.

At the latest DOCSIS 4.0 Interop·Labs event — which took place Nov. 4–7 at CableLabs’ headquarters in Louisville, Colorado — equipment suppliers showcased their efforts to deliver on the 10G platform through DOCSIS 4.0 technology. All four 10G pillars were on display: faster speeds, lower latency, enhanced security and increased reliability. These pillars were all designed into the DOCSIS 4.0 specifications, and we’ve reached the point at which the products simply work.

We want to thank the participants who helped make the event successful and once again helped us achieve a high level of productivity. To recap the major themes of the event:

• Speeds are rock solid. Demonstrations boasted downstream speeds faster than 9 Gbps that were limited only by the single 10 Gbps interface on the modems. Upstream speeds can exceed 2 Gbps on and go even higher.
• The new focus is interoperability. Products are maturing, and suppliers are differentiating their offerings. As operators continue to seriously develop deployment scenarios, we want to ensure that the specifications are clear enough to handle real-world deployment, including specific configurations, corner cases and race conditions. Four operators attended this interop to provide guidance on deployment scenarios. Much effort went into exercising interoperability and identifying areas for work.
• Energy efficiency is on the rise. A burgeoning trend at this interop was energy management. New features will benefit consumers by providing options to conserve energy in various scenarios.
• Reliability is a reliable theme. We continue to examine the copious data available from the modems — in particular, DOCSIS 4.0 cable modem Proactive Network Maintenance (PNM) functions that can be used to increase the reliability of service offerings.

Supplier Participation

Attendance at the interop was high, as it offered the last best opportunity to get this work in before the 2024 holiday season arrived. The aforementioned operators who joined us to observe demonstrations went out of their way to interact with suppliers and talk about their own DOCSIS 4.0 network progress.

Among the suppliers were CommScope and Harmonic, both of which brought DOCSIS 4.0 cores to the interop. There were also three 1.8 GHz remote PHY devices (RPDs) from CommScope, Harmonic and Vecima Networks. In addition, seven DOCSIS 4.0 modem suppliers — Arcadyan, Askey, Gemtek, Hitron, Sagemcom, Sercomm and Ubee Interactive — brought multiple cable modem models. Calian participated with its suite of DOCSIS technology analyzers and tools.

Remote-PHY Interoperability

The DOCSIS modem termination system (CMTS) has been virtualized, and the software portion is referred to as the core. The physical layer of the CMTS has moved to the RPD in the fiber node. In other words, the CMTS has been disaggregated, and the core and RPD can (and will) come from different suppliers. The modem can come from yet another supplier. These three pieces need to work together to provide service.

At our interop events, we like to delve into multiple real-world configurations. The core calls the shots and configures the RPD for the downstream and upstream signals, and then the core manages the DOCSIS cable modems. Flexibility is built into this scenario, however, and we’re constantly working to get everything right and interoperable. It’s for this reason that operators attend the interop events — to clarify how DOCSIS 4.0 technology can be introduced to the networks, including backward compatibility with existing services.

Energy Management

Energy management is an important function for cable modems. DOCSIS cable modems and cores support a low-power energy mode called the Energy Management (EM) mode. During idle times, when a single upstream and downstream channel can meet a user’s data-rate demand, the cable modem switches to EM mode. When the modem requires a higher data rate than the reduced set of channels can provide, the core instructs the modem to return to the larger transmit-and-receive channel set.

EM mode can also be used during a power outage — for example, when a modem goes into battery back-up but continues to provide digital phone service. In this scenario, EM mode can conserve battery power when the traffic is low, exhibiting minimum impact on normal service, to prolong access to digital voice service, especially the 911 emergency call service.

The EM feature shows how people rely on their broadband connection for all services, not just web and email. The feature also reveals how DOCSIS technology has evolved to address these needs as a broadband service of choice.

Proactive Network Maintenance

PNM is an important function that increases network reliability. We always look at the PNM data available from DOCSIS device, because it’s a sign of product maturity. This PNM data enables the most efficient operation of the coaxial cable network, keeping the data levels at their peak by using the more efficient orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) and OFDM access (OFDMA) signals, and allowing the diagnosis and maintenance of the network before consumers ever notice an issue.

Join Us Next Time!

We’ve gone beyond the basics of the four pillars. The focus of our DOCSIS 4.0 interops is now interoperability, interoperability and more interoperability! These products are soon headed to the field, in various configurations with multiple suppliers’ products having to work together. And this work will continue into 2025 as DOCSIS 4.0 technology comes into use.

The next DOCSIS 4.0 interop event is planned for the week of Feb. 10, 2025, at CableLabs’ headquarters in Louisville, Colorado. The event will provide an opportunity for new suppliers and new products as we kick off the new calendar year.

And don’t forget: Right around the corner in March 2025 are CableLabs Winter Conference and Smaller Market Conference.

In the broadband industry, network operators and vendors are continually working together to advance interoperability and streamline operations — but the puzzle pieces don't always fall into place easily. Passive optical networks (PONs), for example, face the ongoing challenge of achieving interoperability without stifling innovation. PON standards are intentionally written to be flexible and to encourage innovation. When translated to practical implementation, this approach has led to diverse interpretations, creating interoperability challenges.

PON standards establish functional and behavioral requirements that span a network’s operational layers. These standards alone do not guarantee interoperability among vendors. For network operators, lack of interoperability leads to fragmentation and vendor lock-in. This includes bookended deployments, in which optical network units (ONUs) and optical line terminals (OLTs) must be provided by the same vendor. These limitations and challenges drive up operational costs, increase network complexity and extend time to market as operators grapple with compatibility issues.

Early in the evolution of PON, CableLabs’ DOCSIS®️ Provisioning of EPON (DPoE) specifications and certification program represented a significant advancement in addressing these challenges. By implementing rigorous interoperability testing between ONUs and OLTs, DPoE demonstrated that detailed specifications combined with collaborative industry efforts can achieve multi-vendor PON equipment compatibility. This success provided valuable insights for advancing interoperability across the broader PON ecosystem.

But DPoE's scope was focused on PON based on IEEE standards, so it did not address the interoperability challenges present in PON based on ITU-T standards. This is particularly evident in the deployment of XGS-PON, which is becoming the predominant ITU-T-based PON technology worldwide. As the industry moves toward newer technologies like 25GS-PON and 50G-PON, establishing robust interoperability standards becomes increasingly critical.

BBF has made significant strides in advancing PON interoperability through its comprehensive testing framework. By developing detailed test plans and guidelines, the organization addresses the implementation gaps in ITU-T PON standards. Its cornerstone documents — TR-255 “GPON Interoperability Test Plan,” TR-309 “PON TC Layer Interoperability Test Plan” and TP-247 “G-PON & XG-PON & XGS-PON ONU Conformance Test Plan” — establish rigorous testing protocols for various network scenarios, from traffic management to fault handling.

Advancing Interoperability Together

CableLabs recently hosted a PON Plugfest interoperability event on behalf of the Broadband Forum (BBF). CableLabs, a member of the Broadband Forum, provides the technologies, experts and tools to advance ideas from research to real-world deployment. CableLabs is well equipped to offer testing services for hybrid fiber coax (HFC), fiber to the premises (FTTP) and mobile network equipment — making our state-of-the-art facilities ideal for interoperability testing and an event like this.

This event provided a neutral environment in which vendors could work collaboratively to test their products for interoperability — for both XGS-PON and 25GS-PON implementations — according to test plans created by the Broadband Forum.

Collaborate With Us

It is essential for industry partners like CableLabs and BBF to work together to chart the next phase of specification development and drive interoperability standards for OLTs and ONUs. We invite our members and the vendor community to join us in CableLabs’ Interop·Labs events and in other opportunities for collaboration, such as our working groups, to gain valuable insights into key industry technologies and interoperability challenges and opportunities.

What would a future built on seamless network connectivity look like in the real world? For users, it would create seamless experiences that never require switching from one network to another due to dropped connections.  

For operators, seamless connectivity means delivering context-aware networks that are self-learning, self-healing and self-securing. Built on fixed mobile convergence, managed Wi-Fi and profile management applications, these networks will create reliable, stable connections across all networks anywhere and on any device.  

Watch the video below to learn how seamless connectivity plays a key role in the CableLabs Technology Vision as one of the three pillars needed to build adaptive networks. 

Achieving this vision will require collaboration across the industry to ensure alignment and interoperability. CableLabs fosters these connections through working groups that bring together our members, vendors and industry peers to develop future-ready solutions. We invite you to join us as we work together to advance connectivity. 

A fundamental enabler in connecting people around the globe, DOCSIS technology has empowered millions to live, work, learn and play. Since the days of the first DOCSIS 1.0 cable modems (CMs) almost 30 years ago, DOCSIS technology has continued to evolve, benefitting from a robust ecosystem of operators and vendors working together with CableLabs to develop technologies that enable differentiated services.

Just in the last decade, operators have moved from DOCSIS 3.0 technology to deploying DOCSIS 3.1 technology at scale. Now, in 2024 and going into 2025, operators are evaluating, starting initial deployments and rolling out DOCSIS 4.0 networks.

Because DOCSIS networks always provide backward compatibility, older modems can coexist and provide service to customers even after the operator has moved ahead to newer technology. This is critical as modems often live in the network for many years.

Work at CableLabs is underway to define the future of DOCSIS networks and the technology’s role in our broader network strategy. For a better understanding of what’s ahead, let’s discuss some of the recent evolutionary steps in the DOCSIS technology ecosystem.

What Is DOCSIS 3.0?

DOCSIS 3.0 networks introduced channel bonding and allowed operators to bond multiple single carrier quadrature amplitude modulation (SC-QAM) channels together (in both the upstream and downstream directions) to increase the available speeds at the CM. A DOCSIS 3.0 CM with 32 SC-QAM channels in the downstream and four SC-QAM channels in the upstream could theoretically get a peak throughput of 1 Gbps/100 Mbps (downstream/upstream) on the network, though actual service tiers offered on individual networks may have differed.

What Is DOCSIS 3.1?

DOCSIS 3.1 technology introduced orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) and orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) technology. A DOCSIS 3.1 CM, typically with two OFDM channels and 32 SC-QAM channels in the downstream and two OFDMA channels and four SC-QAM channels in the upstream, theoretically would get to a throughput of 5 Gbps/1.7 Gbps on the network. Actual service tiers offered by operators would be dependent on their network configuration and channels and service tiers enabled.

DOCSIS 3.1 technology allowed operators to enable gigabit and multigigabit service offerings (downstream) in their markets. Depending on the operator upgrades to their outside plant, the upstream capacities could range from 100 to 250 Mbps on a low-split plant, to 250 to 575 Mbps on a mid-split plant, to 1.5 to 1.7 Gbps on a high-split plant.

What Is DOCSIS 3.1 Plus?

In the last year, vendors have built DOCSIS 3.1 cable modems with additional downstream channel capabilities, going up from two, to four or even five OFDM channels. This is a welcome product extension beyond the minimum device capabilities described in the DOCSIS 3.1 specifications.

CableLabs, along with our member operators in the industry and NCTA, are coalescing around the term DOCSIS 3.1 Plus (DOCSIS 3.1+) CM to identify this new class of modems. DOCSIS 3.1 Plus CMs will enable up to 8 or 9 Gbps on the downstream — again, depending on the spectrum available in the cable plant for an operator. Typically, a software upgrade is needed on the CMTS to enable the additional channels. Alternatively, an operator can also seed the network with DOCSIS 4.0 CMs, which have a minimum of five OFDM channels, on existing DOCSIS 3.1 CMTS to support similar increases in downstream speeds.

What Is DOCSIS 4.0?

DOCSIS 4.0 technology is the latest generation of high-speed broadband solutions over hybrid fiber coax (HFC) networks. DOCSIS 4.0 technology catapults the broadband network speeds up to 10 Gbps downstream and 6 Gbps upstream.

DOCSIS 4.0 specifications build on the OFDM and OFDMA technology. It increases the spectrum available for the upstream and downstream and then fills them with more OFDM and OFDMA channels. The technology allows different outside plant upgrade paths to operators, a frequency division duplex (FDD) mode or a full duplex (FDX) mode of operation. For FDD mode, there are different upstream/downstream splits an operator can choose for their outside plant, each providing an increase in upstream/downstream capacity. FDX mode also enables flexibility in how operators size and utilize the FDX portion of the spectrum to meet the needs of their customers.

In an FDD plant, for an FDD CM, the upstream capacities could range from 4.2 Gbps (on a UHS-396 MHz plant), to 6 Gbps on a (UHS-684 MHz plant) and the downstream capacities could range from 9-10 Gbps. In an FDX plant, an FDX CM also can reach up to 6 Gbps on the upstream and 9-10 Gbps or more on the downstream. This is assuming a DOCSIS 4.0 CM has the required minimum support for five OFDM downstream channels and seven OFDMA channels. A CM with more channels and on a plant where the additional spectrum is enabled could get downstream speeds beyond 10 Gbps.

Current product developments also enable devices that can operate on both types of networks — either FDD or FDX (albeit not at the same time, as the outside plant will be configured for either one mode of operation or the other). In addition, a DOCSIS 3.1 CM can also be software upgraded to participate in an FDX network, known as an FDX-Limited or an FDX-L CM, with limited capabilities for operating within the FDX band. Though this CM’s peak speeds remain the same, it allows operators to use the FDX spectrum flexibly, for both DOCSIS 3.1 CMs and DOCSIS 4.0 CMs.

The DOCSIS Technology Evolution

CableLabs has hosted nine DOCSIS 4.0 Interop·Labs events since July of 2023, and more are planned for 2025. Each event offers a new, up-close look into how DOCSIS 4.0 equipment is maturing. Operators are busy evaluating and testing the different components that will need to be upgraded for a DOCSIS 4.0 network — taps, amplifiers, RPDs, CCAP cores and modems.

The industry remains focused on implementing and deploying the DOCSIS 4.0 technology into the broadband networks. Large-scale deployment of DOCSIS 4.0 technology will bring customers into the 10G era in the near future.

So, what's next? What will the next generation of DOCSIS technology look like?

Continuing Industry Collaboration

As we shift from the speed era into the experience and adaptive eras — an evolution highlighted in CableLabs’ Technology Vision — DOCSIS technology will continue to evolve as well. The cable operator community, the vendor community and CableLabs have all been thinking and conducting research on how DOCSIS networks should move forward for the next big leap in broadband technology.

There is much work to be done to define new generations of DOCSIS technology and what it will truly look like. As always, CableLabs — which owns the DOCSIS trademark — will work closely with its members and working groups to oversee the development of future versions of the technology.

The impact to the outside plant and the physical characteristics of the coax are important considerations. The technology development work will include analysis and decisions on the spectrum range we ultimately target (for example, 3 GHz or 6 GHz or 7 GHz), where the upstream/downstream/full duplex regions will be, as well as what the underlying physical layer technology (fidelity requirements, channel sizes, FEC, etc.) and what the potential MAC layer technology improvements are going to be.

It’s an exciting time to be in the connectivity business! CableLabs looks forward to collaborating with the ecosystem on future developments for DOCSIS technology.

Follow the CableLabs blog to stay up to date on these developments and our Interop·Labs events.

If you’ve ever spent any time online, you’ve probably uttered some variation of this: “What’s happening with my internet!?” Whether or not you’re technically proficient, your first step toward fixing your network problem is always the same: Shout your frustration into the void.

If you’re a networking professional, you might then open Wireshark and manually search for the culprit — and maybe even find a solution. However, if you don’t have a networking background, you’ll probably have to call customer support and schedule a technician to come over and solve the problem. But that route can be expensive and time-consuming. Is there a reliable way to fix networking problems that pop up while also avoiding the cost of customer support, all while providing a great experience for the user?

The Response From the Void

The solution to this hair-pulling is a CableLabs prototype called NetLLM — your home networking assistant. Powered by a large language model (LLM) that lives on your home router, NetLLM looks at your network activity and any other relevant information (e.g., configuration files, records of past incidents, network metrics such as signal strength and channel noise). Then, it explains the problem in greater detail and attempts to fix it.

Your entire interaction with this automated network assistant could be a one-off response, or it could develop into a conversation in which you and NetLLM discuss the problem and try to address it — all in plain English.

If the issue cannot be resolved, NetLLM will at least add some transparency to the errors and make them less cryptic by explaining them in less technical terms (“Ohhhh, that’s what a DNS error is”). You can also choose to record the interaction so that you can send that information to customer support when you call in, thus providing the important context about the network conditions that caused the problem and what steps have been taken already.

Networking as a Language

The key to NetLLM is that it treats network communication as its own language.

Like any other language, each networking protocol has its own system of syntax and semantics. However, unlike the syntax of human languages, networking syntax is much more structured; the packets themselves and the packet sequences are organized in a very specific way that provides semantic meaning. Thinking of computer communication as a language is the key to using an LLM to decipher problems in a network — just as an LLM can be used to explain and interpret a conversation between humans.

It’s important to note that the real power of NetLLM isn’t the chat interface it uses to converse with users but rather the network LLM it uses for the problem diagnosis itself. The training will be performed with a curated dataset of question-and-answer pairs about network traffic from a wide variety of sources, including Internet of Things (IoT) devices, various network attacks and regular traffic.

Network Configuration and Management

In addition to being trained to recognize and understand network traffic, NetLLM has also been trained to manage and configure a network. For a home user, network management entails updating network settings to fix user issues (e.g., manipulating firewalls, resetting DNS, remedying jittery video calls). So, if any of the problems found in the diagnostic step are the result of configuration issues, NetLLM will attempt to fix those.

A user can also request a network configuration change such as changing a password or creating a guest network in simple English without needing to pull up the router’s configuration user interface (UI).

Future Development

Where do we go from here? In addition to being a reactive tool that a user can utilize manually to seek network assistance, the goal is for NetLLM to be a proactive feature and run as a daemon in the background, monitoring your network both for optimizations and security threats.

This is the ultimate in customer service: solving problems before the customer is even aware of them!

Your IT Buddy

This automated network assistant has the potential to be a one-stop shop for everything happening in your home network and the wider internet, all while protecting you from potential problems. With its diagnosis, configuration, and management capabilities, NetLLM gives you full insight into your network and allows for easy configuration — all in understandable English.

Even if you are a networking professional and have the skills to fix problems on your own, NetLLM can save you time. From advanced features such as setting up firewalls and fixing problematic video calls, to more everyday functionality such as managing passwords and monitoring your network, this CableLabs tool makes network troubleshooting and management as easy as asking a very talented IT friend for help.

Fixed wireless access (FWA) is a mature access technology that could provide cost-effective solutions for both mobile network operators (MNOs) and multiple system operators (MSOs). It enables MNOs to provide fixed cable-like services and MSOs to increase speed and capacity while extending HFC services beyond their current footprints.

CableLabs recently analyzed how key propagation parameters impact FWA performance. Our findings indicate that while FWA propagation can be challenging, it is scenario dependent. Factors such as user throughput targets, antenna design/selection and MIMO channel capacity can play significant roles. The analysis also highlights some opportunities for operators to mitigate the propagation challenges.

We detailed these findings in two new SCTE papers: “Fixed Wireless Access Propagation Challenges” and “Experimental FWA MIMO Capacity Analysis in 6 and 37 GHz Bands.” We explored our insights further during our session at SCTE TechExpo24, which is now available to watch on-demand.

Together, these publications, along with related papers, analyze the FWA propagation-related challenges for North American residential and indoor office environments and summarize our latest research on FWA.

Our investigation was based on experimental results provided by four extensive indoor and outdoor-to-indoor (O2I) test campaigns, followed by a thorough data analysis and statistical model development.

Customer premises equipment (CPE) in a FWA network can use either an outdoor or an indoor antenna. While the outdoor antenna offers better technical performance, the indoor option is more cost-effective due to minimal installation costs.

Fixed Wireless Access Testing

When using 5G support, the FWA performance is augmented by the associated large channel bandwidth (ChBW), e.g., up to 100MHz for sub 7GHz spectra and up to 400MHz for millimeter (mmWave, 24 - 52 GHz), accordingly increasing user throughput.

CableLabs analyzed the propagation impact upon FWA performance in both indoor and outdoor-to-indoor (O2I) scenarios in the 6 GHz and 37 GHz bands. The studies are grouped into two categories:

• Single-input multiple-output (SIMO) propagation challenges (path loss, O2I loss, power delay and angular profiles, delay and angular spread, angle of arrival, synthetic beamwidth, Small-scale fading Rician K-factor)
• Multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) channel capacity gain

To evaluate the FWA network performance and impact from the propagation channel, multiple test campaigns were designed to characterize the path loss, building entry loss (BEL), large-scale fading (e.g., shadowing), small-scale fading impact (e.g., changing the receiver position by a few lambdas). We selected the test environments accordingly:

• An indoor office environment (CableLabs’ main office in Louisville, Colorado -- 2nd floor), providing 172 links (86 for each 6 and 37GHz band)
• O2I residential environment (the CableLabs Test House in Brighton, Colorado), providing 216 links (108 for each 6 and 37GHz band), in LOS, NLOS, deep NLOS and through vegetation (trees) propagation

The test setup was based on a virtual circular array (VCA), featuring the equivalent of 1,000 antenna elements. For each antenna position on the VCA, measurements included the channel transfer functions (CTFs), channel impulse responses (CIRs), path loss, etc. Using such a VCA avoided a need to re-align the CPE antenna for each measurement and the small-scale fading impact.

Propagation Impairments

Our indoor and O2I measurement results support a direct comparison of the propagation impact upon the indoor and O2I FWA indoor performance for the 6 and 37 GHz cases.

A high-level comparison of the measured FWA O2I path losses indicates that there is a 15-20 dB link budget penalty when 37 GHz links are used vs. similar 6 GHz links for the same type of environment. The 37 GHz O2I penalty is partially compensated by the reduced number of multipath components (MPCs), caused by the rapid Rx power decay of the 37 GHz MPC in the O2I and indoor FWA environments. Intuitively, the latter suggests that 37 GHz FWA O2I/indoor links could provide a better performance (SNR/User Throughput) vs. sub 7GHz bands if the related link budget penalty could be compensated.

MIMO Channel Capacity Gain

The MIMO channel capacity gain represents the ratio of the MIMO vs. SISO channel capacity. The MIMO channel capacity gain is identical to the MIMO user throughput gain (the ratio of the MIMO user throughput vs. SISO user throughput). For a MIMO 2×2 link, the ideal MIMO capacity gain/user throughput is equal to two. Our findings indicate that the MIMO capacity gain and the MIMO user throughput gain is degraded due to the propagation in a FWA scenario.

Our SCTE paper and presentation provide more details on the causes of the MIMO user throughput gain being higher in NLOS than LOS conditions and on MIMO user throughput gain impacted by antenna separation distance and orientation, etc.

Future Opportunities

Despite the propagation-related challenges — particularly in North American residential and indoor office environments — FWA O2I presents a viable solution for operators seeking to expand their service footprint. To learn more, download the SCTE papers, “Fixed Wireless Access Propagation Challenges” and “Experimental FWA MIMO Capacity Analysis in 6 and 37 GHz Bands,” and watch our TechExpo presentation.

Subject matter experts, innovators and thought leaders from CableLabs, SCTE and the industry at large came together last month for the Americas’ largest broadband event. From inspiring headliners and insightful interviews to hands-on demonstrations and an exposition full of solutions, SCTE TechExpo 2024 provided an in-depth look at the innovations that are shaping the future of broadband.

It was a lot to take in! But the learning opportunities didn’t stop there. Now, many of those track keynotes and sessions are available to anyone to view anytime, anywhere. Whether you want to revisit your favorite sessions or discover the ones you missed, you now have access to exclusive on-demand content from the action-packed event in Atlanta.

TechExpo24 On-Demand Content

Explore recorded sessions by topic — everything from strategy to sustainability — or catch up quickly with highlights from each day of TechExpo. And, in case you missed them, here’s a short recap of just a handful of the sessions our experts participated in.

Artificial Intelligence: Artificial intelligence (AI) featured heavily in many sessions, with speakers discussing its impact on broadband networks. It’s obvious that AI will be critical to industry advancements, and operators are already beginning to find low-risk, low-cost ways to integrate AI into their network operations. Tools are emerging to speed the development of both enterprise- and industry-specific AI platforms. Catch up on how AI can be leveraged to build more secure networks in the session Driving a Proactive Approach to AI-Powered Security.

Technology Policy: Hear more about AI and get an update on its policy implications in A Year After the Artificial Intelligence Executive Order: Current Status & What’s Ahead. In the session, government experts outline federal priorities and the industry-relevant requirements of the Executive Order on the Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence.

Wireless & Convergence: In Seamless Connectivity: Anytime, Anyplace, Anywhere, learn about the key considerations and how the industry can overcome challenges to achieve seamless connectivity. Then explore how fixed wireless access can meet the ever-increasing demand for network capacity and deliver broadband wireless services more effectively in Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Fixed Wireless Access (FWA)… But Were Afraid to Ask!

Wireline: Operators and vendors are demonstrating their ability to deliver or their interest in delivering 25 Gbps capabilities through DOCSIS®️ technology on the HFC plant. In Practical Strategies for Deploying FTTH, hear an analysis of modern passive optical networking (PON) technologies in the evolutionary path of HFC networks.

Network as a Service: Learn how operators can grow new revenues with Network as a Service (NaaS) and Quality by Design (QbD), which leverages standardized APIs to facilitate communication between applications and the network. Tune in to the recording of the API-Powered NaaS session to hear more.

Security: CableLabs gave an overview of its Zero Trust and Infrastructure Security (ØTIS) Best Common Practices (BCP) document, which was released at TechExpo, and discussed the critical role of zero trust in networks. The BCP serves as a guideline for cable operators and vendors as they implement zero trust concepts and support network convergence and automation. This session wasn’t recorded, but you can learn more and download the document here.

Business Strategy: In a recording from Growth & Transformation—Lessons from the Video Game Industry, level up your understanding of what the broadband industry can learn from the gaming industry when it comes to competitive differentiation, launching products and entering new markets.

Explore more exciting on-demand video content and continue your learning journey well after TechExpo24 — at your convenience. We’ll see you next year at TechExpo25, Sept. 29- Oct. 1, in Washington, D.C.!

CableLabs Winter Conference 2025

For more opportunities to share insights and discover the technology advancements transforming the industry, join us at CableLabs Winter Conference in March 2025 in Orlando, Florida.

This exclusive gathering provides a neutral meeting ground for CableLabs member operators and our vendor community to exchange knowledge and build meaningful connections. Members can register now, and a limited number of exhibitor tables are still available.

At CableLabs, we talk a lot about the importance of innovation and collaboration. These are the connecting themes in our Technology Vision for the broadband industry to drive competitiveness, scale and alignment while also cultivating technologies for the future.

But there’s another critical piece of the puzzle that comes into play when we talk about the industry’s collective advancements: intellectual property. Specifically, the licensing of patents and software — and how these creative safeguards move broadband technology forward by incentivizing innovation.

Why Are Patents Important?

Patents are a pillar of innovation in tech. They give inventors rights to their creations, allowing them to protect their hard-earned ideas in exchange for sharing the details of their invention with the world and pushing the boundaries of public knowledge. And during the patent protection period, a patent license allows other innovators to create and even build on the original invention. This allows technology to evolve and spark new ideas, even before the patent period ends.

Once the patent's protection runs out, the invention becomes public domain, meaning anyone can use or improve on it freely, fueling further progress. It's a win-win, keeping innovation moving forward!

It’s no surprise that the broadband industry is rife with patents. In fact, as of today, the CableLabs patent portfolio includes more than 850 issued and allowed U.S. patents and 97 foreign-issued patents.

Why Is Licensing Important?

Most standards and specifications carry an associated patent licensing requirement. This means that if you agree to work on and contribute to a specification, you also agree to license your patents that are essential for the specification’s implementation.

Licensing agreements prevent parties from incorporating their patented technology into a specification and later withholding or over-leveraging patent rights against a manufacturer that wants to build products that implement the specification. This is sometimes called patent hold-up, or a patent hold-out.

Adhering to a patent licensing policy establishes a nurturing environment that fosters collaboration, advances development and unifies goals in the industry to ensure the cooperation and interoperability that are critical to innovation advancements. It’s one of the reasons DOCSIS®️ technology was such a success and rapidly adopted, and why it continues to benefit the industry.

Further, in addition to licensing regimes created for specification development, patents and licensing play a pivotal role in broadband technology development more generally, helping industry players navigate a complex legal landscape while contributing to a stronger, healthier ecosystem and ensuring vendor neutrality.

Focusing on the future, CableLabs develops technologies and demonstrates proof-of-concept for innovations that will provide value to our members through an innovation lens that usually targets an impact eight to 10 years out. Developed to benefit the industry as a whole, CableLabs’ patented technologies are available for our member operators to leverage at any time.

Since our first intellectual property license in 1998, CableLabs has made it a tenet of our mission to enable the vendor ecosystem to deliver interoperable, competitive solutions. Licensing also reduces the litigation risk for vendors who contribute to the work we do.

Gridmetrics Available for Licensing

Gridmetrics, which evolved from a project incubated at CableLabs, uses existing broadband infrastructure to deliver actionable insights about the state of power in the last mile of the distribution grid. By providing an out-of-band measurement of the quality and consistency of the power grid, Gridmetrics data can be leveraged for outage detection, power restoration, grid safety and voltage variability.

Gridmetrics is now on a path to expanding its market reach. CableLabs’ research is complete, and licensing of the technology’s intellectual property is available.

Contact us using the button below to discuss licensing opportunities and learn how to join us in our work to achieve this vision for the industry. We’re excited to help put CableLabs’ technologies to work for you!

This is the first in a series of blog posts about large language models and CableLabs’ efforts to apply them to transform knowledge-based work across the cable industry.

What happens if you ask ChatGPT cable-related questions? To conjure an example, we asked the AI chatbot to describe adjacency misalignment and its symptoms. Here is ChatGPT’s response:

Adjacency misalignment, also known as adjacency mismatch, is a common issue in network routing. It occurs when two routers have different views of their network adjacency. In other words, one router believes it has a direct connection to another router, but the second router does not have the same understanding. This can happen due to various reasons such as incorrect configuration, network congestion, or hardware failure.

[ChatGPT then describes symptoms of this issue.]

If you're unfamiliar with adjacency misalignment, the ChatGPT definition sounds pretty convincing! If you are familiar with adjacency misalignment, however, you probably noticed right away the answer is completely false. Adjacency misalignment is actually a radio frequency (RF) impairment. ChatGPT's answer wasn't even at the right level of the network stack.

ChatGPT and other tools of its kind are amazing for what they're beginning to achieve across industries and use cases, but answers like this aren’t helpful at all. CableLabs is actively solving this problem to help bring unprecedented AI advancements to the cable industry. Let's see how.

Why Is ChatGPT So Confidently Wrong?

ChatGPT and other generative AI products are built on revolutionary machine learning (ML) technology commonly known as large language models, or LLMs. The ability to talk naturally to a computer was science fiction only a few years ago, but LLMs have made human-to-AI conversation easier than entering a Google search.

Unfortunately, LLMs often fall short when it comes to technical, domain-specific questions like the example above. Unless you already know the answer to your question, it becomes difficult to check the LLM’s response is factually correct.

At their core, LLMs are like extremely sophisticated “predict-the-next-word” machines. When you provide an LLM with a sequence of text, the text gets chopped into small chunks called “tokens,” which the LLM can understand. Then, the LLM performs processing to guess the most likely token that would come after the input sequence. The method may sound basic, but when text is repeatedly added to the end of a sequence you get a chatbot!

The main reason LLMs act so confident when they're wrong is that optimizing for "predicting the next word" makes them expert at sounding convincing — but not at recognizing truths and falsehoods. If they don’t “know” an answer to a question, they still try to sound legitimate, and this often leads to making something up. The AI community has called this behavior “hallucination,” because the LLM acts like its own made-up writings are real. In reality, hallucinations are an extension of the LLM’s generative nature; they are simply not rooted in reality.

A Huge Opportunity Within Reach

If we can solve the hallucination problem — that is, build an AI that can reliably give accurate answers to cable-related questions — then we have the potential to revolutionize all sorts of knowledge work across the industry, including field operations, customer experience and innovation.

The industry has decades of technical, operational and business knowledge just waiting to be harnessed to help enable more seamless connectivity and network platform evolution, as well as pervasive intelligence, security and privacy. These key themes form the foundation of CableLabs’ Technology Vision.

For that reason, CableLabs has been hard at work building our solution to the knowledge accuracy problem faced by LLMs.

The Solution: CableLabs Expert LLM

CableLabs' Expert LLM is a first-of-its-kind chat application that answers questions based on a domain-expertise layer consisting of hand-curated, authoritative sources on cable technologies. If we ask the CableLabs Expert LLM the same question from the beginning of this article, you’ll get an answer like this:

Adjacency misalignment is an RF impairment recognizable as a difference in channel power between adjacent channels or groups of channels. It may be observed multiple times at different points in the spectrum and can be attributable to RF combining or source issues at the headend or hub or in a node utilizing a broadcast/narrowcast overlay or a split band configuration when the two spectrums are not combined correctly.

When adjacency misalignment is observed, the lower power channels may indicate poor performance, seen as a poor modulation error ratio (MER) when the delta between channels is large. This condition can manifest as lost packets, video tiling, freezing, or in very extreme cases, black screens at a customer’s home. Because adjacency misalignment is introduced very early in the downstream signal path, it has the potential to impact a significant number of customers.

Sources:

• • SCTE 280
  • CM-SP-PHYv4.0-I06-221019

Much better!

As you can see, the CableLabs Expert even cites its sources. Currently, the system has access to the specifications for DOCSIS 3.0, 3.1 and 4.0, as well as select SCTE documents including 280 and 40. Soon, we will expand support to other key sources of information related to cable broadband technologies.

The application supports all the latest state-of-the-art LLMs, including the GPT series, Claude, Mistral, Llama and many more. Whenever a useful new model comes out, the application can be extended in minutes to support the model in minutes without expensive fine-tuning or training from scratch.

The CableLabs Expert LLM's capabilities are mainly thanks to a powerful technique known as Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG). In a nutshell, RAG is like giving an LLM an open-book test. When a user asks a question, the words are converted into a numerical representation known as "vector embeddings," and then those representations help us automatically pick out snippets of the CableLabs specifications and SCTE standards that are most likely to have the user's answer therein. The LLM is given those snippets as context for it to make an accurate, fact-based answer. Additionally, RAG can run on cheap, low-end hardware as opposed to alternative methods like fine-tuning, which requires GPUs to complete in a timely manner.

In addition to the chat interface, the CableLabs Expert application provides a comprehensive validation dataset and benchmarking framework to automatically evaluate models against a large body of known questions and answers from varied sources. Model evaluation is a critical part of this process: We must be able to precisely understand how well our system is performing, especially when comparing specific approaches, datasets or models.

Building for the Future

Generative AI is here to stay. ChatGPT captured the imagination of people around the world, across all business sectors and walks of life. Everybody agrees that it is a disruptive force, but the real question is who will disrupt and who will be disrupted. At CableLabs, we are building a better future for the broadband industry using cutting-edge AI technologies.

Foundational discussions are happening now between CableLabs and our members to bring the industry together for generative AI innovation and interchange standards.

Stay tuned for future blog posts on generative AI for network operations, in which we'll take a closer look under the hood of the CableLabs Expert LLM! Next time, we'll explore evaluation and analysis of the Expert's writings.

If you want to know everything about CableLabs' work with LLMs and RAG, check out our technical paper, "The Conversational Network: AI-Powered Language Models for Smarter Cable Operations," which was presented at TechExpo 2024.

CableLabs is at the forefront of innovation for the broadband industry. One new area where this is especially true is in our work developing Network as a Service (NaaS) APIs. As part of this initiative, CableLabs actively contributes to CAMARA, an open source project hosted by Linux Foundation.

All of CableLabs’ contributions to CAMARA are part of our NaaS initiative. NaaS allows network operators to expose previously unavailable features to application developers via open source APIs. Alignment with the industry means CableLabs can not only utilize open source APIs, but we can help drive new APIs and adoption from multiple network operators.

The end goal is straightforward: Creating happier end users by making applications perform better across all types of networks.

What Is CAMARA, and Who Contributes to It?

CAMARA focuses on defining, developing and testing APIs that allow interaction with a service provider's network. The project is closely aligned with the GSMA Open Gateway Initiative for the development, publishing and testing of these open source APIs.

Contributors to the CAMARA community include network operators, mobile carriers and application developers. CAMARA aims to simplify APIs that interact with a service provider by abstracting the complexity of the network away. This allows developers to create applications that interact with a service provider's network without needing to understand which access network is being used or the inner workings and complexities of a mobile, PON or DOCSIS®️ networks.

Rather than develop solutions for our members in a silo, by contributing to CAMARA, CableLabs helps provide a path to adoption across a broader ecosystem. CAMARA’s open source approach enables rapid development of network-based APIs for companies within the industry.

CableLabs’ Contributions to CAMARA APIs

The CAMARA APIs align with the work that CableLabs is doing to help improve networks and make APIs more accessible to a broader range of developers, both within and outside a network operator. 

Quality on Demand APIs: CableLabs contributes to multiple CAMARA projects, starting with expanding the CAMARA Quality on Demand (QoD) APIs to include the QoS profile. This allows an application to set target minimum thresholds for network performance including throughput, latency, packet loss and jitter. You can read more about this in our QoD blog post.

Network Access Management APIs: The CAMARA Network Access Management APIs are also something that CableLabs contributes to. These APIs allow for an application to interact with network operator-provided equipment in the home. The initial scope of the Network Access Management APIs is to allow actions such as rebooting a device or managing a Wi-Fi network.

Edge Cloud: CableLabs also contributes to CAMARA’s Edge Cloud project. This project allows for customers to discover the closest edge cloud zone to a given device for improved application performance.

Quality by Design: Working closely with the Connectivity Insights group at CAMARA, CableLabs is developing a new API that takes Quality on Demand a step further. Quality by Design (QbD) defines network requirements and enables an application to communicate its network KPIs — throughput, latency, jitter, packet loss — to a network operator. The network operator can then determine the cause of the network performance issues and suggest corrective action.

How Do CAMARA APIs Become Available?

Twice a year, CAMARA rolls up all of these API projects into what it calls a meta-release. The fall 2024 meta-release — the first from CAMARA — is now available.

Although the next meta-release isn’t planned until spring 2025, contributions to CAMARA are ongoing. In fact, APIs are even released between meta-releases. CableLabs’ QbD API, which didn’t make the fall release, is expected in the coming months. At that point, it will be tagged at a certain version to also be included in the spring 2025 meta-release.

Once released, APIs are available for anyone to download and use immediately.

Engage With Us on CAMARA Projects

Read more about the CAMARA open source project on their website and join the project on GitHub. If you are a CableLabs member or vendor, you can also join the Network as a Service (NaaS) working group. The more who contribute, the better the industry gets as a whole.

The vision: ubiquitous, context-aware connectivity and an adaptive, intelligent network. The challenge: navigating the ever-evolving digital landscape with confidence and ease.

CableLabs’ Technology Vision serves as a roadmap for advancing innovation and technology development in the coming years. It will drive industry alignment and support unmatched scale for operator members and the vendor community. Collectively, we can unlock the value of seamless connectivity to create nearly endless opportunities for players across the ecosystem.

Defining the Future

We’ll explore this vision in-depth and share how it is defining the future of the industry at CableLabs Winter Conference 2025 in Orlando, Florida.

This exclusive gathering provides a neutral meeting ground for CableLabs member operators and our vendor community to build meaningful connections, share knowledge and discover the technology advancements transforming the industry.

The event kicks off on Monday, March 10, with a welcome reception followed by two full days of practical knowledge and enriching insights. It wraps up Thursday, March 13, with member-exclusive project meetings.

Members can register now to join us, and a limited number of demo tables are available for exhibiting vendors to showcase their solutions. In addition to hours of unparalleled exposure during exhibiting hours, demo table packages also include conference passes for vendor company employees.

A Cornerstone of Industry Transformation

In each session at Winter Conference, we will zero in on the Technology Vision, exploring individual aspects of this transformative framework. We will outline the architectures, protocols, technologies and strategies required for building and evolving the network of the future together.

Launched at CableLabs Winter Conference 2024, the Technology Vision is a blueprint for accelerating the delivery of next-generation connectivity and beyond — propelling the evolution of the network from one primarily focused on speed to one that adapts to the needs of users and devices in real time.

The framework defines three core pillars that encompass the scope of broadband technologies:

• Seamless Connectivity: ensuring connectivity anywhere, anytime, on any device.
• Network Platform Evolution: creating the most efficient network architectures to deliver secure, truly seamless connectivity experiences.
• Pervasive Intelligence, Security & Privacy: supporting intelligence at every point in the network.

During Winter Conference 2025, we will explore how — at an individual, company and industry level — the framework can be leveraged to unlock new opportunities for better, more seamless online experiences and fuel innovation at scale.

Smaller Market Conference

Ahead of Winter Conference, we invite multi-system operators to join the Smaller Marketing Conference on Monday, March 10, to discuss the issues that are most important to them and their teams. Connect with and hear from leaders representing business strategy, technology, engineering, marketing, operations and customer experience, within the Smaller Market community.

This event is available for CableLabs members and NCTA guests. Registration for Smaller Market Conference is separate from Winter Conference, so if you are planning to attend, please be sure to register for both.

Let’s Collaborate at CableLabs Winter Conference

Join Winter Conference to be part of the collaborative ecosystem shaping the future of connectivity.

This is an event you can’t afford to miss! Register and start planning your trip today.

Every day, consumers become more reliant on the digital services that surround us at home, at work, at school — and just about everywhere else. As a result, the need for robust network security and privacy protection has never been more critical.

CableLabs plays a vital role in shaping the future of our networks, enabling connectivity experiences that engender user confidence and peace of mind.

Brian Scriber, CableLabs distinguished technologist and vice president of Security Technologies, sat down recently to talk about how CableLabs is advancing Pervasive Intelligence, Security & Privacy — a core theme in CableLabs’ Technology Vision — through our state-of-the-art labs, working groups and involvement with standards development organizations.

Watch the video below for an “Inside Look” at how we are protecting future networks and find out what CableLabs’ “Chamber of Secrets” is all about. Plus, catch up on earlier videos with the leaders of our Wired and Wireless Technologies teams.

“If you’re going to do security right, you’re going to do it so that it makes life easier for the consumer — not so they have to remember 50 more passwords or go through a bunch of extra hoops,” Scriber said.

“If we do it right, it becomes kind of transparent and we make the secure network experience so much more useful to the consumer and the subscriber. By doing that, we are increasing their understanding and their trust of the network.”

Security and privacy are top of mind all year long for cybersecurity professionals, but did you know that October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month for all of us? Take a moment to close a few of those accounts you never use — and learn more about how operators and vendors can engage with CableLabs to create safer, more secure and more private networks.

Threats to internet routing infrastructure are diverse, persistent and changing — leaving critical communications networks susceptible to severe disruptions, such as data leakage, network outages and unauthorized access to sensitive information. Securing core routing protocols — including the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) and the Resource Public Key Infrastructure (RPKI) — is an integral facet of the cybersecurity landscape and a focus of current efforts in the United States government’s strategy to improve the security of the nation’s internet routing ecosystem.

CableLabs has released an update to the “Cybersecurity Framework Profile for Internet Routing” (Routing Security Profile or RSP). The profile serves as a foundation for improving the security of the internet’s routing system. An actionable and adaptable guide, the RSP is aligned with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Cybersecurity Framework (CSF), which enables internet service providers (ISPs), enterprise networks, cloud service providers and organizations of all sizes to proactively identify risks and mitigate threats to enhance routing infrastructure security.

The RSP is an extension of CableLabs’ and the cable industry’s longstanding leadership and commitment to building and maintaining a more secure internet ecosystem. It was developed in response to a call to action by NIST to submit examples of “profiles” mapped to the CSF that are aimed at addressing cybersecurity risks associated with a particular business activity or operation.

Improvement Through Feedback and Alignment

The first version of the RSP (v1.0) was released in January 2024 in conjunction with an event co-hosted with NCTA — the Internet & Television Association, featuring technical experts and key government officials from NIST, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the White House Office of the National Cyber Director (ONCD).

Following the release of the first version of the RSP, CableLabs conducted outreach to other relevant stakeholders within the broader internet community to raise awareness about this work and to seek feedback to help improve the profile. In addition, NIST released its updated CSF 2.0 in February 2024.

The RSP update reflects stakeholder input received to date and accounts for changes in the NIST CSF 2.0. In particular, the RSP v2.0:

• Aligns with NIST CSF 2.0’s addition of a “Govern” function and revisions of subcategories in the RSP’s mapping of routing security best practices and standards to the applicable key categories and subcategories of the NIST CSF 2.0’s core functions.
• Adds routing security considerations for most subcategories that previously did not include such information.
• Incorporates informative and relevant references within the context of the mapping rather than as a separate column of citations.

Advancing Routing Security Through Public-Private Partnership

Since its release, the RSP has been cited as a resource by various government stakeholders in recent actions and initiatives, including NTIA's Communications Supply Chain Risk Information Partnership (C-SCRIP)’s BGP webpage, the FCC’s proposed BGP rules and ONCD’s Roadmap to Enhancing Internet Routing Security.

In addition, CableLabs continues to closely engage in public-private stakeholder working groups. They include the joint working group recently established by CISA and ONCD, in collaboration with the Communications and IT Sector Coordinating Councils. The working group was created, according to the ONCD roadmap, “under the auspices of the Critical Infrastructure Partnership Advisory Council to develop resources and materials to advance ROA and ROV implementation and Internet routing security.”

The Ever-Evolving Cybersecurity Puzzle

The RSP remains a framework for improving security and managing risks for internet routing, which is just one key piece of a larger critical infrastructure cybersecurity puzzle. As with any endeavor in security, the RSP will evolve over time to reflect changes to the NIST CSF, advances in routing security technologies and the rapidly emerging security threat landscape.

The RSP was developed by CableLabs’ Cable Routing Engineering for Security and Trust Working Group (CREST WG). The group is composed of routing security technologists from CableLabs and NCTA, as well as network operators from around the world.

Learn more about all CableLabs’ working groups, including the CREST WG, and how to join us in this critical work. Download the profile here, or view it using the button below.

In recent years, the U.S. government has undertaken efforts to adopt a zero trust architecture strategy for security to protect critical data and infrastructure across federal systems. It has also urged critical infrastructure sectors — including the broadband industry — to implement zero trust concepts within their networks.

The industry plays a key role in managing the National Critical Functions (NCFs) as a part of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) critical infrastructures sections. Therefore, cable operators need to embrace zero trust concepts and do their best to apply them to their infrastructure elements.

What Is Zero Trust?

For quite a long time, some critical infrastructure elements have been considered as trusted because they happen to be physically located within the operator’s perimeter (e.g., back offices, trust domains). However, this approach can’t prevent these infrastructure elements from threat vectors that exist within the operator’s perimeter, such as illegal lateral movements. Additionally, conventional solid, hardware-based network perimeters are vanishing as the industry shifts toward software-define, virtualized and cloud networks.

As specified in the NIST "Zero Trust Architecture" document (NIST SP 800-207), “zero trust assumes there is no implicit trust granted to assets or user accounts based solely on their physical or network location (i.e., local area networks versus the internet) or based on asset ownership (enterprise or personally owned).”

What Is the Zero Trust Best Common Practices Document?

The Zero Trust Best Common Practices (ØTIS BCP), which will be released on September 24, was developed as a joint effort by CableLabs and steering committee members in the Zero Trust and Infrastructure Security (ØTIS) working group. Taking the aforementioned NIST SP 800-207 document and the CISA Zero Trust Maturity Model (ZTMM) into account during its development, the ØTIS BCP addresses security gaps that our members have identified and develops a zero trust security framework that covers the following areas:

• Credential protection and secure storage
• Identity security and data protection
• Asset and inventory management
• Supply chain risk management
• Secure automation
• Security monitoring and incident responses
• Boot security
• Policy-based access management
• Consistent security control

The ØTIS BCP is intended to serve as a guideline for cable operators and vendors as they implement zero trust concepts and support network convergence and automation. Cybersecurity professionals and decision-makers involved in the security of access networks may also find the ØTIS BCP informational because the document shows the broadband industry’s consensus on how to provide consistent security baselines for infrastructure access networks.

What Is the Next Step?

After releasing this initial version of the ØTIS BCP, we plan to expand the ØTIS working group so that it includes CableLabs’ vendor partners, who will review and further refine the recommendations. Notably, we’ll continue the process of mapping the ØTIS BCP to current and future guidance from relevant government agencies to identify potential gaps in the BCP and address those as appropriate.

How Can You Engage in the Zero Trust Effort?

If you’re a cable operator or vendor interested in taking part in this work, learn more about the ØTIS working group and how to join.

As we look to the future of broadband technology, CableLabs is leading the charge with a bold vision designed to be a catalyst for transformative change. Our mission is to align our members and vendor community to create a collaborative context where we can work together to overcome industry challenges and seize opportunities.

Through events and activities, we invite industry leaders, technologists and product strategists to come together to learn how they can get involved with us as we shape the future of the industry, address industry challenges and create a healthier, more competitive ecosystem.

Inspiring Transformative Change through the CableLabs Technology Vision Framework

Facilitating collaboration to create impact together is a tenet of CableLabs’ Technology Vision. With the underlying goals of delighting customers, providing seamless connectivity and growing into new markets, the Technology Vision creates a roadmap for achieving the goal of ubiquitous, context-aware connectivity and an adaptive, intelligent network.

To achieve this ambitious mission, CableLabs members and the vendor community must work together to create solutions at scale and harness the power of collaboration. By aligning industry goals, combining expertise and sharing resources, we can offset risk and cost, bring together diverse perspectives and accomplish more together to create a seamlessly connected world.

The Technology Vision framework is built on three key pillars:

• Pervasive Intelligence, Security and Privacy — Creating intelligence at every point in the network to ensure high performance, reliability, security and privacy for all users and devices in any connectivity context.
• Seamless Connectivity — Enabling new experiences for customers and new revenue opportunities for operators through connectivity anywhere, from any device, without concern for the access network technology or how the user is moving across the network.
• Network Platform Evolution — Developing innovations that will drive the most reliable, cost-effective, sustainable network architectures for our members, ensuring optionality and unmatched flexibility while delivering seamless connectivity experiences to users.

Driving Alignment Toward a New, Adaptive Era of Broadband Innovation

The evolution of broadband is framed by three distinct eras: the Speed Era, Experience Era and Adaptive Era. These phases reflect the ongoing advancements in network capabilities and user experiences. During the Speed Era, technology innovation focused on metrics-based competition. As we move through the Experience Era and toward the Adaptive Era, the driving force has shifted to differentiation and stickiness (Experience Era) with the ultimate goals of service agility and ubiquity (Adaptive Era).

The Technology Vision framework drives alignment among member operators and the broader vendor community through several strategic initiatives:

• Specifications and standards
• SDO engagement and ecosystem development
• Technology transfer
• Member/Vendor POCs
• SCTE chapters and training
• Events (SCTE TechExpo, Engage, summits)
• Open source

Within these initiatives, core focus areas encourage collaboration on delivering flexible network solutions that are capable of enabling new services and improved user experiences — and ultimately help us build a seamlessly connected world.

Working Groups: Tools for Industry Success

Achieving industry success requires balancing the requirements of both operators and vendors. CableLabs and our subsidiary, SCTE, both actively support working groups that provide mechanisms for doing so by creating timely, cost-effective solutions that benefit operators, vendors and customers. The greatest successes result when industry stakeholders collaboratively develop solutions that address the business needs of cable operators and can be developed at the right time and cost to support those needs.

The CableLabs working groups typically develop specifications for the industry, focusing on the research and engineering of a solution. The SCTE groups focus on how that solution is deployed and operated. Overall, the two are complementary in the value chain, moving from ideation to specification to implementation and operation. This has played out in various ways historically — including DOCSIS, the gap node, smart amplifiers and proactive network maintenance (PNM).

The net result of both approaches is the development of specifications, standards and other outputs that enable new products and services that operators want and vendors can build. In all cases, active engagement from vendors and operators is critical for project success.

Here are examples of how working groups get results:

Common Provisioning & Management of PON

Provisioning and management of Passive Optical Networks (PON) are critical to advancing cable network capabilities, overcoming integration challenges and removing interoperability barriers.

Short-term goals include simplifying PON integration through leveraging existing DOCSIS back office systems, developing the Cable OpenOMCI specification and enhancing interoperability. For the long term, the group is exploring Software-Defined Networking (SDN)-based solutions and virtualized PON architectures to support future growth and flexibility. Deliverables include a technical report on DOCSIS provisioning and the Cable OpenOMCI specification.

Optical Operations and Maintenance Working Group

The Optical Operations and Maintenance Working Group (OOM-WG) is focused on architecture assessment, telemetry assessment and translating to field practices. Delivery goals include:

• Unified telemetry
• Specific guidance for major architectures based on similarities and differences
• General network operations approach for FCAPS: identify issue, resolve cause, localize, address with suitable action be that maintenance, capacity management or other action

Ultimately, this group’s objective is to reduce troubleshooting and problem resolution time and costs while increasing network capacity and uptime. This includes integration across the tools stack to reduce the burden of engineering, operations and troubleshooting.

Proactive Network Maintenance (PNM) Working Group

The Proactive Network Maintenance (PNM) working group focuses on standardizing and expediting new PNM technologies to operations and in the field. The group, a part of SCTE’s Network Operations Subcommittee, works in collaboration with our member and vendor communities to develop standards, operational practices, guidelines and training content to support their initiatives.

Advancing Innovation, Creating Impact in the Broadband Industry

Ready to join CableLabs in advancing industry innovation to create a seamlessly connected world? Explore our working groups, SCTE Standards, Interop·Labs events and SCTE TechExpo events, where we seek to address key industry challenges and opportunities. By fostering collaboration among members and vendors, we are paving the way for a future marked by pervasive intelligence, seamless connectivity and adaptable network solutions.

One of the key roles that CableLabs plays for our member operators and the vendor community is tracking trends in key areas of the broadband industry. Because the networks operated by our members are predominantly fiber, we are always keeping a close eye on the optical industry — but this year is proving to be an especially exciting one across a range of optical topics.

In this blog post, we explore some of the key topics driving today’s optical industry, focusing on artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML). Let’s dig in.

Short-Reach Optical Transceiver Market

Over the past few years, datacom has surpassed legacy telecom in driving the optical communication industry. However, the rapid development of AI computing is taking center stage and taking over the short-reach optical transceiver market, which has ignited innovation across the industry.

AI/ML is driving the need for increased computing power at an astonishing rate, with company after company announcing newer and more powerful chips in rapid succession. These chips are deployed en masse in data centers, creating rack after rack of computing power. But to harness their full power, they have to be used together. And that requires interconnects, including:

• Graphics processing unit (GPU)-to-GPU
• GPU-to-central processing unit (CPU)/high bandwidth memory (HBM)
• GPU/CPU to frontend and backend switches, and network interface cards (NICs)

Currently, copper cables are employed for all intra-rack 400G and 800G interconnects because of their power, cost and reliability advantages. The question is, when the data rate scales up to 1.6T and 3.2T, and the per-lane rate increases to 200G and 400G, is copper still the right solution? And what about clusters as a chip — multiple racks in a cluster, with a multitude of chips acting together as one — which requires immense amounts of data throughput and very low latency communication between racks?

Based on the work taking place right now, it seems optical technology will be the technology of the future to support these needs.

What Optical Technologies Might Support AI/ML?

A range of technologies are the subject of extensive investigation for potential use in supporting both intra- and inter-rack communication for 200G and 400G per lane, including:

• Vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSEL) with multimode fiber
• Silicon photonics
• Electro-absorption-modulated laser (EML) with single-mode fiber

Additionally, in the drive to increase density and flexibility, reduce power consumption, lower cost and reduce latency, members of the industry are looking at different optical transceiver packaging options, including:

• Full-DSP pluggable transceivers
• Half re-timed pluggable transceivers
• Linear-drive pluggable transceivers
• Co-packaged optics solutions

Further, optical circuit switching (OCS) based on micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) is being implemented for the first time inside data centers by Google, seeking to enable topology reconfiguration, flexible upgrades, network resiliency and traffic grooming.

Liquid cooling is being introduced to keep communication systems running smoother and more efficiently than traditional air-cooled approaches: While liquid cooling is no longer that unusual in computer platforms, this is something very new in optical equipment.

What Does This Mean for the Broadband Industry?

This work will impact the industry in a number of different ways.

Broadband operators are increasingly operating data centers, leveraging their networks and distributed footprint to bring scalable computing closer to customers. AI/ML computing will inevitably be a part of that, and these technological advances will support the operators' ability to deploy powerful, scalable, cost-effective solutions.

Telecom can even take advantage of these new innovations in their own networks, leveraging the immense scale of datacom to keep the costs of these new solutions as low as possible, resulting in a win-win scenario.

Of course, this is just the tip of the iceberg for what’s happening in the optical industry!

These trends are already dominating agendas at industry events, including this spring’s Optical Fiber Conference (OFC) in San Diego — the world’s largest conference and exhibition for optical communications. A tangible energy and excitement flowed through the OFC sessions and the exhibition floor as industry leaders discussed technology innovations and advancements that will power the future.

ECOC 2024

Later this month, I’m an invited speaker at Europe’s counterpart to OFC: the European Conference on Optical Communication (ECOC) 2024 in Frankfurt, Germany. If you’ll be there, join me for three sessions in which I’ll be presenting:

Sunday, Sept. 22

• “Beyond 50G-PON — Can We Still Use IMDD?”

Monday, Sept. 23

• “Advances in the Latest Coherent PON Technology and Industry Specification Development”

Tuesday, Sept. 24

• “Adaptable Modulation and Baud Rates in Coherent TFDM PONs: Towards Versatile High-Speed Access Networks”

SCTE TechExpo24

If you’re attending SCTE TechExpo in Atlanta, join my CableLabs colleagues for several optical- and PON-related sessions. They include:

Wednesday, Sept. 25

• “Practical Strategies for Deploying FTTH” — John Bevilacqua (moderator), Kevin Noll (speaker)
• “A Photonic Future” — Alberto Campos (speaker)
• “Coherent PON” — Matt Schmitt (moderator), Haipeng Zhang (speaker)

Thursday, Sept. 26

• “Operationalizing and Automating PON” — Curtis Knittle (moderator), Jon Schnoor (speaker)
• “Boosting Performance: PNM for Optical Networks” — Jason Rupe (speaker)

Also, visit the CableLabs booth (#1547) on the TechExpo show floor to sit in on new technology demos and learn how CableLabs’ Technology Vision is helping align the broadband industry and advance innovation and technology development. A core focus area within the Tech Vision — Advanced Optics — encompasses our research to ensure that state-of-the-art optics solutions like those discussed here find their way into the evolution of our networks.

Please stay tuned as we continue to look at other advancements taking place in optical technology that the broadband industry should be keeping an eye on.

This year has been a particularly interesting one for cybersecurity. Notable incidents and other areas of focus in cybersecurity set the backdrop for “Hacker Summer Camp 2024” in Las Vegas in August. Topics frequently alluded to during this year’s conferences included:

• Increased focus on critical infrastructure — Critical infrastructure is increasingly complex, distributed and difficult to characterize in terms of security. This year’s conferences accordingly brought an increased attention to securing critical infrastructure.
• Echoes of the CrowdStrike incident — Although the now-infamous CrowdStrike Windows outage in July was a mistake, allusions to lessons that could be learned from the event were often made from the perspective of critical infrastructure security. The outage — and its fallout —prompted discussions about what the impact could be if bad actors were behind a similar incident.
• The XZ Utils (almost) backdoor — The discovery of the XZ Utils backdoor in early 2024 — the focus of a dedicated talk at DEF CON — serves as a reminder of the growing sophistication of adversaries.

I’ve published a CableLabs Technical Brief to share my key takeaways from this mega cybersecurity event that combined the Black Hat USA 2024 and DEF CON 32 conferences. In addition to covering the highlights of talks and demos I attended, this Tech Brief delves deeply into the discussions I found to be most insightful and the commonalities I observed across several areas of the conferences.

There’s no denying that “Hacker Summer Camp” offers more than any one person could hope to see or do on the conference floor in a single day. Each conference was packed with a wealth of new research and perspectives, demonstrations and much more. Still, the key highlights in my Tech Brief provide a solid and in-depth overview of some of the most talked-about topics and issues existing today in the field of cybersecurity.

I’ve included more quick takeaways below, and CableLabs members looking for a more comprehensive debrief can download the Tech Brief.

Common Ties at Black Hat USA and DEF CON

I found that topics from the presentations, demonstrations and conversations at Black Hat and DEF CON fell into three overarching themes. I expand on the implications of these in the tech brief.

Deep (human) learning: A need for more pervasive understanding

Doing rigorous background research is key to gaining an upper hand in innovating and building strong security postures. Especially in light of rapid adoption of advanced technologies, security experts need to deepen their knowledge to better secure their infrastructure. Collaboration is also a crucial element of building deeper bases of knowledge on technical topics.

Back to basics: Returning to and applying core principles

The core principles of cybersecurity are foundational to maintaining a strong security posture when implementing, deploying or maintaining any technology. As security researchers and practitioners, part of our role is to see through the use cases toward the misuse cases as a first step to ensuring the fundamentals are there and to educate and empower others to do the same.

Inevitabilities and cybersecurity: What we must embrace and why

My Tech Brief elaborates on examples in which adversaries will adopt and take advantage of new technologies, regardless of our own adoption. There are always caveats and important details that must be accounted for to ensure the secure use of new technologies as they are adopted. However, the Tech Brief discusses how the potential benefits to bolster security that come with the thoughtful adoption of new technologies often significantly outweigh the risks that they introduce.

AI’s Rapid Adoption, Potential and Pitfalls

AI once again took center stage (including at Black Hat’s inaugural AI Summit). Particularly in focus were agentic AI, assistants and RAG-enhanced LLMs. Like last year, these tools were looked at through the (mostly mutually exclusive) lenses of “AI for security applications” and considerations of “the security of AI,” both of which present immense opportunities for research and innovation.

Download the Tech Brief to read my takeaways from notable talks about this from the conferences.

Building More Secure Networks Together

It’s a thrilling time in cybersecurity! With all of the innovations, perspectives and calls to action seen at Black Hat USA and DEF CON this year, it’s clear that there’s a lot of work to be done.

To read more from my debrief, download our members-only Tech Brief. Our member and vendor community can get involved in this work by participating in CableLabs’ working groups.

Did you know?

In addition to in-depth tech briefs covering events like this, CableLabs publishes short event recap reports — written by our technologists, exclusively for our members. Catch up on recent recaps (member login required).

At the latest DOCSIS 4.0 Interop·Labs event, a record number of modem suppliers were on hand to delve deep into upstream speed and other aspects of the DOCSIS 4.0 specifications. We want to thank the participants who helped make the event successful and once again helped us achieve a high level of productivity.

We cannot highlight enough how CableLabs provides a neutral testing ground for suppliers and operators to come together and showcase compatibility across interfaces defined in our DOCSIS 4.0 specifications. The gathering of suppliers and products in one location is extremely valuable to the participants to see how the technology is being implemented across multiple platforms. The DOCSIS 4.0 specifications are proscriptive, yet there’s plenty of room for innovation to differentiate products and offerings.

Combining interoperability events for these technologies drives home the fact that compatibility across all system components is a high priority for the industry.

To recap:

• Everything is coming up gigabits!
• Downstream speeds faster than 9 Gbps through a DOCSIS 4.0 modem are the new normal, limited only by the availability of a single 10 Gbps interface on the modems.
• Upstream speeds now exceed 2 Gbps on DOCSIS 4.0 modems and can go higher.
• We continue to examine the copious data available from the modems — in particular, DOCSIS 4.0 cable modem Proactive Network Maintenance (PNM) functions.
• DOCSIS 4.0 security technologies are coming along nicely, and their recent availability showcases the advancing maturity of the products.

DOCSIS 4.0 technology is putting down a marker. These products are delivering on the promise of multi-gigabit speeds that will benefit consumers around the world. Among suppliers and operators in our labs, we’re seeing unprecedented passion for interoperability, for unrivaled speeds and for getting these products to market.

Record Supplier Participation

Attendance at the interop was high, including new suppliers and products. Three operators joined us to observe demonstrations, interact with the suppliers and talk about their own DOCSIS 4.0 network progress.

Among the suppliers were CommScope and Harmonic, which brought DOCSIS 4.0 cores to the interop. For the first time, we saw three 1.8 GHz Remote PHY Devices (RPDs) from separate suppliers including CommScope, Harmonic and Vecima Networks. Also, for the first time, eight DOCSIS 4.0 modem suppliers — Arcadyan, Askey, Gemtek, Hitron Technologies, Sagemcom, Sercomm, Ubee Interactive and Vantiva — brought multiple cable modem models. Microchip Technology participated with its clock and timing system. The availability of record numbers of both DOCSIS 4.0 RPDs and DOCSIS 4.0 cable modems shows that products continue to proliferate as these suppliers prepare for SCTE TechExpo 2024 later this month.

Testing scenarios involved using a virtual core from one supplier, and RPDs and DOCSIS 4.0 cable modems from various other suppliers. The products were mixed and matched to verify interoperability scenarios and speeds through the system. As before, DOCSIS 3.1 and DOCSIS 4.0 devices were combined to demonstrate the cross-compatibility of existing and new technology. Suppliers providing test equipment used these setups to verify their solutions.

Sustained Speed

Achieving a rate of 9 Gbps (or faster) downstream through a DOCSIS 4.0 cable modem is now the new normal. Multigigabit speed is a core pillar of the 10G platform. At this interop, all modems achieved that downstream rate of speed — testament to the work achieved at previous interops.

At the August interop, we looked at upstream speed — that is, the stability of very high-speed traffic on upstream channels. Using a DOCSIS 4.0 ultra-high split, the modems in attendance consistently achieved more than 2 Gbps upstream. Upstream is trickier than the downstream: Whereas downstream is a continuous broadcast from one transmitter (the RPD), upstream is bursty, consisting of multiple modems contributing to the orthogonal frequency-division multiple access (OFDMA) signals that the RPD has to “catch” and accurately demodulate. That upstream burst receiver in the RPD is arguably the most complicated component of the system, especially considering the data rates in play.

So, we’ve arrived at a point where a DOCSIS 4.0 modem is pairing download speeds faster than 9 Gbps with upload speeds faster than 2 Gbps (and with the capability to go even faster). And we’re talking about a single modem. The service group can achieve even more capacity and speed, which means individual modems can also go higher.

Additional DOCSIS 4.0 Cable Modem Operations

Beyond speed, three other aspects of DOCSIS 4.0 technology stood out, offering a look at the maturity of the products at the interop.

PNM

PNM is an important function for cable modems. It’s a proven tool that engineers and technicians use for maintenance, troubleshooting and improvement of the cable plant. More and more, the signals on the plant are OFDM and OFDMA, which provide higher speeds and capacities than traditional quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) signals.

At this event, we looked at five PNM tests that were run on all the modems. And because DOCSIS 4.0 modems generate more OFDM and OFDMA signals, more data is available. This is a sign of product maturity, responding to these data requests. And the modems have this down. This PNM data will enable the most efficient operation of the coaxial cable network, keeping the data levels at their peak by using the more efficient OFDM and OFDMA signals.

Security

Cable broadband is widely deployed. Hundreds of millions of consumers use DOCSIS technology every day as they live, work, learn and play. DOCSIS 4.0 technology includes strengthened measures to meet the threats that come with online activity. Suffice it to say, new security features are now appearing in products in the labs, and they’re being tested for both functionality and interoperability.

Remote PHY Interoperability

Although modems were the focus, the event also looked at the interoperability between DOCSIS 4.0 cores and RPDs. We branched into more and different configurations, moving beyond “one size fits all” configurations. These products are going to be deployed in many scenarios, and going deeper into these various configurations will ensure flexibility as DOCSIS 4.0 technology moves into the field.

Join Us Next Time

The next DOCSIS 4.0 interop is planned for the week of Nov. 4 at CableLabs’ headquarters in Louisville, Colorado. The event will provide an opportunity for both new suppliers and new products as we all prepare for the new calendar year.

Right around the corner in March 2025 are CableLabs Winter Conference and Smaller Market Conference.