RiverDelta's CMTS Entrant Promotes Rival ISP Access
By JEFF BAUMGARTNER April 24, 2000
multichannel.com
Staking a claim to part of the
cable-modem-termination-system market, start-up
RiverDelta Networks Inc. is offering a carrier-class,
"content-aware" Internet-protocol switch router that
can partition a cable network into zones and let
rival Internet-service providers access and manage
part of a network independently.
Dubbed the "Broadband Services Router (BSR)
64000," RiverDelta's new platform integrates
access aggregation and carrier-class
local-area-network routing with a Data Over Cable
Service Interface Specification CMTS, all in one
box, the company said.
Based on DOCSIS-1.1 specifications, the BSR
64000 employs a virtual-network-routing technology
called "SmartFlow" that lets cable operators wall
off portions of their broadband networks and sell a
range of bandwidth service tiers to rival ISPs.
That arrangement, the company added, ensures
that competing ISPs will pay premium prices if
they want to tap cable's fat pipe for high-quality
video streaming and other bandwidth-intensive
applications.
"We partition the system into virtual routers that
will enable the different service providers to manage
their own domains," said Jeffrey Walker,
RiverDelta's vice president of marketing and a
former Motorola Inc. executive.
Using quality-of-service elements, he added, the
BSR 64000 can police a cable network's traffic and
determine whether an ISP is eating up bandwidth
beyond its service agreement with the cable
operator. If that occurs, only traffic flowing through
the ISP's segment of the network will suffer any
data-speed cutbacks.
RiverDelta's new box also bears the carrier-class
label, meaning that it adheres to the proverbial "five
9s" (99.999 percent) availability and reliability. That
capability is expected to grow in importance as
cable takes a stab at the business-class IP arena
-- a sector currently ruled by digital-subscriber-line
providers.
RiverDelta -- which was founded in June 1999, and
which just closed a $36 million financing round --
won't name which cable operators have agreed to
begin BSR 64000 field trials this June. But it said it
was not averse to establishing partnerships with
larger, more established equipment makers.
"There may be situations where RiverDelta may
sell directly to an operator, and there may be
situations where RiverDelta will partner with another
company," Walker said.
Potential partners could include Lucent
Technologies and Ericsson Inc. -- two companies
in search of an integrated CMTS solution -- said
Patti Reali, a senior analyst at Gartner Group's
Dataquest Inc.
While Ericsson has touted its own platform, Lucent
struck a deal with Motorola last year to create an
end-to-end IP-telephony and data solution for cable
operators by marrying its "PathStar" IP digital
switch with Motorola's CMTS system.
Lucent also has a cable-data play in Europe via an
agreement to purchase DeltaKabel TeleCom BV, a
Netherlands-based maker of proprietary and
DVB-based (Digital Video Broadcasting) cable
modems and CMTS wares.
While some CMTS vendors might be loath to tap
RiverDelta's technology, others are expected to
piece together their own solutions.
"Companies like Nortel [Networks], 3Com [Corp.],
Cisco [Systems Inc.] and maybe Motorola are all
looking to migrate to carrier-class," added Reali,
whose firm believes the CMTS-equipment market
will explode from $350 million in revenue last year
to between $2 billion and $3 billion in 2004.
Cisco, meanwhile, continues to be the
CMTS-equipment leader, owning more than 60
percent of the market.
Although RiverDelta can tout its workable,
all-in-one box, carrier-class solution, it still must
pass a rigid set of tests at Cable Television
Laboratories Inc. before it wins DOCSIS-1.1
qualification.
CableLabs is "hopeful" that its first DOCSIS
1.1-certification wave will begin in June, according
to senior vice president of communications Mike
Schwartz.
If all goes to plan, RiverDelta should see BSR
64000 deployments in the fourth quarter, Walker
said, adding that the company expects to weather
two certification waves before it gets the thumbs-up
from CableLabs.
Considering the fact that RiverDelta must not only
lock horns with the market leaders, but also with a
host of fellow newcomers, DOCSIS qualification
should help a company that is trying to breach the
CMTS arena.
Cadant Inc., a start-up based in Chicago, is
another CMTS vendor that analysts are watching.
That company has been tinkering away quietly on
its own carrier-class DOCSIS-1.1 platform.
According to a Cadant spokesman, the company's
system is currently undergoing field trials. A
commercial launch will follow in the third or fourth
quarter, he added.
Broadband Access Systems Inc., another start-up,
has affixed the carrier-class label to its "Cuda
12000" IP-access switch, supporting best-effort
data services, IP telephony and tiered data
services.
As equipment vendors integrate access
aggregation and carrier-class routing into their
headend boxes, the plain-vanilla CMTS is quickly
becoming just a small piece of a much larger, more
complex puzzle.
Next-generation headend equipment will include a
router and an IP-switch router with cable-data
capability, Reali said. "It's essentially becoming
another class of equipment. In general, the price is
fundamentally getting more expensive. But on the
reverse side, the capacity is improving and cable
operators are getting a lot more for their money."
For example, Walker said, RiverDelta's new device,
which will carry a price just south of $50,000 per
unit, also employs a content-aware element that
can immediately distinguish and classify different
types of traffic -- voice, video and data -- flowing
across a network.
That's important because cable operators have to
allocate enough bandwidth for voice-over-IP
packets, which must maintain a latency threshold
below 200 milliseconds. Latency above that mark
will cause delays to reach intolerable levels,
Walker said.
One RiverDelta device can accommodate as many
as eight receiver ports -- enough to pass 200,000
homes, Walker said. Take rates for voice and data
services on a particular node could affect that
figure.
Jeff Baumgartner is senior editor at CED
magazine, a sister publication to Multichannel
News.
|
