Motorola, Nortel extend cable systems with voice over IP
December 8, 1998
InfoWorld:
Motorola and Nortel Networks last week
unveiled solutions for taking cable beyond
television, enabling offerings such as voice
over IP (VOIP).
The moves were viewed by industry
observers as gradually bringing multiservice
cable into reality.
VOIP using cable is part of Motorola's
announcement of an IP telephony
architecture. This multimedia platform will
allow for multiple networks -- including wired,
wireless, satellite, paging, and cable -- to
communicate with each other over IP, and
enable users to make IP telephony calls over
any of the multiple networks.
Using technologies from Motorola's Internet
and Networking Group and from NetSpeak,
Motorola is offering a VOIP/cable modem
one-box solution that includes components
from Motorola's Vanguard VOIP gateway and
Motorola's Data Over Cable Service Interface
Specification 1.0 cable modem. The solution,
called Multimedia Terminal Adapter (MTA-1),
will run on a hybrid fiber coaxial cable
network and allow a user to attach a
conventional phone to the adapter using a
phone jack. The MTA-1 will be available in
mid-1999. Pricing is not yet available.
Meanwhile, Nortel Networks announced
Unified Networks for Cable Systems, a
broadband networking solution that will allow
cable TV operators to offer voice, video, and
IP data to their customers in an integrated
package.
Nortel officials explained that the integrated
transport network structure will be broken
down into four elements: optical networks,
broadband cable access, IP switched
networks, and integrated network
management.
Analysts said they were encouraged by
Nortel's and Motorola's incremental
advancements in cable systems technology.
"[The] bottom line is cable has more capacity
than traditional lines, " said Hilary Mine, an
analyst at Probe Research, in Cedar Knolls,
N.J. "Anything you can do over copper, you
can do over fiber coax."
"What we're seeing on the cable modem side
is the same as on the DSL [Digital Subscriber
Line] side, this is more integration of
higher-level functionalities," said Daniel
Briere, president of TeleChoice, in Boston.
But Mine also pointed out there are business
issues such as whether people will trust a
cable company as much as a phone
company.
"An installer will have to go out and install a
cable box with other stuff with it, and when
you have a technician that knows what
they're doing, it's great, but there's probably
a 1 percent probability of that," Mine said.
Motorola Inc., in Schaumberg, Ill., is at
www.mot.com. Nortel Networks, in Brampton,
Ontario, is at www.nortelnetworks.com.
Nortel Networks' Unified Networks for Cable
Systems
Optical networks: OC-192 and OC-48
Synchronous Optical Network (SONet)
elements for high-capacity transport of
video, IP data, and telephony services.
Broadband cable access: Data Over Cable
Service Interface Specification- capable
cable modem and Nortel Networks' CMTS1000
cable modem termination system.
IP switched network: IP data traffic routed
by Nortel Networks' Accelar routing switch
and interWAN solution over the SONet.
Integrated network management: Manages
multivendor and multitechnology networks.
[Copyright 1998, InfoWorld] |
