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CABLE WORLD STAFF
A process that began in September 1995 hit a major milestone in March 1999 when two vendors' high-speed cable modems were authorized to bear a "CableLabs Certified(tm)" label, and when one vendor's headend equipment became qualified as interoperable with certified cable modems.
Five more "certification waves" are scheduled this year during which additional vendors' modems are expected to be certified by CableLabs for their conformance and interoperability to the DOCSIS specifications. Rouzbeh Yassini, an executive consultant to CableLabs and a pioneering inventor of cable modems, looked back at the process:
"Three years ago our industry decided to build a standard high-speed modem that could be sold at retail," Yassini recalled. "Since then, the industry succeeded - in what's probably the shortest time ever - in defining specifications and then in helping vendors to produce fully functioning, spec-compliant retail products."
How did it happen? Yassini had some statistics:
* At any given time, an average of 12 CableLabs staffers and nine MSO executives worked on the project.
* Up to 190 engineers from the vendor community were direct participants in the specifications, interoperability testing, and certification process. In all, some 20 consumer electronics and networking companies, plus another five silicon vendors, took part. Yassini estimates more than 3,000 engineers were involved in developing this standard product line for their companies. Substantial recognition goes to Bob Cruickshank's vision for enabling this movement when he led the DOCSIS project at CableLabs.
* Some 14 Certification Board key personnel participated weekly, including the current five voting members: Steve Craddock, Comcast Cable Communications; Steve Dukes, MediaOne; David Fellows, former CTO of Continental Cablevision; Susan Marshall, AT&T Broadband; Doug Semon, Time Warner, and other "observing" or former voting members: Bob Cruickshank, RoadRunner; Ron Dobes, MediaOne; Paul Gemme, Time Warner; George Hart, Rogers Cablesystems Ltd.; John Hildebrand, Cox Communications; Luisa Murcia, AT&T Broadband; Jay Rolls, ; Jim Chiddix, Time Warner; and Alex Best, Cox.
Vendors, with editorial support from CableLabs, wrote and revised drafts of the 12 different specs - producing their first draft in March 1997.
Leaders of the successive hurdles of conformance and interoperability testing were (in parentheses):
* PHY layer and system architecture (Bill Kostka, CableLabs)
* MAC layer and network architecture (Andrew Sundelin, CableLabs)
* Security (Kaz Ozawa, Toshiba visiting engineer and Chet Birger, YAS)
* Operation Support Systems (Jason Schnitzer, Shaw visiting engineer)
* Conformance to spec (Will Hamblin, CableLabs and Roger McGee, YAS)
* Stability testing and Interoperability (Ty Pearman and Dean Osborne, CableLabs)
* Product Architecture (Doug Jones, MediaOne, George Hart, Rogers)
Other key participants were Michelle Kuska, John Bevilacqua, Jesus Lopez, Majid Chelehmal, Ellen Terwilliger, Liz Weeks, Bob Wald, Lyne Yohe, Tom Moore, and CableLabs executives Tom Elliot, Mike Schwartz, Dorothy Raymond, Chris Lammers, Karen Mandeville, and Dick Green.
"The success of DOCSIS should be measured not just by the quality of a specification, but by the dedicated work of the many people who defined the process, then enabled the industry to move ahead based on a market driven schedule," Yassini said.
Other DOCSIS 1.0 form factors, such as internal PC-card modems and USB products, are targeted before 2000 by the vendor community. The next version of the standard cable modem spec, known as DOCSIS 1.1 (enabling voice over IP), was just released in March 1999 and is expected to be available in certified product by first half of 2000.
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