Broadcom Pushes for a New EPoC in Cable Technology

| Aug 26, 2011 | Fixed Access Infrastructure
| Analyst: Erik Keith

Event Summary

August 26, 2011 – According to media reports, Broadcom engineers are working on a new solution to bring EPON speeds to cable so MSOs can run symmetrical 1 Gbps speeds, extending the life of hybrid fiber/coax (HFC) networks. Broadcom is calling this concept EPON-over-Coax (EPoC), which is achieved by grafting the coax PHY layer to the EPON MAC layer. Broadcom is pushing for EPoC to become a standard, and has already submitted a call for interest to the IEEE’s 802.3 working group.

Quick Take

Analytical Summary

• Current Perspective: Moderate on Broadcom’s EPON-over-Coax (EPoC) concept, because despite the potential payoff of this technology for Broadcom’s cable operator customers – i.e., the ability to deliver up to 1 Gbps of bandwidth over the existing HFC plant – there’s already a broad array of solutions and technologies available to cable operators that enable network efficiency gains, as well as substantially greater bandwidth/throughput in the HFC network. However, if Broadcom is able to develop and champion EPoC into a fully-fledged standard, the payoff for Broadcom could be well worth the investment (and risk) of developing EPoC from its current conceptual stage into a ‘mass-market,’ production technology.

• Vendor Importance: High to Broadcom, which needs to continue pushing the technological edge on the product development front, and to leverage/complement its acquisition of EPON chipset vendor Teknovus to exact its maximum potential as Broadcom strives to maintain its leadership in key market (component) sectors. With DOCSIS Provisioning over EPON (DPoE) already established as one technological avenue for cable operators to leverage as they look to extend their respective (and collective) HFC network runways, Broadcom deserves credit for flipping the DPoE concept (to EPoC) to provide essentially the same end result: dramatically greater bandwidth for the network and its end users.

• Market Impact: Moderate on the overall cable infrastructure market, because at present, the Broadcom EPoC solution is in the conceptual, pre-standard stage, and as such does not pose an immediate threat to competitors. However, Broadcom’s revealing of the EPoC concept development – as well as the company’s impending push for standardization of EPoC via the IEEE 802.3 working group – should serve as a strong reminder to rival silicon vendors that Broadcom has every intention of remaining a leader in the silicon world, on both sides of the fixed broadband battle (telco and cable).

CLIENTS ONLY

Current Perspective

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