Broadband Access Systems Announces Industry's First Integrated Carrier-Class IP Access Switch for Cable Applications.MARLBOROUGH, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 26, 1999-- To meet the growing needs of cable operators to provision highly profitable data and telephony services to end users, Broadband Access See broadband and wireless broadband. Systems, Inc. today announced the Cuda(TM) 12000 IP access switch -- the industry's only carrier-class, standards-based, integrated IP access switch designed from the ground up to support the reliable delivery of IP-based data, telephony, and video services. "We recognized early on that today's cable modem termination system A cable modem termination system or CMTS is equipment typically found in a cable company's headend, or at cable company hubsite and is used to provide high speed data services, such as cable internet or Voice over IP, to cable subscribers. (CMTS (Cable Modem Termination System) A computerized device that enables cable modems to send and receive packets over the Internet. It inserts IP packets from the Internet into MPEG frames and transmits them to the cable modems via an RF signal. ) equipment has limitations that create serious challenges for cable operators that wish to balance their investments in infrastructure with the potential revenue gains offered by emerging data, voice and video services," said Abbot Gilman, founder and chief operating officer Chief Operating Officer (COO) The officer of a firm responsible for day-to-day management, usually the president or an executive vice-president. of Broadband Access Systems. "The Cuda 12000 enables a new paradigm New Paradigm In the investing world, a totally new way of doing things that has a huge effect on business. Notes: The word "paradigm" is defined as a pattern or model, and it has been used in science to refer to a theoretical framework. for cable service deployment - one that provides an economic cost of entry into new markets and technologies, scales to meet growing demand, and provides the value added Value Added The enhancement a company gives its product or service before offering the product to customers. Notes: This can either increase the products price or value. capabilities necessary to realize true profits in a highly competitive environment." Integration, Performance and Scalability for Wide-Spread Deployment The Cuda 12000 is a 14-slot access platform that aggregates high volumes of cable modem cable modem Modem used to convert analog data signals to digital form and vise versa, for transmission or receipt over cable television lines, especially for connecting to the Internet. and other IP traffic for reliable transport over backbone data networks and the Internet. Based on Broadband Access Systems' unique MeshFlow(TM) architecture, the Cuda 12000 integrates powerful functionality into a single platform that today can only be achieved through multiple, separate systems, including a standards-based CMTS, high performance switching, routing, and data aggregation, service provisioning, spectrum management, and numerous LAN (Local Area Network) A communications network that serves users within a confined geographical area. The "clients" are the user's workstations typically running Windows, although Mac and Linux clients are also used. and WAN interfaces to support a variety of network topologies. In addition, Broadband Access Systems will also provide telephony modules to support IP voice, telephony-return cable modem applications, and traditional dial-up modem traffic. This high level of integration in a single deployment platform provides service providers with a lower cost of ownership and an ease of service provisioning not available from today's multiple-system solutions. "Simplicity will become increasingly important for cable operators as networks for data and voice scale," said Terry Wright, founder and chief technical officer of Convergence.com. "A single system solution that can scale as needs require offers carriers a manageable network architecture from which to provision service." With its revolutionary clustering capability, cable operators can connect up to 128 Cuda 12000 chassis together which function and route traffic as a single logical system - to achieve as much as 25 Terabits of switching capacity. This level of scalability allows operators to support millions of homes and businesses while maintaining simplified network configuration and management and network-wide reliability. Carrier-Class Reliability and Availability The Cuda 12000 is the first true carrier-class access platform designed to specifically support cable applications. The platform allows operators to confidently deploy services for both residential and mission-critical business applications. The Cuda 12000 has been developed to meet the stringent Network Equipment-Building System (NEBS) requirements for carrier applications. The Cuda 12000 includes redundant powering, hot swappable See hot swap. modules, rear cable entry, and the industry's first fully distributed Fully distributed A new stock issue that has been completely resold to the investing public and is no longer held by dealers. fully distributed Of or relating to a new issue of securities that has been sold out. switching, routing, network management and service provisioning architecture that provides no single point of failure. The Cuda 12000 also includes additional levels of hardware and software redundancy to ensure that cable operators will be able to uphold Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and provide true lifeline voice services over the cable infrastructure. "As cable operators look to move beyond best-effort internet access to offering a complete suite of data, voice, and video services, including lifeline telephony services, they will need to deploy network elements that offer true carrier-class reliability and availability," said Vasant Ramkumar, director of architecture at MediaOne. "We are very encouraged to see next-generation products such as the Cuda 12000 that go beyond today's disparate solutions and specifically address the needs of today's and tomorrow's converged cable networks." Leaders in Standards Compliance for Interoperability and Quality of Service Broadband Access Systems continues to be an active participant in the Data Over Cable Service Interface Specifications (DOCSIS (Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification) A cable modem standard from the CableLabs research consortium (www.cablelabs.com), which provides equipment certification for interoperability. ), PacketCable, IETF See Internet Engineering Task Force. IETF - Internet Engineering Task Force , ITU (International Telecommunication Union, Geneva, Switzerland, www.itu.ch) A telecommunications standards body that is under the auspices of the United Nations. Comprising more than 185 member countries, the ITU sets standards for global telecom networks. and IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, New York, www.ieee.org) A membership organization that includes engineers, scientists and students in electronics and allied fields. standards initiatives. As a result, the Cuda 12000 is designed to be DOCSIS compliant to ensure interoperability with a wide range of cable modems, telephony client devices, and operations support systems Operations Support Systems (also called Operational Support Systems or OSS) are computer systems used by telecommunications service providers. The term OSS most frequently describes "network systems" dealing with the telecom network itself, supporting processes such . In addition, the Cuda 12000 supports the emerging DOCSIS 1.1 specifications that provide for the delivery of tiered data services and IP telephony over cable. The Cuda 12000's MeshFlow architecture also includes fully programmable network processors that allow operators to comply with evolving standards (DOCSIS, PacketCable, Diff-Serv, IPv6, etc.) without requiring hardware modifications and enables the industry's most flexible support of stringent quality of service (QoS) requirements. "If cable operators are to compete with traditional telephony carriers and emerging network service providers for the vast residential market and the lucrative business market, they must build their network infrastructure with several key ingredients: scalability, availability, and flexibility," said Frank Dzubeck, president of Communications Network Architects, Inc. "The Cuda 12000 allows operators to widely deploy profitable voice and data services with appropriate quality of service parameters, and provides them with the manageability necessary to provision large-scale networks." Simplified Service Provisioning and Management Today's cable modem networks are burdened with complicated and inflexible customer and cable modem provisioning. As cable networks increase in breadth of services and volume of subscribers, onsite provisioning will become a thing of the past. The Cuda Provisioning Manager allows operators to greatly reduce the cost and complexity of adding new subscribers to their networks. New users are automatically recognized by the Cuda Provisioning Manager, which enables fully automated cable modem provisioning and IP address assignment. Cable modem configuration files are created dynamically to enable networks to support modems from multiple vendors supporting multiple classes of service. Multiple levels of security and authentication are provided. "Our early conversations with cable operators clearly provided us with the message that we needed to enable more efficient subscriber provisioning and provide the ability for operators to both offer and bill for tiered services," said Mark Komanecky, vice president of marketing of Broadband Access Systems. "The Cuda 12000's fully distributed and scalable policy-based service provisioning and network management will enable service providers to confidently and rapidly deploy services to large numbers of subscribers". The Cuda 12000's Network Management System (NMS See NetWare Management System. ), the CudaView NMS, provides a fast, easy, secure, and reliable means to manage, configure, test, troubleshoot, provision, and gather accounting information for a network of Cuda 12000 chassis. The CudaView NMS can be accessed via a standard web interface, which greatly simplifies user interaction with the network elements. For users who prefer traditional management interfaces, a command line interface (CLI (1) (Call Level Interface) A database programming interface from the SQL Access Group (SAG), an SQL membership organization. SAG's CLI is an attempt to standardize the SQL language for database access. ) is also provided. SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) A widely used network monitoring and control protocol. Data are passed from SNMP agents, which are hardware and/or software processes reporting activity in each network device (hub, router, bridge, etc. management is also supported for integration with third party multi-vendor management systems. Advanced Spectrum Management and Ingress An entrance. Contrast with "egress," which means exit. See ingress traffic. See also Ingres 2006. Avoidance The increased use of the upstream cable plant for revenue generating services such as high-speed Internet access, pay-per-view, video-on-demand, and telephony put increased importance on the reliability of upstream communications from subscribers to the headend and/or regional hubs. Traditionally, upstream plant diagnosis and maintenance has been an expensive and labor intensive Labor Intensive A process or industry that requires large amounts of human effort to produce goods. Notes: A good example is the hospitality industry (hotels, restaurants, etc), they are considered to be very people-oriented. See also: Capital Intensive, Trading Dollars process. Recently introduced stand-alone systems that perform troubleshooting and diagnosis perform adequately, but they represent yet another new system for operators to install and maintain within their networks. The CudaMonitor option for the Cuda 12000 provides an extensive set of features integrated within the Cuda 12000 system that enable operators to diagnose reverse path problems and take quick, corrective action. Furthermore, CudaMonitor provides a complete set of alarms that can be triggered based on operator-determined thresholds to sort out isolated noise and ingress bursts before they cause major service interruptions. Pricing and Availability The Cuda 12000 will be in beta testing (programming) beta testing - Testing a pre-release (potentially unreliable) version of a piece of software by making it available to selected users. This term derives from early 1960s terminology for product cycle checkpoints, first used at IBM but later standard throughout the this summer with first customer shipments planned for 4Q99. Pricing for an entry configuration starts at $39,995. Founded in February 1998, Broadband Access Systems, Inc. is a leading developer of a new generation of highly integrated carrier-class broadband access systems that allow cable operators to deliver high quality voice, data and video services to large numbers of users. Headquartered in Marlborough, Massachusetts, the company's management team brings years of experience in networking and telecommunications from companies such as Nortel Networks (NYSE NYSE See: New York Stock Exchange :NT), Lucent (NYSE:LU), AT&T (NYSE:T), FORE Systems (Nasdaq:FORE), Digital Equipment Corporation and 3Com (Nasdaq:COMS COMS 3Com Corporation (stock symbol) COMS Certified Orientation and Mobility Specialist COMS Continuous Opacity Monitoring Systems COMS City of Manchester Stadium (UK) ). Broadband Access Systems is funded by Matrix Partners, North Bridge Ventures Partners and The Still River Fund. For more information on Broadband Access Systems, please visit the company's Web site at www.basystems.com. Note to Editors: Cuda and MeshFlow are trademarks of Broadband Access Systems, Inc. |
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