US and Europe Cable Labs co-op
January 17, 2011
Cable Television Laboratories and Cable Europe Labs have committed to a closer and more extensive working relationship under a memorandum of understanding (MOU) establishing a one-year trial programme by which the two cable research and development organisations might develop longer-term joint cooperation.
“This accord builds upon the five years of collaboration on specification development and certification testing on high speed data and digital voice to assist cable operators in North America and Europe achieve global economies of scale on new technologies,” said Christopher J. Lammers, CableLabs Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer. “Advanced network architecture and Wi-Fi technologies are examples of areas where our coordination can provide substantial benefit to our respective members.”
The agreement expands upon informal coordination over the past several years which has seen such collaboration as EuroDOCSIS 3.0 and EuroPacketCable, as well as alignment in certification programs and standards initiatives. Under the terms of the MOU, CableLabs and Cable Europe Labs will each identify certain technical initiatives in which the other organization can more directly participate and contribute.
“Cable needs scale to thrive, and this is a major step in creating more worldwide scale in our technology development,” commented Lorenz Glatz, CTO of Kabel Deutschland Group and Chair of Cable Europe Labs’ CTO Committee. “Combining the joint innovative potential of both CableLabs and Cable Europe Labs will bring significant benefits to such development areas as Hybrid Fiber Coax network evolution, Metro Wi-Fi, energy management and the digital dividend/LTE interference. It’s an especially powerful announcement when you consider that we’re collaborating with two massive markets between Europe’s 72.5 million cable homes and the US market’s 91.2 million cable homes, according to Screen Digest yearend figures we received today.”
In an effort to foster further collaboration, the laboratories will hold two joint summits annually to focus on mutually agreed upon technologies or projects. The forthcoming summits will see both staff and members of both labs converging to share best practices and latest technologies.