Cablelabs to release new distributed DOCSIS specs

Remote PHY

Cable standards organisation Cablelabs is to release new specifications for distributed DOCSIS implementations over the summer, according to Karthik Sundaresan, principal architect.

In a blog posting, Sundaresan said that Cablelabs plans to release technical reports and specifications for different distributed CCAP architectures including Remote PHY and Remote MAC-PHY over the coming weeks.

Cablelabs has already published specs for Remote PHY – he layer of a system that handles the physical transmission of data – as MHAv2, an evolution of the older M-CMTS specification. This allows for an integrated CCAP to be separated into two components: the CCAP Core and the Remote PHY Device (RPD) and describes the interfaces between them.

Sundaresan said that a technical report of Remote MAC-PHY, which combines the PHY with the media access controller that handles the generation of data in a single device that sits at the edge of the network.