Re: Cable Operator List

[Daniel Corbe <dcorbe () hammerfiber com>]

Hey Colton, 

We’re using small 16 channel CMTS systems for residential MDUs and colocating them directly on premise inside of wiring 
closets and then connecting them by metro ethernet.  We’ve had great successes so far with this model.

There’s lots of CMTS vendors.

There’s tons of used Motorola BSR 64Ks on the market, but be aware of the lack of useful IPv6 features (like prefix 
delegation) in older software releases.  If you buy a box and want to run 7.x or 8.x, you’ll need to relicense your 
downstream and upstream channels at some additional arbitrary fixed cost.  

I’m personally fond of these things:

http://picodigital.com/product-details.php?ID=miniCMTS200a

You can only bond 16 channels together max though because that’s all the box supports and you can’t bond across boxes; 
however, these things are less than 4 grand if you buy them in bulk so they’re really fucking easy to just spam 
everywhere.

Blonder Tongue makes a pizza-box style CMTS too:

http://www.blondertongue.com/shop-by-department/catv/ip-over-coax/docsis/euro-docsis/

As does Harmonics:

http://harmonicinc.com/product/cable-edge/nsg-exo

All three are based on the same chipset, so the real differentiation is price and firmware features.  

Then there’s Cisco.

The UBR is a popular platform.  And pretty soon there’s going to be a glut of UBR10Ks on the Market because Comcast is 
busy ripping their UBRs out of production because they’re upgrading their cable plant to the CBR platform.

Then the Arris C4, if you have deep pockets, is a modern version of the BSR:

http://www.arris.com/products/c4-cmts/


> On Feb 2, 2016, at 9:00 AM, Colton Conor <colton.conor () gmail com> wrote:
>
> Well, maybe NANOG's not a bad place for this post then! I would like to know more about the data-only side of CMTS 
> systems, and who the main vendors are. 
>
> We have MDU properties where there is either old inside CAT3 phone wire, or coaxial cable. We have looked and are 
> very familiar with the multiple technologies that work over phone lines namely VDSL2 and G.FAST. However, using the 
> coaxial cable seems to be a much better solution than using the phone wires.
>
> So I am looking for compacts, low cost CMTS systems. Based on the specs, I am looking for something at least DOCSIS 
> 3.0 capable, with at least 16X4 output. Something with the ability to upgrade to software upgrade to DOCSIS 3.1 would 
> be nice, but I doubt that would be a low cost solution.
>
> Whats out there for small operators that don't want a large chassis based system to feed an entire town with. 
>
> So far I have found the http://picodigital.com/product-details.php?ID=miniCMTS200a which seems to retail for under 
> $5000. 
>
>
> On Tue, Feb 2, 2016 at 7:48 AM, Daniel Corbe <dcorbe () hammerfiber com> wrote:
>
> > On Feb 2, 2016, at 8:42 AM, Colton Conor <colton.conor () gmail com> wrote:
> >
> > Are there any mailing lists out there dedicated for cable/MSO type
> > operators?
>
> I'm curious about this too.
>
> I’m not a cable operator (in that I haven’t successfully registered for a cable franchise yet) but I do operate a 
> docsis network and I’ve successfully negotiated the treacherous waters of obtaining and providing content to my users.
>
> I’m still a bit green behind the ears but I could probably offer some measure of assistance if you have a specific 
> question.
>
> -Daniel