Charter Communications invested in Falcon V Systems, backing the company’s effort to build an open distributed access architecture (DAA) system in a move that could signal it is forging a unique path to DOCSIS 4.0.
Falcon V was founded three years ago as a joint venture between operator Liberty Global and Vector Group. It is focused on using software-defined networking and network function virtualization to build an open DAA solution, starting with a vendor agnostic MAC manager.
Though the company didn’t reveal how much it raised from Charter and Liberty Global in its latest funding round, it said the money would help “accelerate delivery of key virtualization technologies” needed for open DAA. Falcon V CPO Taduesz Ciesielski told Fierce in a statement the sum was "a multi-million dollar investment, proportional to the complexity of software solution being created."
In terms of its progress to date, Ciesielski said "We are running constant interops in MSO labs - every new MM or RMD software version. In order to achieve multi-vendor interoperability, we provide the operator with a MultiVendor Pipeline (MIP) application that validates the compliance with RMD and MM with a set of CableLabs specifications."
Dell’Oro Group VP of Broadband Access and Home Networking Jeff Heynen told Fierce it’s easiest to think about what Falcon V is doing as offering a new flavor of Flexible MAC architecture (FMA). FMA complements earlier efforts around Remote-PHY, providing new ways to disaggregate the media access control (MAC) function’s management, control and data planes. The whole point of FMA, Heynen said, is to give operators as much flexibility as possible in their deployments.
“What they’re focused on more is not DAA as it exists today, but DAA as it will exist in a DOCSIS 4.0 Flexible MAC architecture universe,” he said. “I think it’s safe to assume what Falcon V is trying to do is develop a more open version of what Harmonic is pitching as MAC anywhere.”
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Andrew Ip, SVP of Emerging Technology and Innovation at Charter, said in a statement Falcon V Systems’ solution will “be a key component in assisting Charter to continue its deployment of enhanced networks with superior bandwidth, lower latency and better compute capabilities.” He added software virtualization and open DAA will allow it to work with new technology partners and drive toward 10G more quickly and cost effectively. Charter declined to comment further.
While other operators such as Comcast and Cox Communications have been vocal about their push toward DAA on the road to DOCSIS 4.0, Charter has been less so. Heynen said its decision to invest in Falcon V Systems is interesting in a competitive context.
“There’s a historic rivalry that they’ve had in terms of developing standards and products in relation to Comcast,” he explained. “Charter, because they are moving down a path towards Remote MAC-PHY, they want to set the standard for how cable operators should move forward with Remote MAC-PHY, DOCSIS 4.0 and flexible MAC architecture.”
Heynen said there have been some questions floating around the industry about what Comcast plans to do in this arena and whether it will go to market with its own system that it can then license out to other operators the way it did with its X1 entertainment operating system. He argued one could read Charter’s investment as an indicator that’s a real possibility and “this is a response from another major operator that wants to provide an alternative for themselves and potentially the industry.”
This story has been updated to add comments from Falcon V.