Cable Europe Labs has committed to a closer working relationship with its US counterpart CableLabs. A memorandum of understanding has committed the two research organisations to a year long trial program that is hoped might lead to even closer co-operation in the future.
“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 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 on the informal co-ordination of the past few years that has seen 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.
Two joint summits will be held that will focus on agreed technologies and projects.
