LOUISVILLE, CO – CableLabs and Cable Europe Labs have announced plans to strengthen their relationship, and unveiled a one-year trial program to collaborate on research projects that could lead to longer-term joint cooperation.
The agreement expands upon the organizations’ informal coordination over the past several years which has seen collaboration on EuroDOCSIS 3.0 and EuroPacketCable, as well as alignment in certification programs and standards initiatives. Under the terms of this week’s memorandum of understanding, CableLabs and Cable Europe Labs will each identify certain technical initiatives in which the other organization can more directly participate and contribute.
“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 CableLabs’ EVP and COO Christopher Lammers, in the announcement. “Advanced network architecture and Wi-Fi technologies are examples of areas where our coordination can provide substantial benefit to our respective members.”
The move will bring Europe’s 72.5 million cable homes closer to the U.S. market’s 91.2 million cable homes. Two joint summits will be held annually to focus on mutually agreed upon technologies or projects.
"Cable needs scale to thrive, and this is a major step in creating more worldwide scale in our technology development,” said Lorenz Glatz, 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.”
