Are you ready to strategize and share at Winter Conference 2025? In just a few weeks, an exclusive gathering of CableLabs member operators, approved vendors and industry thought leaders will meet in Orlando, Florida, to discuss and collaborate on how to move the industry forward.

Join us March 10–13 as we work to unlock the value of seamless connectivity and capitalize on the opportunities ahead. Member registration closes Monday, February 24. Secure your spot to take part in charting a course for success in the next era of connectivity.

The Path Ahead

Winter Conference sessions will be an in-depth exploration of the Technology Vision, with each session highlighting individual aspects of the framework — the architectures, protocols, technologies and strategies required for building and evolving the network of the future together. Hear from the experts on topics such as Network Evolution, Security Evolution, Differentiated Services and AI and take home practical insights to inform and inspire your own journey.

By aligning on a shared vision and working together to foster more robust, efficient and sustainable industry ecosystems, our member operators and the vendor community can collaboratively unlock new levels of agility and create solutions at scale. The Technology Vision, developed in collaboration with our members, lays out a roadmap for this more connected, intelligent and secure tomorrow.

Key Winter Conference Highlights

Register today to join us for high-impact sessions, plus hours of additional networking and vendor connections during provided meals and Exhibit Floor receptions. Members-only project meetings will be held Thursday, March 13.

Highlights this year for members and exhibiting vendors include Zack Kass, our keynote speaker. The AI futurist and former head of go-to-market at OpenAI will share his vision for a future powered by AI, offering actionable strategies for leveraging technology to accelerate innovation. Also, new this year, discover how four global startups are disrupting connectivity, focusing on solutions to enhance network performance and reduce latency during our neXus: Startup and Scaleup Spotlight.

View the full agenda for more details. All sessions and demos at a glance:

Tuesday, March 11

Sessions

• Shedding Light on Tomorrow’s Optical Access Networks
• The Rise of AI Automation: A Catalyst for Network Innovation
• Broadband Lunch: Insights Into Forecasting Network Demand
• The What, Why and How of Future HFC Solutions (two parts)
• Shaping the Security Evolution: Strategies from Industry CISOs
• The Power of NaaS: Simplifying Connectivity With Zero Touch Onboarding
• The Next Generation of Wi-Fi Access: Transforming the Connected Home and Beyond
• Breaking Barriers: Buildling Scalable Telemetry for Multi-Access Network Innovation

Demonstrations

• Mobile Wi-Fi Steering to Cellular
• Spectrum Monitoring
• Adversarial Machine Learning and Machine Augmented Penetration Testing
• neXus: Startup and Scaleup Spotlight: Redefining the Connected Home Experience
• neXus: Startup and Scaleup Spotlight: Making Wi-Fi Smarter Through AI-Powered Spectrum Slicing
• NaaS Featuring Traveler Wi-Fi

Wednesday, March 12

Sessions

• What Lies Ahead: Shaping the Future of Connectivity
• Spectrum Policy: Opening a New World of Connectivity Options
• API-First Networks: Building the Foundation for Future Services
• Redefining the Road to Reliability
• Security Evolution: Threats, Technology and Product Differentiation
• A Coherent Path to FTTP Deployments
• The Quest for Seamless Connectivity
• Context Is King: Unlocking Differentiated Services With Smart Networks
• Balancing Economic Trade-Offs in the Last Mile

Demonstrations

• neXus: Startup and Scaleup Spotlight — Unlocking the True Potential of Advanced Networks
• neXus: Startup and Scaleup Spotlight — Revolutionizing Network Operations with Agentic AI
• Harnessing ATSSS: Seamless Traffic Switching for Uninterrupted Connectivity
• Mobile Wi-Fi Steering to Cellular
• Spectrum Monitoring
• Adversarial Machine Learning and Machine Augmented Penetration Testing

Smaller Market Conference

Ahead of Winter Conference, we invite small and mid-tier multi-system operators to join the Smaller Marketing Conference on Monday, March 10, to discuss the issues that are most important to them and their teams. This event is available for CableLabs members and NCTA guests. Registration for Smaller Market Conference is separate from Winter Conference, so if you are planning to attend, please be sure to register for both.

Make Your Mark at Winter Conference

Are you ready to impact the future? Join us at Winter Conference 2025, and be part of the conversation on guiding the industry’s path forward. Beyond simply being an opportunity to

Attendees will not only learn more about the Technology Vision. They will also take part in important conversations that will shape the direction and influence the success of that strategic vision.

Registration for Winter Conference 2025 is open for members through Monday, Feb. 24. Secure your spot today.

As we dive into a new year, new administration and new Congress, one thing remains the same: we will need more spectrum to power our increasingly data-centric lives. Almost everything we do today is online — from working, learning, accessing health care and buying groceries to streaming content. Our everyday activities rely on the exchange or consumption of data. As discussed in our prior blog, “The Case for Additional Unlicensed Spectrum,” we see that case only growing stronger every day.

Traditionally, policymakers, including the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), focused spectrum decisions around coverage, to make sure that consumers across the United States could access communications and the internet. Now that almost all of the country is covered by communications and internet services, we need to shift our priorities to focus on meeting consumers’ and the industry’s capacity and performance needs. A helpful starting point is to look at how people and businesses are consuming data now and where technology is driving more demand.

The workhorse of connectivity, Wi-Fi carries more than 90 percent of all consumer internet traffic. Looking at just mobile devices and the nation’s largest wireless providers, Open Signal found that for every one bit carried on a mobile network, nearly 9 bits are carried on Wi-Fi. Wireless providers and their networks fundamentally rely on Wi-Fi to manage their capacity and traffic because the majority of smartphone usage occurs at home, where they are predominantly connected to Wi-Fi. The overwhelming reliance on Wi-Fi is expected to continue for the foreseeable future.

The Economic Impact of Surging Wi-Fi Demand

Unsurprisingly, given the heavy consumer reliance on Wi-Fi, another recent study found that the annual U.S. economic value of Wi-Fi is expected to grow from $1.6 trillion in 2024 to $2.4 trillion by 2027, including an estimated $514 billion in consumer benefit, $624 billion in producer surplus and $1.29 billion in GDP contribution. The same study found that the FCC’s April 2020 decision to open additional unlicensed spectrum to support Wi-Fi growth (in the 6 GHz spectrum band) generated $870 billion in economic value, just from 2023-2024, and that number is expected to increase to $1.2 trillion by 2027.

The annual CES in Las Vegas always provides a preview of our increasingly connected world — from wider adoption of health care applications to richer and more immersive entertainment to new smart home applications. One primary enabler for all these applications is the ubiquitous, plentiful and inexpensive wireless connectivity provided through Wi-Fi.

Not only will these innovations add more devices and applications to the already significant load on Wi-Fi frequencies, but they will also be increasingly data intensive. The new devices and applications will increasingly require higher speeds and lower latencies to work. A recent ABI Research report projects that current-standard (6 GHz-supported) Wi-Fi devices will grow from 95 million in 2024 to 367 million in 2029 — an increase of 288 percent in just five years — in North America alone.

That’s why the Wi-Fi industry has already developed a new Wi-Fi standard that will use wider-bandwidth channels to support these types of applications and more efficiently use available unlicensed spectrum. The catch is that they need more contiguous unlicensed spectrum bands to make enough wide channels to keep pace with consumer needs and technology advances.

How We Can Evolve With Growing Demands

Without more unlicensed spectrum, Wi-Fi performance will degrade as more devices, applications and users come online. Diminished performance is expected first in areas like dense commercial and residential areas, such as universities, apartments and office buildings that host high concentrations of users and devices. As the number of devices grows and more data-intense applications become widely adopted, Wi-Fi demand will continue to grow across the country.

The expected Wi-Fi spectrum exhaustion in densely populated environments creates a problem, as roughly a third of Americans live in apartments, condos, connected townhomes or other multi-family buildings, and even more people work in office buildings with more than one tenant. Wi-Fi exhaust could start to appear within a small space, or even a block, where multiple Wi-Fi networks are operating. These networks could be supporting multiple devices per household or office and multiple users, all sharing the same unlicensed frequencies.

Initially, degraded Wi-Fi performance will occur at peak usage times. As more devices, users and more data-intensive applications — such as telemedicine and augmented reality/virtual reality (AR/VR) — start to compete for the same channels, that degraded performance will extend for more time and more broadly to more locations.

More unlicensed spectrum is the key to averting this looming problem.

Fortunately, policymakers already have a successful model to follow — the FCC’s 2020 decision to make the U.S. the first country in the world to open the 6 GHz band to unlicensed commercial use by sharing with incumbent licensees, including public safety, utility and broadcast links. Other governments around the world are following the United States’ leadership, given the significant economic and technological success.

Thanks to the U.S.’s leadership and forward-thinking, American consumers are the first to experience better, faster and more reliable Wi-Fi service almost everywhere they go. But technology will not stop advancing, and consumers will only expect better connectivity. Given the astounding growth and demand for Wi-Fi, the U.S. must again lead the way to create room for continued unlicensed innovation, establish a foothold in the Wi-Fi and unlicensed global technology markets, and model how other allied countries can create economic value, expansive access and innovation.

Below, we outline some of the technical considerations as we look more closely at the looming Wi-Fi spectrum exhaustion issue.

Unlicensed Spectrum Efficiencies Across Dimensions of Frequency, Time and Geography

Wi-Fi and other unlicensed technologies are highly efficient stewards of limited spectrum, designed to maximize the utility of every MHz of available spectrum. This enables unlicensed technologies to support a wide variety and intensity of devices, applications and use cases. Wi-Fi’s efficient use of spectrum is built on low-power use — minimizing (but not eliminating) geographic overlap of uncoordinated networks, equitable time-sharing through “listen before talk” or similar contention-management techniques, and the support for the full channelization of all available unlicensed frequencies.

• Geography: Most notably, the FCC’s 6GHz rules constrain the transmission powers of both access points and clients, limiting the coverage area of these Wi-Fi networks, therefore reducing the number of geographically overlapping networks in an area.
• Time: Wi-Fi and other similar unlicensed technologies incorporate contention-management techniques that enable geographically overlapping Wi-Fi networks to use the same (or partially overlapping) frequencies. Networks then equitably share those frequencies in time between the two or more overlapping networks.

Figure 1: In general, when there are physically overlapping Wi-Fi networks on the same channel, only one network can access that channel at a time.

• Frequency: The 6 GHz band provides seven non-overlapping 160 MHz channels or three nonoverlapping 320 MHz channels. This has enabled geographically overlapping networks, like those in neighboring apartments, to reduce but not eliminate frequency overlap increasing available capacity to each Wi-Fi network.

Figure 2: Current Wi-Fi channelization of the 6 GHz band and potential future Wi-Fi channelization of the 7/8 GHz band. (Click image to enlarge.)

Through the dimensions of geography, time and frequency, Wi-Fi provides an incredible amount of data-carrying capacity, but it isn’t inexhaustible.

As we look to the future, these techniques, as well as further advances in Wi-Fi technology, are unlikely to meet growing demand from the devices and applications that rely on Wi-Fi — without additional unlicensed spectrum.

With additional unlicensed spectrum, however, Wi-Fi would have access to additional channels, further reducing conflict and performance degradation in networks that are close to each other and increase the instantaneous bandwidth and throughput available to applications. This would further reduce the likelihood of collisions in time.

Growing Demands Will Strain Available Unlicensed Spectrum

The explosion in the number of connected devices and the increased throughput, latency and performance demands of existing and new applications will exceed the available and future Wi-Fi capacity from currently available spectrum. As ABI Research explains, by the end of the decade, most households will have 6 GHz-capable Wi-Fi 7 access points, and we’ll begin to see the transition to Wi-Fi 8 access points.

• Total Number of Connected Devices: In 2024, the average household had 18 connected devices, but as more devices add Wi-Fi connections, such as appliances and lightbulbs, we regularly see households with 40, 50, 75 or more. ABI Research forecasts that the number of connected devices will continue to grow, with total annual shipments of Wi-Fi-connected devices to North America growing by 35.1 percent each year from 2023 through 2029. Although many of these devices are relatively low bandwidth (e.g., thermostats, lighting controls, appliances), each regularly transmits and receives data, increasing the probability of crowding and contention with other devices on the network. As the number of total connected devices increases, the amount of unused unlicensed spectrum in a home or business decreases. This will most negatively affect latency-sensitive applications, such as video conferencing and immersive, online gaming, which require ready access to uncongested spectrum.
• More Demanding Applications and Devices: The ceaseless march toward higher picture quality and the growing incorporation of AI capabilities will drive increased Wi-Fi traffic in the coming years. For instance, we see all the major streaming platforms moving toward some version of 4K Ultra HD, high dynamic range (HDR) formats (e.g., Dolby Vision and HDR10+). In parallel, smart television manufacturers are rapidly producing devices that support these more data-intensive formats. These new formats and future formats and associated devices will continue to drive and require increased bitrates. For instance, streaming a Dolby Vision video to a smart TV can easily have a bit rate of 25–30 Mbps. We expect even higher bitrates for video formats being streamed to AR/VR goggles as higher resolution and picture quality are key to these experiences. Moreover, we expect the widespread adoption of AI capabilities by device manufacturers and consumers to further drive Wi-Fi traffic, including from increased upstream video and telemetry data for AI processing in the cloud, and increased frequency and size of software updates to support locally deployed AI models.
• New Client-to-Client Connections: To further enhance the utility of 6 GHz, the FCC recently enabled very low power (VLP) unlicensed devices to use the band. With much lower power levels, VLP connections are very short range. The primary use cases for VLP include wearables, such as watches, rings and earbuds, and other short-range use cases such as connectivity between AR/VR goggles and a TV or between a gaming controller and console. What sets many of these connections apart is that the same bit will make multiple wireless hops in the home before it reaches the Wi-Fi access point and the broader internet, driving substantially more demand for unlicensed spectrum capacity.

We anticipate that the growth and increasingly intense and demanding use of Wi-Fi will first lead to unlicensed spectrum exhaust and degraded performance in the most dense environments, like apartments, condos, schools, and office buildings, before manifesting in less dense environments.

Open Additional Unlicensed Spectrum!

To enable the connection-rich near future for all end users, the U.S. government (and governments around the world) must identify additional unlicensed spectrum. Today’s growing number of Wi-Fi devices, and the next generation of devices, that support applications in education, health care and entertainment all fundamentally rely on ubiquitous, plentiful and inexpensive wireless connectivity that Wi-Fi and other unlicensed technologies provide.

Without additional unlicensed spectrum, the flow of transformative technology and applications will begin to slow down. CableLabs looks forward to continuing to work with policymakers and the broader industry to help open additional unlicensed spectrum.

The CableLabs Strategy team, collaborating with our Technology team counterparts, develops Key Business Questions (KBQs) specifically focused on strategy and impact on the bottom line. These strategy KBQs provide a solid strategic underpinning to the innovations in the Technology Vision, and they can distill our members’ opportunities and challenges as they make critical technology decisions and investments.

Considering the various technology options available for access network upgrades — combined with evolving consumer needs and exciting opportunities created by technology innovations — now is the right time for CableLabs' member operators to leverage these KBQs to inform the analyses we produce for our members. By developing strategic questions that are tailored to their organizations' unique goals, members can position themselves for long-term success.

Strategy KBQ Goals

Strategy KBQs align the Strategy team’s work with the needs of our individual members, ensuring maximum impact with focused CableLabs resources that can complement member companies’ existing strategy teams. In this way, CableLabs can help inform the critical strategic decisions that members make on innovations and technologies. The strategy KBQs enable our members’ boards, executives and execution-level leaders to make decisions and take actions for long-term success.

CableLabs offers our members optionality both in technologies and in strategies. The strategy KBQs don’t seek one-size-fits-all answers; rather, they lead to a flexible set of analyses that members can tailor with us according to the particulars of their businesses, markets, competition and goals.

Strategy KBQs in the Real World

The CableLabs Strategy team has been carefully distilling strategic issues for network evolution into strategy KBQs like these:

• How will peak bandwidth demand grow in the future and what are the implications for capacity planning and product development?
• What are the economic and performance comparisons of the access network technology options (HFC, FTTH, Wireless) for cable operators?
• How do low earth orbit (LEO) satellite broadband economics scale with increased capacity, increased usage and increased subscribers?
• How do Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) broadband economics scale when adding loaded spectrum to meet demand for increased usage and subscribers?

Each strategy KBQ comes with a cascade of relevant questions that addresses issues at different layers within a member’s organization, such as strategy, product and engineering. The operator can use the analyses driven by KBQs to inform critical decisions and operational actions.

How can members apply strategy KBQs and the analyses that answer them? Here are some examples:

• Knowing peak demand requirements for 2035, operators can design their broadband access networks and deploy technologies to meet the requirements specific to their markets, instead of investing purely in greater capacity for capacity’s sake.
• Knowing the options for product positioning, such as low-cost, no-frills provider or differentiated high-end provider, and how different network technologies satisfy those positions, operators can make decisions on how to position their offerings most successfully in their markets.
• Knowing revenue impacts together with total cost of ownership that results from positioning options, competition, and broadband access network technology choices, members can form a solid view of the economic returns specific to their markets for different technological investments.

No two broadband access networks are alike — we’ve searched for the “typical network” and found there is no such thing! The same is true for the answers to the strategy KBQs; while answers may be similar, there will be no one-size-fits-all strategy for cable operators. Members can utilize strategic insights from CableLabs, addressing a range of results from different choices, to develop the answers that are right for their markets.

Translating to Action

CableLabs has structured Winter Conference 2025 to focus on the six Technology Vectors. In each session, members can learn more about the Technology Vision and Technology Vectors, and they can obtain a preview of the strategy KBQs for each Technology Vector. Panelists will share their differing perspectives on technology choices, future use cases and key business questions.

Just as our members’ markets are always evolving, the strategy KBQs will also evolve. Members can contribute to refining the strategy KBQs going forward, just as with the Technology Vision and Technology Vectors.

As the global adoption of emerging technologies continues to intensify vulnerability to cyber threats, now is a good time to remind ourselves of CableLabs’ ongoing efforts to keep everyone secure. CableLabs takes pride in making every online experience safer and more efficient, expanding the ways enterprises can operate and improving the ways we all individually connect and live online.

Security and privacy make up one of the key focus areas of the CableLabs Technology Vision, created in collaboration with our member operators. Our goal is to help them meet today’s security needs and prepare for the future by implementing scalable, adaptable security solutions that can keep pace with evolving technology.

The advancements coming from CableLabs’ Security and Privacy Technologies team include work that stretches back over the last decade, improving the microsegmentation tooling for home and enterprise networks, device identity and the ability to deliver custom network experiences to specific devices. In particular, these security and privacy technologies have four engagement points where our work touches various types of subscriber needs: the home, the enterprise, the core network and protocols at the internet level.

At Home

CableLabs’ focus in the home starts at the cable modem but expands to the home router or access point when those are distinct pieces of equipment. In 2021, CableLabs published a Best Common Practice for Gateway Device Security document, which describes ideal security scenarios for these devices. This NIST-referenced document was the outcome of a global industry initiative that involved security experts from operators and device manufacturers, including representatives from CableOne, Charter, Cisco, Cogeco, Comcast, CommScope, Cox, Liberty Global, MaxLinear, MediaCom, Rogers/Shaw and Technicolor.

Inside the home, CableLabs has engaged and led efforts in the IoT security space from the early days of Wi-Fi Alliance, Universal Plug and Play (UPnP), Open Interconnect Consortium (OIC), AllSeen Alliance, Open Connectivity Foundation (OCF) and finally the Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA) and Matter, where we work today to secure devices in the home and to help standardize approaches to security and data privacy.

For Enterprises

At the enterprise level, CableLabs works with our members to deliver the services and protection technologies that businesses need to be able to operate in today’s complex environments. We have strong engagement in distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) mitigation work, and we provide tools to network operators to help protect their clients from attack and to identify threats. CableLabs engages in this work with other bodies in the community, taking a leadership role in making the internet safer for businesses.

One example of our enterprise work is our leadership in (and continued contribution to) the Messaging, Malware and Mobile Anti-Abuse Working Group (M3AAWG) Ransomware Active Attack Response Best Common Practices document, in which we help lay out the decisions and necessary steps that organizations face when they’re victimized by ransomware attacks. This document helps them navigate those chaotic waters, get their enterprise back to smooth operation and become increasingly protected going forward.

In the Core Network

In September 2024, we published the CableLabs Zero Trust and Infrastructure Security Best Common Practice document, aiming to adapt zero trust architecture principles to the network operator environment. This work — also the result of network operator collaboration and contribution — today serves as an industry guideline for securing infrastructure elements.

CableLabs’ role in the core and access networks doesn’t stop at DOCSIS® networks or zero trust. Also in 2024, the Security and Privacy Technologies team contributed to the optical networking security realm in the form of the SIEPON specification (IEEE SIEPON.4 ONU Authentication) and PON specifications (IEEE P1904.4/D2.1).

Our successful engagement track record in 3GPP, advocating for security within the mobile networks, yielded 19 accepted contributions into the mobile standards in 2024. Across all these fields (mobile, HFC and optical networking), CableLabs has been closely tracking and actively working with both operators and vendors to monitor and adopt advancements in cryptography.

The objective of this working group is to improve industry agility in responding to potential future threats, as well as to adopt advanced tooling and continue to protect subscriber confidentiality, traffic integrity and service availability.

Secure Network Protocols

Connecting computers, phones, tablets, game systems, smart home appliances and all kinds of other devices requires a secure connection to the service provider. And these connections wouldn’t be possible without secure network protocols, which enable devices to exchange information reliably.

CableLabs’ strong history of securing protocols and devices is evidenced in the continued evolution of DOCSIS technology. Combine the updates to protocol security in DOCSIS 4.0 networks with the digital certificates backed by one of the world’s largest PKIs, and you have a winning combination working to keep subscribers safer in any environment.

CableLabs’ contributions aren’t all contained within our work with industry partners. In 2024, we published the initial Routing Security Framework Profile, which serves as a guide to routing engineers and operators of an autonomous system and for use of the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP). This document was followed later in 2024 with an update that incorporated Cybersecurity Framework 2.0 updates from NIST. It is also listed as an example of a community framework profile on the National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE) website.

This document was a chance to convene experts to weigh in on how to best operationalize routes and route changes within the BGP, how to establish and manage the Resource Public Key Infrastructure (RPKI), how to sign routing updates and how to validate other route updates. Our work in routing security has been cited as a resource by multiple government stakeholders in their recent actions and initiatives as we continue to engage in public-private stakeholder working groups to advance the security of routing infrastructure.

Further CableLabs Security and Privacy Work

The contributions of our Security and Privacy Technologies team support CableLabs’ mission to deliver secure online experiences to global broadband internet subscribers. Our Custom Connectivity work has helped bridge the digital divide by providing pole-mounted Wi-Fi to unconnected and unserved users in developing regions of the world

Additionally, recent contributions to the industry have been published in several fields (e.g., blockchains, privacy, gateway device security, open-source software, routing, critical infrastructure, mobile security) and have been accepted by prestigious journals and conferences (e.g., ACM WiSec, IEEE Software, IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy) or recognized by seminal agencies (e.g., FCC, NIST, the U.S. White House Office of the National Cyber Director).

CES has always been a hotspot for seeing what’s new and trending in the tech space, and CES 2025 was no exception. From the explosion of IoT devices in the home to wearable tech and remote health care, we saw innovation on display around every corner.

Walking the show floor, we saw the growing importance of the broadband network as a common thread running through all of these innovations. As online experiences drive expanded use of networks, the broadband industry will continue to need reliable infrastructures that can support new products, applications and technologies.

Most of the technologies we saw at this year’s show centered on creating better human experiences. Rather than emphasizing core technologies, companies are exploring ways to create differentiated experiences, new business models and strategic partnerships.

Watch the video below for top takeaways and a closer look at what we saw at CES 2025.

CES 2025 made clear that it’s no longer about the technology; it’s about the experience. It’s about real-world applications that can deliver real, meaningful impact for consumers — applications that are powered by our industry’s networks.

As part of our Technology Vision, CableLabs is working with our members and partners to ensure that broadband networks of the future can support mainstream adoption of new technologies like those we saw showcased at CES.

The Open RAN movement is gaining momentum, with increasing numbers of operators and vendors embracing the potential of open, interoperable radio access networks (RANs). At CableLabs, we’ve been at the forefront of this movement from the start, hosting NTIA-sponsored 5G Challenge events in our lab, as well as O-RAN Global PlugFests twice a year to bring together industry leaders and drive innovation.

Building on the success of our previous PlugFests, we’re committed to continuing this work, pushing the boundaries of what’s possible with Open RAN. In this blog post, we’ll take you through our latest efforts to test interoperability, efficiency, performance and security of Open RAN components.

Energy Savings Meet Uncompromised Performance

Together with Effnet, Red Hat and VIAVI, we tested ways to reduce energy consumption for cloud-hosted and resource-demanding telecom workloads by controlling the CPU power management feature. Doing so involved using the underlying cloud infrastructure to dynamically turn off unused CPU components and adjust CPU frequency in response to central unit (CU) traffic load conditions. This solution saved energy and reduced heat output while maintaining quality of service.

Furthermore, we looked at the impact that hardware accelerators like application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) and graphics processing units (GPUs) have in offloading the CPU. We performed these tests by processing large volumes of data in parallel to optimize specific tasks (e.g., 3GPP high physical layer, AI training). In a true multi-vendor Open RAN 5G gNB implementation, AMD, Effnet, Phluido, Red Hat and VIAVI demonstrated over-the-air peak throughput values close to the theoretical limits while maintaining high virtual RAN (vRAN) workload efficiency. Peak-load MAC stress tests demonstrated scalability gains with hardware acceleration (HWA) enabled.

Continuing our exploration of ways to harvest energy savings from every RAN component, we took a closer look at the Open RAN radio unit (O-RU) radio frequency (RF) front end. In collaboration with Eridan, Rohde & Schwarz and VIAVI, we observed stable RU energy consumption even when higher modulation orders are used, thanks to the linearity of the power amplifier.

Automated Security Assurance in Action

Telecom network evolution to modular, open architectures on cloud platforms poses security challenges due to increased software interdependencies and interface exposure. To mitigate these risks, periodic and automated security assurance testing is crucial as part of network operations.

Mavenir and VIAVI have successfully demonstrated this concept by automating the testing of 3GPP service-layer security implementation, validating secure interworking across RU, distributed unit (DU) and central unit components of a distributed 5G base station. All of this builds on momentum from the Spring 2024 PlugFest.

Open Fronthaul M-Plane Enables Multi-Vendor Operations

By providing a standardized interface for managing RUs from various vendors, the M-plane open fronthaul interface enables multi-vendor RU operations, eliminating the need to integrate and maintain multiple proprietary management interfaces. During the Fall 2024 PlugFest, we observed the Eridan RU M-Plane successfully integrated with the VIAVI DU emulator to demonstrate adherence to the Open RAN Working Group 4 (WG4) technical specifications. The results of this test offer a promising outlook for future collaborations, as the knowledge obtained will be instrumental in multi-vendor operations and open standard implementations.

Get Involved in Open RAN

Guided by the Technology Vision for the network of tomorrow, CableLabs committed to driving innovation in network infrastructure. In the future, we plan to further explore innovative Open RAN implementations that enable operators to share infrastructure, scale economically, reduce total cost of operation and ultimately migrate to AI-enabled networks.

We welcome CableLabs members, vendors and application developers to join us at these upcoming events.

All too often, people equate the word “cable” with “coax” (aka coaxial cable), the insulated copper cable that cable companies have historically used to connect devices around the world and deliver information and entertainment. "Cable,” however, isn’t just made of metal but also of glass: fiber-optic cable (aka fiber).

The use of fiber in cable networks is nothing new. In fact, it’s been a dominant part of the industry for decades — hence, the F in HFC, which is short for hybrid fiber coax, the network architecture used in modern cable networks. That fiber is taking on increasing importance as cable operators develop new ways to leverage its capabilities. Leveraging the capabilities of that fiber is an essential part of evolving cable networks.

Cable operators are transitioning the fiber portions of their networks from analog to digital, increasing capacity and reliability. At the same time, they are pushing fiber deeper into the network and closer to the customer — and, in some cases, all the way to the customer. When that happens, it is referred to as fiber to the premises (FTTP), typically using passive optical network (PON) technology. But in all cases, fiber’s ability to scale to higher and higher capacities to support the applications of today and tomorrow is and will be a critical component for success across the cable industry.

In case you missed it, fiber’s increasing importance was on display at SCTE TechExpo 2024 this year in Atlanta. Multiple sessions covered a variety of topics ranging from the challenges of deploying FTTP, improving PON operations and management, and the history and evolution of PON technology.

Three of those sessions are now available to watch on demand:

• Practical Strategies for Deploying FTTH
• Boosting Performance: PNM for Optical Networks
• Operationalizing and Automating PON

An additional session went a step further to examine an emerging new technology that holds the promise of revolutionizing how we use the fiber in cable networks: coherent PON (CPON).

What Is CPON?

In May 2023, CableLabs announced the release of a new specification: the Coherent PON Architecture Specification. That specification provided an overview of how coherent technology could be applied to a PON to dramatically increase its potential: leveraging the improved sensitivity of coherent detection to improve spectral efficiency (which increases network capacity) while simultaneously extending the reach of the network across greater distances and higher split ratios.

The objective of CPON as laid out in that specification is to support 100 Gbps of capacity on a single wavelength that can be shared by up to 512 end users at today’s typical PON distances. Alternatively, CPON can be used to extend the reach of the network to 80 kilometers with fewer end users (in other words, a lower split ratio). Both of these features make the technology uniquely suited to existing cable operator networks without impacting its usefulness for non-cable operators, which promotes interoperability, scale and competition. Further, the CPON Architecture Specification envisions potential use cases for those enhanced capabilities, ranging from running fiber directly to business and residential customers to the aggregation of other networks’ devices, such as Remote PHY devices for DOCSIS 4.0 deployments or mobile xHaul equipment.

Of course, that was just the first step in bringing this new technology to life: CableLabs has continued to work with our members and the manufacturer community to develop the suite of specifications that will enable the development and deployment of interoperable devices. Extensive progress has been made to:

• refine operator requirements
• review contributions and proposals from the manufacturer community, cable operators and CableLabs engineers
• develop consensus around how the technology will work

And although that work isn’t yet finished, we’re starting to get a sense of what it might look like.

A CPON Vision

One of the TechExpo presentations was based on a paper titled “What Could You Do With 100 GBPS Coherent PON?” by Edward W. Boyd (Ciena), John Bender (GCI), Kevin Noll (CableLabs) and James Harley (Ciena). In this paper, the authors explore a possible CPON network that:

• has a full 100 Gbps of capacity (unlike other PON technologies, which operate at less than their advertised rate).
• supports tuning and multiple wavelengths in the C-band to enable CPON devices to operate over existing dense wave division multiplexing (DWDM) networks.
• adapts to different network deployment scenarios.
• supports the expansion of total network capacity in the future.

The paper also looks at how CPON could be applied to a variety of use cases, and how it can do so cost-effectively.

Enabling the CPON Vision

Although that presentation provided a vision of what CPON might look like when completed, another presentation looked at some other essential elements of CPON, including methods for keeping costs down and enabling burst operation (something new to coherent technology but a key part of the operation of a PON). That presentation was based on a paper titled “Unleashing the Power of Coherent Optical Technology,” authored by several CableLabs engineers: Haipeng Zhang, Zhensheng (Steve) Jia and L. Alberto Campos.

This paper examines several key topics:

• how to keep optical network unit (ONU) costs low using various technologies
• how to handle upstream burst transmissions efficiently and effectively
• how to adapt to different user requirements
• how to ensure CPON resilience and reliability to support a broader range of use cases than today’s PON systems

Getting Involved

Although these papers may or may not represent the technologies that will be a part of the final CPON solution, they do provide examples of the types of requirements and technology proposals that the CableLabs CPON Working Group is reviewing even now.

Many decisions have already been made, with the group moving at an impressively fast clip to wrap up key specification work in the coming year, but there’s still an opportunity to influence this emerging new technology. If you have the time and the expertise, we’re always looking to add more contributors with new perspectives and ideas to the group.

If that describes you and you’d like to get involved, please contact us using this form. Otherwise, keep an eye on this space as we continue to define this next-generation technology.

Residential proxies and decentralized physical infrastructure networks (DePINs) are technologies that enable end users to participate in semi-anonymous communications similar in function to virtual private networks (VPNs) by essentially sharing their broadband connection with anonymous third-party users. These types of networks are not new, but they have become more popular, easier to set up (sometimes even inadvertently) and are advertised to subscribers to make passive income, remove geo-blocking restrictions, and increase their privacy and security.

In this blog, we’ll look at how these networks function, why subscribers are implementing them on their home networks, and finally the security and privacy risks presented by these types of networks to both subscribers and internet service providers (ISPs).

What Are Overlay Networks?

Generally speaking, overlay networks are logical networks built on top of existing physical networks. Residential proxies and DePINs are examples of overlay networks that consist of software or hardware that runs on the subscriber’s home network or mobile device.

Many of these networks include a crypto token (bitcoin, Ethereum, etc.) that allows the end user to earn a financial stake by sharing their bandwidth in the overlay network. These networks are marketed to subscribers to earn passive income, with catchphrases like, “Get paid for your unused internet” or “Turn your unused internet into cash,” and companies offering these services often have signup bonuses, specials, referral incentive programs and pyramid schemes.

Harms to the Subscriber

End users believe that they will get extra security and privacy by participating in these types of networks. However, they often face a very different reality.

To participate, users must put their trust in the proxy provider, which has strong incentives to monetize their access to end-user data and online activity by selling user information to data brokers or other third parties. For example, privacy violations can occur by leaking sensitive information, such as what sites the subscriber is visiting, to third parties for targeted ads and profiling.

By sharing their broadband connection with these proxy networks, subscribers may unwittingly participate in botnets, distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks and other illegal activities such as copyright violations or, even worse, facilitating the transfer of child sexual abuse material.

The broadband subscriber simply cannot know what undesirable or illegal traffic they are allowing to transit their broadband connection. This can harm the reputation of the subscriber’s IP address, which could result in the subscriber’s access to legitimate services being blocked. It could even result in legal actions against the subscriber as government authorities will track down the often-unwitting subscriber by their IP address.

Additional ways that a broadband subscriber may suffer harm is through the unintentional installation of malware or info-stealing software. For example, a cybercrime campaign by a group named Void Arachne uses a malicious installer for virtual private networks (VPNs) to embed deepfake and artificial intelligence (AI) software to enhance its operations. End users may believe they are installing software that will enhance their privacy and security but are actually installing malware that tracks them and feeds sensitive data to bad actors.

Harms to the Broadband Network

Residential proxies consume bandwidth and produce traffic that is not directed to or originates from the broadband subscriber. This extra bandwidth consumption could adversely affect the subscribers' perceptions of their service and may increase costs for the network operator. There can be implications to peering agreements between operators as well. A residential proxy that facilitates the transfer of certain traffic may lead to lowered reputations of the IP addresses in use and potential blocking by external services.

ISPs face a much broader risk when it comes to IP reputation. The reputation of one IP that has been damaged due to running an overlay network can affect not just one subscriber but multiple subscribers as the IP address is reassigned through Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP). If operators use network address translation (NAT), all addresses behind the NAT can be affected. This not only causes disruption in service for the subscribers but can also cause reputational harm to the ISP and its brand.

Some overlay networks require that static inbound port forwarding be set up to fully participate in the network. These ports are then easily scanned and recorded in databases such as Shodan, making participating nodes easy to discover. DePIN hardware will inevitably be deprecated and no longer receive firmware updates and security patches. This will lead to a higher risk of the devices being compromised and exploited for other purposes, such as participating in a botnet.

Improving Capabilities to Counter Threats

In summary, decentralized overlay networks such as residential proxies and DePINs pose real and significant security and privacy concerns for both subscribers and their ISPs. These technologies enable semi-anonymous communications but also increase the risk of reputational harm, disruption in service and potential malicious use.

As these networks become more widespread and are increasingly exploited by malicious actors, it is essential to improve detection capabilities and develop effective mitigation strategies to address these risks.

To effectively mitigate these risks, a multi-stakeholder approach is necessary, involving collaboration between civil society, ISPs, overlay network providers, regulatory bodies and law enforcement agencies. This can include implementing robust network monitoring and security protocols and developing guidelines for educating subscribers on safe usage practices. By taking a proactive and coordinated approach, we can minimize the risks associated with overlay networks and promote a safer and more secure online environment for all users.

If you are a CableLabs member or a vendor and are interested in collaborating with us on solutions for safer, more secure online experiences, explore our working groups and contact us using the button below.

Today is the second and final part of the recap of my SCTE TechExpo24 event, neXus: New Partner Showcase coverage. In Part 1, I highlighted some emerging and up-and-coming companies that are poised to drive growth, innovation and transformation in our industry. Today, I am sharing the final groups that I featured this fall:

• Charter shared their partnership with BugLabs to discuss the power of Low-Code/No-Code, simplifying onboarding and minimizing development for Network as a Service (NaaS) deployment.
• Vodafone Germany featured their recent collaboration with Flynex and Dimetor to develop DroNet Hub an innovative online platform designed to streamline the planning and management of commercial drone flights for businesses.

Bug Labs and Charter

Charter and Bug Labs announced their new partnership on stage at SCTE TechExpo24, which coincided with Charter’s launch of Bryte IQ. Bryte IQ is a B2B NaaS platform that exposes APIs and functionality to third-party developers to help integrate and create amazing experiences for customers. This enables seamless, consistent deployment of services across wired and wireless networks, which empowers fast, versatile application advancement and adoption.

Within the United States, there are over 33 million businesses. There are around 130 million full-time employees, with 77 percent of those employees working in businesses with fewer than 500 people. The capital prioritization faced by most companies of this size makes it challenging to have many developers on staff.

Charter and Bug Labs, with Bug Labs’ Signalpattern platform, are committed to improving user productivity and agility through software solutions that simplify access to network information.

Peter Semmelhack, founder and CEO of Bug Labs, stated, “In today’s dynamic technology landscape, Signalpattern presents a transformative alternative to traditional application development. By offering discrete, modular workflows that can be accessed independently or in combination, via any interface type — web, chat, audio — Signalpattern reimagines information flow, enabling companies to lower costs and boost operational efficiency."

Signalpattern supports all popular workflow applications, from dashboards to Slack, Teams and even SMS, making it adaptable and easy to use. Users can create personalized visualizations and interactions, seamlessly share them, and access a library of ready-to-use, interactive widgets. This approach accelerates development while ensuring solutions are customized to meet users’ unique needs.

Working together, Charter and Bug Labs are providing end users with tools to quickly and efficiently create and personalize their own solutions, supporting the emerging "composable enterprise" model, where agility and responsiveness are essential for staying competitive. They aim to remove obstacles for users, making the information they need accessible anytime, on any device.

By year end, Bug Labs will introduce a new suite of AI-driven features that enable users to input their job context, role and industry. Signalpattern will then automatically generate interactive visualizations and intuitive user interfaces tailored to their specific needs, further streamlining the creation of customized solutions. These new capabilities allow users to save time, reduce dependency on technical teams and quickly adapt insights for their unique business environments. By simplifying complex data interactions, Signalpattern empowers professionals to make informed decisions faster, boosting productivity and enabling more agile responses to business challenges.

Vodafone DE, FlyNex and Dimetor

Vodafone DE (Germany) in Düsseldorf is working to constantly innovate and find new revenue streams (Beyond Connectivity Solutions) using an open innovation approach. For Michael Reinartz, director of innovation at Vodafone DE, the key to successful innovation is curiosity and openness, on top of a lot of research, trend-watching and analyses.

While they have autonomy in Germany to do their own innovation work, a larger goal is to take the solutions to Vodafone Group in the United Kingdom to serve their other markets.

Michael leads their team of 40 people who focus on the areas of extended reality (XR), data analytics, sustainability, payment/identity/messaging, network-driven innovations, content solutions and drones. They have successfully launched products and services in many of these areas on their own as well as with specialized partners, who are often startups and scaleups. When that additional knowledge and flexibility is required, their department’s cooperation initiative called “UPLIFT” scouts for relevant startups and scaleups that can help solve the problems of their customers — both B2C and B2B.

A recent example of this co-creation is in the drone space, where the flight planning, regulatory compliance, and data analysis is quite complex for companies — and even regulators — to navigate. (It should be noted that operators, drone pilots and regulators are working on a joint regulatory and compliance base with the EASA (European Union Aviation Safety Agency).

Furthermore, BVLOS (beyond the visual line of sight) is becoming a driving force for the commercial drone market, and mobile connectivity plays a central role for the implementation and commercialization of BVLOS flights.

Imagine a railway company that needs to check their tracks after a big storm or disaster. Or a pilot that needs to check on a remote construction site or bridge, for example, to monitor the status. Or the large wind farms, electricity pylons and industrial plants that require complex inspection and maintenance. Currently, people physically go to these locations to perform this work. This is inefficient, costly, not always possible and slows down the progress that needs to be made in repairing the situation. Other use cases include emergency package delivery, first responder reconnaissance, infrastructure surveys and many more.

Vodafone DE wanted to offer their drone-interested B2B customers a user-friendly platform to plan, execute and analyze their drone flights with ease. Together with companies they pinpointed, FlyNex and Dimetor, Vodafone DE announced their drone offering to business customers, DroNet Hub, DroNet API, and DroNet Connect, earlier this year.

This cloud-based solution can be customized for B2B companies, leveraging the expertise of Vodafone DE’s two partners and their own network capabilities:

Dimetor and the DroNet API

Vodafone DE tapped into Austrian-based Dimetor for the DroNet API. Headed up by Thomas Neubauer and Thomas Wana, Dimetor brings years of experience in aviation, mobile networking and software engineering to deliver highly scalable software to streamline the flight planning and control processes for UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) operations. The DroNet API gathers connectivity prediction and population density data on the ground and sends to the DroNet Hub to allow speedy approval of drone flight schedules.

Vodafone DE and DroNet Connect

Vodafone offers a mobile connectivity plan that ensures drones stay connected for the entire flight and through Vodafone’s 5G network, density and connectivity predictions function as an enabler for the drone solutions.

FlyNex.io and the DroNet Hub

To pull it all together for the DroNet Hub, Vodafone used FlyNex out of Leipzig, Germany, which specializes in digital data collection, analysis and management. They created one platform to manage the complete drone mission process. Headed up by three drone experts and one geoscientist (Andreas Dunsch, Christian Caballero, Michael Petrosjan and Holger Dirkson), FlyNex’s technology analyzes the aerial imagery taken by the drones and monitors them using AI, enabling the quick generation of automated reports and the creation of 3D models or digital twins of monitored areas. This informs the platform in real-time if there are risks that need to be addressed, like breaks in the tracks on a railway or damage to windmill turbines, for example.

The introduction of DroNet Hub marks a pivotal moment in accelerating the use of drone technology across businesses in Germany. This partnership not only highlights the ingenuity of the FlyNex and Dimetor, but also the innovative mindset and commitment of Vodafone DE in creating Beyond Connectivity Solutions for their customers.

As we progress toward a future of context-aware connectivity and adaptive networks, what will ultimately move the needle for the industry is a collaborative ecosystem built on a shared vision of interoperability. Our Technology Vision, developed in collaboration with member operators, provides a strategic framework to accelerate the delivery of next-generation connectivity and beyond — unlocking agility, facilitating industry alignment and creating solutions at scale.

Collaboration is vital to the success of the Technology Vision. At Winter Conference 2025, we will convene industry leaders and other experts to work together to collectively discuss and solve key challenges for our organizations. Together, we can deliver network solutions that are flexible, reliable and capable of enabling new services and seamless user experiences.

Shaping the Discussion at CableLabs Winter Conference

Our keynote Zach Kass, AI futurist and former head of go-to-market at OpenAI, will kick off with his vision of a future powered by AI. He will shed light on the technologies driving its evolution and guide organizations on how to effectively leverage AI’s transformative power to accelerate innovation and streamline operations.

Each session of Winter Conference will focus on a different component of the Technology Vision framework and explore next steps for building and evolving the network of the future together. Some highlights include:

• In a two-part series, The What, Why and How of Future HFC Solutions sessions will explore how future DOCSIS®️ generations align with next-gen networks to boost capacity, reliability and security as well as 6G development by 3GPP, leveraging MSO scale and using HFC assets for mobile offload, small cells and future optionality.
• In Balancing Economic Trade-Offs in the Last Mile, we’ll examine use cases for various access technologies based on market needs, existing infrastructure and competition. Learn how operators can integrate these technologies to craft unique connectivity solutions.
• The Shaping the Security Evolution: Strategies from Industry CISOs session brings industry security executives together to discuss network protection, cyber policy, incident response and collaborating with governments to counter persistent threats. Discover how their strategies shape secure, differentiated services.
• Learn how context-aware network technologies help operators deliver tailored services in Context is King: Unlocking Differentiated Services with Smart Networks. Explore how adaptive responses to customer location, device type and network conditions can optimize performance, prioritize traffic, boost satisfaction and drive revenue.

Collaborate to Impact the Future

Join us at CableLabs Winter Conference 2025, March 10–13 in Orlando, Florida, for an action-packed two days of conference sessions followed by member-exclusive project meetings. Connect and collaborate with CableLabs members, approved vendors and industry thought leaders to strategize on the future of the industry and explore the latest technology innovations at the exhibition.