CableLabs’ 10G Lab, located at our headquarters in Louisville, Colorado, drives innovation and fosters collaboration among industry partners. We welcome partners to leverage this valuable asset and co-innovate with us. In this blog post, I’ll explore the capabilities and benefits of the 10G Lab, with a special focus on its role in promoting collaboration with our vendor partners.

10G Lab Capabilities

The 10G Lab is an ideal playground for a multitude of use cases. It supports an array of hardware infrastructure, including powerful compute nodes, high-capacity storage and ample bandwidth capacity. Specialized hardware such as field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) and graphics processing units (GPUs) provide the computational power necessary for signal processing, 3D rendering and artificial intelligence (AI)/machine learning (ML) workloads.

The lab uses Kubernetes through the Red Hat OpenShift unified platform to build, deploy and manage applications at scale. In addition to these general compute infrastructure provisions, the 10G Lab hosts a converged environment containing DOCSIS®, PON and 5G networks, along with traffic-generation and network-simulation software to reproduce a wide variety of network topologies and conditions — a unique value proposition! Together with CableLabs’ subject matter expertise, the 10G Lab is a world-class facility with a powerful set of capabilities in a single location.

Leveraging this underlying infrastructure and networking capability, CableLabs continues to develop intent-based APIs that enable network-aware application deployment and enhanced performance as part of our Network as a Platform (NaaP) project. These APIs provide a level of insight and control of network features that ease the development of applications requiring intent-based networking. Many of the NaaP APIs are being standardized through the CAMARA project, an open-source project within the Linux Foundation to define, develop and test the APIs. Stay tuned for more details about current and future standardized API work with the NaaP project at CableLabs.

The 10G Lab also recently served as the host lab for the 5G Challenge, sponsored by the Institute for Telecommunication Sciences (ITS) — the research and engineering arm of the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA). The goal of the 5G Challenge is to accelerate the development and widespread deployment of open and interoperable 5G networks with true plug-and-play operation.

10G Lab Benefits

At CableLabs, we firmly believe in the power of collaboration. We work with our vendor partners to develop proof of concept (POC) applications, facilitate the interoperability of network components, and enable the testing of next-generation network and service capabilities. CableLabs shares the output of the work conducted in the 10G Lab with our member operators and showcases the developments at leading telecommunications conferences and in CableLabs publications such as white papers and blogs.

Our goal is to bring cutting-edge innovations to the forefront, using the 10G Lab environment as a catalyst to bring those innovations to fruition.

Vendor Partner Success Stories

Flash Networks

Flash Networks is a company that improves subscriber quality of experience, drives radio spectral efficiency and monetizes mobile internet traffic with its vHarmony Mobile Internet Services Gateway. Initially lacking access to a DOCSIS network to test its solution, the company found a lifeline in the 10G Lab. Partnering with Flash Networks, CableLabs provided the necessary infrastructure and networking in the 10G Lab to enable the company to gather informative metrics on running its product within the DOCSIS network under various network conditions. The results that Flash Networks obtained were invaluable in presenting its offerings to potential customers in the broadband industry.

“This was Flash Networks’ first experience with CableLabs and a very positive one. The CableLabs 10G Lab environment is very flexible and allowed us to test our value in multiple real-life use cases. The CableLabs team was very professional and collaborated with us efficiently while using their vast experience to achieve great results. We truly hope that this collaboration with CableLabs is a great first step for Flash Networks as it enters the cable industry. The Flash Networks team is looking forward to further cooperation with CableLabs.” — Ofer Gottfried, CTO at Flash Networks

Casa Systems

Casa Systems designs and builds networking systems for the broadband and wireless industries. CableLabs partnered with Casa Systems to enable both the DOCSIS access network and a 5G network in the 10G Lab. The company’s virtual Converged Cable Access Platform (vCCAP), Remote PHY devices (RPDs) and 5G Core are foundational components that make up a substantial part of the backbone of the 10G Lab. With this networking capability in place, CableLabs has been able to demonstrate use cases involving converged networks and intent-based networking APIs at conferences and directly with network operators that are members of CableLabs.

“Casa Systems proudly stands at the forefront of innovation alongside CableLabs, shaping the future of networking technology. Together, we've unlocked the potential for converged networks and intent-based networking APIs, showcasing use cases that redefine connectivity at its core. We look forward to continuing our partnership to unveil a new era of possibilities for network operators.” — Colin Kincaid, CPO at Casa Systems 

NVIDIA

CableLabs collaborated with NVIDIA to develop a proof of concept around GPU split rendering at the edge, utilizing the NVIDIA CloudXR platform and NVIDIA GPUs, including the NVIDIA L40 and A40 GPUs, in the 10G Lab. This unique opportunity allowed CableLabs to research what the networking requirements would be to enable virtual reality (VR) gaming using edge resources in lieu of local gaming equipment.

“Advanced computing and networking are needed to tackle today’s biggest VR innovation and collaboration challenges. Working with CableLabs enables us to build meaningful extended reality experiences and expertly demonstrate it to the CableLabs members, who are leading providers of broadband.” — Greg Jones, Director of Global Business Development for Extended Reality at NVIDIA

The 10G Lab is open to collaboration with CableLabs members and the NDA vendor community. We encourage members and vendors to partner with us to showcase innovations in the 10G Lab. You can also join the CableLabs community as an NDA vendor.

Driving Industry Progress Together

In a rapidly evolving technology landscape, our 10G Lab stands out as a beacon of innovation and collaboration. Its comprehensive hardware resources, diverse network environments and integration capabilities make it a playground for experimentation and development.

Vendor partner success stories serve as testaments to the 10G Lab's versatility. With CableLabs and its vendor partners working in harmony, the 10G Lab becomes a place where breakthroughs are shared with the industry through blogs and white papers, at conferences, and directly with leaders that operate wired and wireless networks around the world.

We look forward to a future in which the 10G Lab continues to drive industry progress and foster a spirit of shared knowledge and success.

CableLabs is making it easier and more efficient to run 5G, DOCSIS and other applications at the edge. Working with our vendor partners, we’ve remediated challenges and improved the way vendors deploy their cloud-native 5G network stacks into a shared, private cloud setting. This early work acts as a catalyst to a vision in which any application workload can be co-located on infrastructure at any location in an operator’s footprint that serves the applications in the most optimal way.

The 10G Lab

CableLabs launched the “10G Lab” where the goal is to deploy multiple 5G cores and vRAN systems alongside a cable hybrid fiber-coax (HFC) network. More specifically, these applications will run in a cloud-native, multi-tenant, bare-metal environment that starts the journey toward a fully converged network. By co-locating 5G and HFC running as containers on shared infrastructure managed by a common management layer, this first step toward platform convergence enables operators to reap the rewards that come with this type of architecture, including:

• reduced operating expenses (OpEx), such as power consumption, and reduced capital expenses (CapEx), including hardware costs and facilities to house the hardware, such as head-end or hub locations;
• the elimination of over-provisioned environments by matching resources to demand (the environment is scaled to optimize network stack operation);
• automated as opposed to manual deployment of services (more OpEx savings); and
• the ability to create dynamic, customized network topologies at different geographical locations that improve throughput and reduce latency for subscribers.

In addition, decoupling the network software from proprietary hardware increases the cadence of system upgrades, which reduces the time to market for new capabilities and optimizations.

The following diagram shows the current and future focus of the 10G Lab:

The Experience

CableLabs’ experience working with vendors to deploy network stacks into a multi-tenant environment, initially 5G, has been captured in a recently published white paper (open to the public) entitled “Best Practices for Deploying 5G into a Shared Environment.” There’s also a GitHub repository (referenced in the white paper) that shares the scripts for automating the deployment of a Kubernetes cluster tailored for 5G workloads. The white paper captures learnings related to enhancing security and ensuring that vendor applications are deployed such that they don’t interfere with one another when running in a shared environment. Other areas of discovery include optimizing network configurations, balancing resource allocations, enabling performance settings (particularly for user-plane operations for 5G) and easing the management of multiple applications on shared infrastructure. Be sure to check out the conference recording on this topic at the Envision Vendor Forum 2022 (day 2).

What’s Next

CableLabs has already worked with 5G vendors in the 10G Lab; however, later this year, we plan to expand the lab capabilities with open-source 5G cores and vRAN solutions, as well as a vCCAP. When a level of convergence is achieved—initially through co-locating the 5G and HFC network stacks into a shared environment, and eventually by establishing a tighter integration between 5G and cable wireline technologies through a shared core to support both access network types—operators will further benefit from this singular, multi-modal communication platform that will reduce network complexity, cut operational costs, improve quality and create new business and service opportunities.

Get Involved

The 10G Lab will play a part in three key initiatives. It will:

• provide a foundation for convergence-related activities, including executing convergence use cases of interest to our members;
• provide an environment for hosting the 5G challenge and other interoperability events; and
• be leveraged for proof of concept (POC) demonstrations as part of CableLabs’ innovation initiatives.

The 10G Lab is open to collaboration with CableLabs’ members and the NDA vendor community. We encourage members and vendors to partner with us to showcase the value of running applications in this shared, cloud-native environment. Please contact Carmela Stuart with your ideas! You can also join the CableLabs community as an NDA vendor.

Aligning a service provider’s business with its drive for new services and optimized operations relies heavily on one foundational element — data. Working closely with our cable operator members, the CableLabs team recognizes that access to data provides key insights that drive business and technology innovations. Supporting the growth opportunities our members have in Business Services, CableLabs has three projects focused on helping enable our members to capitalize and realize the revenue growth.

Present Growth Opportunity: The Enterprise Market

An expanding number of business services opportunities are driving an increased focus on data. For example, enablement of B2B Ethernet services for large enterprise businesses (500+ employees) that span across multiple geographical footprints requires a common data structure to seamlessly integrate end-to-end solutions. Through incorporating existing global standards and providing necessary extensions based on our member’s insight, CableLabs is designing and developing open application programming interfaces (APIs) to create a common data structure to automate the exchange of data, accelerating the sales proposal, service delivery, and ongoing service assurance processes enabling cross-service provider’s ability for seamless service delivery and support for shared accounts that enterprise business locations present.

Sales Automation & Interoperability Approach

Future Growth Opportunity: Virtualized Service Delivery & Management

While Ethernet services provide the backbone, small, mid & enterprise businesses are increasing the demand for dynamic applications & managed services. Firewall, DDOS mitigation, and multi-site VPNs are a few examples of managed security services that provide an important opportunity to increase revenue per unit served. The emergence and role of virtualized service delivery and management will provide critical infrastructure support to exchange the data needed seamlessly to enable the rapid development and deployment of these solutions. The shift towards a virtualized delivery of products & services is defining the future of network enablement through software-centric solutions with a high reliance on configuration and performance data. Utilizing common data definitions and access methods to network data for reuse across applications will reduce the risk of supplier lock-in, simplify dynamic network management, and enable easy sharing of network data with peripheral applications (e.g., security, load-balancing, and analytic engines).

Industry collaboration that leads to a well-defined data framework will enable the rapid development of new services that can be easily integrated between partner companies. This flexible framework and streamlined integration will shorten new service time-to-market, elevate the cable operator’s competitive positioning, and continue to attract a robust supplier community.

Open API Access & Community Engagement

These trends are driving architecture evolution and a shift away from the historical practice of housing data in a vertical format, which limits sharing across enterprise applications. CableLabs has developed an approach with a reusable library of data artifacts, which includes common APIs, data models, and entity definitions as examples (which registered users can access at diadeveloper.cablelabs.com) that aims to replace the siloed approaches of the past.

The approach strives to support CableLabs members as they begin to unlock the value of their big data reserves, adapt quickly to the shifts in technology, and move towards a software-centric and cloud networking operational world.

For more information on CableLabs projects related to Business Services, please contact Carmela Stuart, c.stuart@cablelabs.com

Carmela Stuart is the Director of Business Technologies at CableLabs.