en.Wedoany.com Reported - Canadian telecom broadband company Adara Technologies and network provider Aurora Networks have jointly launched a new managed platform aimed at helping small and medium-sized service providers upgrade from existing hybrid fiber-coaxial (HFC) networks to a distributed access architecture (DAA) that supports both DOCSIS and PON.
Many small independent operators lack internal engineering resources and scale to economically complete network upgrades or transition to fiber access platforms. The collaborative product from Adara Technologies and Aurora Networks is specifically tailored for these Tier 2, 3, and 4 service providers. Adara will manage the platform and host it in its own cloud. Adara CEO Joseph Nucara told Light Reading that this approach leverages multiple back-office systems and tools previously developed by Adara for managed video platforms, including traditional QAM-based video and newer IPTV-based video.
Aurora Networks, a subsidiary of Vistance Networks (formerly CommScope), offers a full range of access products, including remote physical layer devices (RPDs), remote MACPHY devices, PON optical line terminals (supporting 50-Gig PON), virtual broadband network gateways (vBNGs), and new virtual cable modem termination systems (vCMTS). Its cable access network product line supports DOCSIS 3.1+ and DOCSIS 4.0. This partnership enables Aurora to more clearly reach the operator scale traditionally served by Adara.
Craig Coogan, Chief Technology Officer and Vice President of Product and Strategy at Aurora Networks, explained that for small operators, deploying the data plane separately closer to the user at the vCMTS stage is overkill. By integrating and sharing these resources, Adara can lower entry costs, including both capital and operational expenditures. Nucara stated that this collaboration stems from operators' belief that they need a different level of attention from vendors, as they lack the capacity to manage the complexity of network upgrades or migrations. According to Nucara's estimates, 80% to 90% of Adara's existing back-office systems and tools can be directly applied to this new DAA and PON managed product.
For Adara, this represents a new market opportunity. For years, Adara has sold and supported managed video and bandwidth recovery platforms to dozens of small and medium-sized operators, but this marks its first expansion into the broadband access network space. Although Adara's current customer base is fewer than 100 operators, Nucara believes there are approximately 500 to 600 operator members of the National Content & Technology Cooperative (NCTC) to reach, along with 700 to 800 Tier 2, 3, and 4 telecom companies operating hybrid PON and HFC networks. Following the announcement, proposals have been submitted to some existing Adara customers, and some deals may be finalized later this year. Nucara noted that Adara is an approved vendor for NCTC, and the new product with Aurora is also included in that agreement. The two companies will showcase the platform at The Independent Show, an annual event hosted by NCTC and ACA Connects. Other companies are also targeting this market segment; for example, in 2019, Harmonic announced an agreement enabling it to sell its virtualized network access platform to NCTC members.
Jeff Heynen, Vice President of Broadband Access and Home Networking at Dell'Oro Group, said that the managed approach makes sense for small operators, as they face similar challenges to Tier 1 service providers—how to economically upgrade to a distributed architecture and replace access hardware nearing end of life. He added that aggregating these functions across multiple operators provides a more attractive path forward for small operators.
