Falcon V Systems, a Polish joint venture established by Liberty Global (NASDAQ: LBTYA, LBTYB and LBTYK) and VECTOR Group to develop Open DAA technology solutions for multiple system operators (MSOs), on Dec. 2 announced its closing of a strategic series funding round, with a new investment from Charter Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ: CHTR) and continued investment by Liberty Global.
This financing will accelerate the delivery of key virtualization technologies, including Falcon V Systems’ MAC Manager for Open DAA, which the company contends will increase the velocity and lower total cost of network deployments.
Falcon V Systems cites itself as an innovator in developing vendor-agnostic platforms for the Open DAA ecosystem, which leverages virtualization technologies to reduce network deployment complexity, increase scalability, and ensure multi-vendor interoperability.
The vendor’s MAC Manager is billed as essential in enabling Open DAA via standard interfaces, data models and testing automation capabilities.
The company says this latest investment round solidifies Falcon V Systems’ lead in the Open DAA space.
Bartosz Kajut, CEO, Falcon V Systems, commented, "The key strategic goal for Falcon V Systems is to develop an open DAA ecosystem supporting the transformation to next-generation access networks for the global cable industry, exceeding not only today’s requirements but also those in the years to come, including fiber-powered technologies. We are delighted to have the new support of Charter, a company that is leading in its efforts to bring multi-gigabit services to market. Involvement from another prominent Tier-1 MSO accelerates our efforts to build an Open DAA environment that helps avoid vendor lock-in and supports multi-vendor interoperability.“
Falcon V says its Distributed Access Architecture (DAA) takes an evolutionary approach to transform the cable industry’s access infrastructure by decentralizing and virtualizing headend and network functions.
“Falcon V Systems’ solution will be a key component in assisting Charter to continue its deployment of enhanced networks with superior bandwidth, lower latency, and better compute capabilities,” said Andrew Ip, SVP of Emerging Technology and Innovation at Charter. “The benefits that software virtualization and Open DAA will have on the evolution of our networks include the ability to enable new technology partners and more quickly and cost efficiently drive the path to 10G technology and technology convergence.”
“Three years ago, Falcon V Systems was founded as a joint venture with Liberty Global to reinvent cable infrastructure by leveraging software development and process automation. We’re excited to see Charter join this partnership, further validating our mission and view that an open, cloud-native infrastructure is critical for future networks,” concluded Enrique Rodriguez, EVP and Chief Technology Officer, Liberty Global. “By building an Open DAA ecosystem together with Falcon V Systems, we are steering a path towards access technology convergence, and ultimately the technologies important to our customers.”