Comcast deploys ARRIS E6000 converged edge router

ARRIS Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: ARRS) announced that Comcast Cable has taken the E6000 Converged Edge Router (CER) from trials to its first commercial deployment.

The E6000 CER is part of the ARRIS end-to-end portfolio, which spans the cloud, network, and home. More content on more devices demands increased bandwidth, infrastructure, and efficiency. ARRIS says its Converged Cable Access Platform (CCAP) helps cable MSOs scale to these challenges, while facilitating the migration to an all-IP network.

"The proliferation of connected devices and new advanced services place high demands on the network. ARRIS is driving the IP transformation, so our customers can deliver more top-quality video on more screens," said Bruce McClelland, president, network and cloud, global services at ARRIS.

In a recent study by Motorola Home (prior to its acquisition by ARRIS), consumers in the U.S. were found to watch more video than any other country – 29 total hours per week (four hours over the total global average), more than a third of which is recorded. Multiscreen viewing is also on the rise, with smartphones and tablets watched more than broadcast TV in the bedroom (46% and 41% versus 36%).

These ARRIS E6000 CER helps operators to meet these demands, as service providers like Comcast look to meet growing consumer demand for more high-quality content anytime, anyplace on any device.

"Comcast's subscribers are trendsetters in driving today's IP-enabled interactive and connected experience throughout the home and on multiple screens," said Rob Slinkard, Comcast Cable senior vice president of product management for communications and data services. "The ARRIS E6000 CER further optimizes our network and becomes part of Comcast's ongoing and evolving effort to take advantage of IP technology to constantly bring new innovations to market."

ARRIS says the E6000 CER delivers new levels of density and cost-effectiveness, with a simple, robust integrated architecture that will enable converged services on broadband access networks. The E6000 CER provides a high-availability, high-performance approach, supporting a fully redundant design with no single point of failure. It also offers integrated, hitless RF fail-over, hot-swapping of cards, and field-deployment ready IPv6 support, ARRIS says. Operators can mix and match ARRIS cable edge products to create the optimum network configuration for deploying tomorrow's services with today's hardware, the company claims.

All elements of the E6000 CER are redundant, either N+1 or 1+1, and all are hot-swappable. Designed for 99.999% system availability, the E6000 has a self-healing architecture that maintains system services without interruption.

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