Digital Telephony over Cable The Packetcable Network

PacketCable promises to be one of the most important developments in networking technology to date. The PacketCable network, a project managed by the Cable Television Laboratories consortium, is expected to be deployed by all major American cable companies as well as many overseas cable operators. The large-scale PacketCable network enables high-speed simultaneous transmission of digital computer data and telephone voice signals over cable modems and facilitates the widespread deployment of video and voice Internet applications, such as video conferencing, by utilizing cables that are already in place through cable T.V. Developed through the cooperative efforts of numerous cable television operators and telephony and networking vendors, the specifications enable cable modems to compete aggressively with twisted-pair telephony and DSL technology. Written for anyone with a stake in this up-and-coming field, Digital Telephony Over Cable serves as a companion guide for implementors and managers alike. It provides an accessible overview of more than a thousand pages of technical specifications with in-depth explanations of the most salient features, and offers extensive background on many of the underlying technologies that make digital telephony over cable possible. You will learn how all of these specifications come together to create a complete, functional telephony network running over a shared access medium. Readers will find in-depth coverage of important topics such as: PacketCable architecture PacketCable devices Security issues, including cryptography, key management, ciphers, and X.509 certificates Quality of service issues, focusing on DOCSIS and DQoS DOCSIS and MAC specifications for cable modem communication over shared coax Network-based call signaling, featuring MGCP and NCS Distributed call signaling, featuring SIP Network management, covering SNMP, billing, and electronic surveillance Internetworking with PSTN The book concludes with a look into the future of cable modem telephony, including possible changes to current specifications, ownership issues for the MTA, and Fiber to the Home (FTTH) technology. 0201728273B04062001Evans, D. R. is the author of 'Digital Telephony over Cable The Packetcable Network' with ISBN 9780201728279 and ISBN 0201728273.