12:00 PM -- With projects like the Converged Multiservice Access Platform (CMAP) and Converged Edge Services Access Router (CESAR) on the horizon, the day of the traditional cable modem termination system (CMTS) may be numbered.

If those projects come to fruition, the CMTS will be become a function, albeit still an important one, in a new breed of super-dense access devices.

At our Cable Next-Gen Broadband Strategies event in Denver in February, Comcast Corp. (Nasdaq: CMCSA, CMCSK) VP of Access Architecture Jorge Salinger offered an update on CMAP's progress, noting half-jokingly that the he envisions a day when CMTSs are no longer available, "except maybe on eBay." (See Comcast Targets First CMAP Field Trial .)

Jokes aside, that prediction may not be so far from the truth. In fact, eBay is still a haven for cable gear from yesterday, a virtual island of lost and misfit cable toys.

A recent eBay search for CMTSs was like going back in time, when Juniper Networks Inc. (NYSE: JNPR) and Terayon Communication Systems were still in the game (actually Juniper may be coming back in a big way with CMAP and CESAR) and Nortel Networks Ltd. tried its hand, too.

Click on the image below to start a brief slide show of what we found. For good measure, we also tossed in some old cable modems that were up for bid and can be had for next to nothing.



— Jeff Baumgartner, Site Editor, Light Reading Cable