Startup Air5 aims to fuse DOCSIS with 5G

Air5's stated mission is relatively straightforward: to invent the future of cable by blending DOCSIS with 5G technologies, thus establishing a more efficient, higher-performing converged platform.

How it intends to achieve that goal from a technological and political standpoint is a bit more complicated.

Air5, a startup led by a group of well-regarded execs from the worlds of wireless and cable, is touting a new architecture that enables cable's DOCSIS platform to coexist with 5G. In addition to forging a path toward network and service convergence, this focus could help the cable industry take fuller advantage of a global 5G technology ecosystem at a time when questions continue to swirl about the long-term future of cable tech.

Familiar theme

For engineers and other cable tech execs, this concept might sound familiar. The general idea of merging DOCSIS and 5G was considered when the groundwork for what would eventually become DOCSIS 4.0 was being debated. More recently, Charter Communications, Rogers and CableLabs have been looking to prove out the idea in a project known as next-gen radio over coax (NRoC), industry sources tell Light Reading. The general idea is to run DOCSIS in spectrum up to 1.2GHz and operate 5G-based traffic in higher spectrum – up in the area of 4GHz and 5GHz.

Proof-of-concept stood up, trials on deck

Air5 claims to have solved the riddle.

Air5 has already stood up an internal proof-of-concept (PoC) of the architecture and is prepared to replicate it with potential vendor partners and operators for lab and field trials, says Air5 CEO Jeff Brown, a wireless industry vet late of AirTouch/PacTel Cellular, AT&T Wireless (McCaw Cellular), RadioFrame, Kineto Wireless and Accuris Networks.

The aim, Brown said, is to enter lab trials later this year, establishing field trials and possible commercial deployments sometime in 2025.

"It depends on how quickly the operators want to move," he said. "We know the technology can work. We're demonstrating that today ... We're putting together what I'd call the real-world vision of this."

Air5 has developed an architecture that initially uses off-the-shelf products but will later introduce new, integrated technologies and products for the network and in the home that support both DOCSIS and 5G. Air5 believes that a more integrated approach will simplify the final design.

(Source: Air5)

A big component will be a new class of cable amplifier that is adapted to 5G, along with new elements such as advanced radio units that can seamlessly handle the frequency conversions, said Sudhir Ispahani, executive chairman of Air5 and a former CTO of Liberty Global.

Focus on cable/5G integration  

Air5 is working with yet-to-be-named supplier partners to develop these integrated products that will enable DOCSIS and 5G to live side by side for years to come.

"To make it work and make it work easily and seamlessly ... there's a fair amount of work to do beyond just what you can buy off the shelf," Brown said.

But Air5 believes there are already some helpful similarities between 5G and the distributed access architecture (DAA) that many cable operators have been pursuing and deploying. Notably, 5G networks already run fiber to the radio and HFC networks using DAA already run fiber to the node.

"Architecturally, they are not that disparate if you compare DAA and what 5G does today. I think there's a huge opportunity here," Ispahani said. "There's no reason that a cable node couldn't become a small cell site."

In addition to bulking up the capacity of the network, this convergence, Air5 holds, could put operators in a position to develop "follow-me" services that operate on fixed and wireless networks and support the use of common IDs across those networks.

And adopting 5G will help cable operators take advantage of a global ecosystem for 5G chips and products at a time in which there continues to be some troubling fragmentation in the emerging DOCSIS 4.0 market. Broadcom has developed "unified" chips for D4.0 that support both Extended Spectrum DOCSIS (ESD) and Full Duplex (FDX), but access to Broadcom's new silicon has been limited to major cable operators that have signed pricey joint development agreements (JDAs). That's introduced a degree of uncertainty into the market, leaving smaller operators scrambling for options.

Air5 believes a welding of today's DOCSIS technologies and 5G can establish a new era of harmonization.

"For the first time [with DOCSIS], we see a divergence in the industry," Ispahani said. "That's a challenge. We've got to find a way to really bring back the commonization."

Air5's role is to spark the development of this hybrid 5G/DOCSIS architecture and, in some cases, offer it as a service.

And Air5 also aims to advocate this approach across both sides.

"Our first job is to get everyone onto the same page and align the operators on both sides," Brown said.

Air5 also sees itself advocating for the approach at the 3GPP, to eventually establish a cable "branch" for 5G standards.

Air5, which is not revealing its current funding levels and details of future funding plans, also expects to have some of its people on the ground advocating for its approach at next month's SCTE TechExpo in Atlanta.

Cable and wireless pedigree

And that group is comprised of execs with extensive wireless and cable technology pedigrees and people with venture funding backgrounds.

In addition to Brown and Ispahani, Air5's leadership team also includes Jan Uddenfeldt, a wireless standards pioneer and former CTO of Ericsson; and Lorenz Glatz, the former CTO of Kabel Deutschland (now Vodafone) and SVP of design and architecture at Liberty Global.

Air5's advisory board includes Kip Compton, an exec who hails from Cisco Systems and Comcast; Marwan Fawaz, a cable exec who has also held leadership slots at Motorola Home (later sold to what was Arris), Google and Charter Communications; Glenn Lurie (AT&T, Synchronoss and current venture partner at Stormbreaker Ventures); and Vish Mishra, managing director for BlueVine Ventures and a general partner and venture director for Clearstone Venture Partners.