Charter adds Precision OT to supplier roster for network upgrades

The vendor composition of Charter Communications' network upgrade plan continued to take shape with word Wednesday that Precision Optical Technologies has struck a multi-year "strategic partnership" with the cable operator.

Rochester, New York-based Precision OT didn't announce the financial terms of the agreement. But the company said it will support Charter's distributed access architecture (DAA) upgrade with nearly its full lineup of active and passive products, including 10G DWDM tunable optics, 100G and 400G optics and Bluetooth tuning modules.

Precision OT's new deal with Charter arrives nearly a year after the cable operator announced a multi-phased plan to upgrade its widely deployed hybrid/fiber coax (HFC) network at a cost of about $100 per household. Those upgrades will initially enable multi-gigabit downstream speeds along with 1-Gig upstream speeds.

Charter plans to upgrade about 85% of its HFC plant using a distributed architecture paired with a virtual cable modem termination system (vCMTS) and "high-split' upgrades that dedicate more spectrum to the DOCSIS upstream. About 50% of Charter's HFC plant will be upgraded to 1.2GHz of capacity and 35% will upgrade to 1.8GHz and a full deployment of DOCSIS 4.0. The remaining 15% of Charter's footprint will be moved to 1.2GHz with a high-split but forgo DAA and a vCMTS.

Related:Charter plots big multi-gig network, wireless upgrades

Precision OT told Light Reading in an email exchange that it will also play a role in a portion of Charter's new-build activities tied to its Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) commitments.

Precision OT declined to specify other operators it is working with on DAA upgrades, but noted that it has working relationships with the top 25 US cable operators and several more internationally.

Expanding supplier sources for upgrades

The Charter-Precision OT agreement continues to flesh out Charter's vendor selections for its HFC upgrade.

Charter has also tapped Harmonic for the vCMTS component and selected Vecima Networks' DAA platform, including remote PHY nodes. ATX Networks, which recently introduced a 1.8GHz platform that can be used to upgrade legacy Cisco nodes, is also expected to be in the mix at Charter.

Teleste, a Finnish supplier that is boosting its investment in the North American cable market as operators push ahead with DAA and D4.0 upgrades, also has projects underway with Charter, according to industry sources.