Last week's SCTE TechExpo in Atlanta revealed what's next for DOCSIS.

Broadcom, with backing from Comcast and Charter Communications, opened up access to its set of "unified" DOCSIS 4.0 chips. The trio also revealed plans for DOCSIS 5.0, a possible new set of specs that will enable operators to deliver services in spectrum up to 3GHz and downstream speeds of 25 Gbit/s.

Light Reading connected with CableLabs CEO Phil McKinney on the show floor to discuss those developments, along with other priorities and projects at the organization, including its focus on wireless and fiber access technologies.

Notably, McKinney disagrees with the notion that Broadcom's decision to open access to its D4.0 silicon for modems, nodes and amplifiers removes some uncertainty from the market. While Broadcom had pledged to eventually open up access to those chipsets, the timing of that was never communicated publicly until last week. Prior to that, operators and suppliers had expressed frustration about this lack of access, causing them to pause and rethink how to proceed with network upgrades.

"I think the uncertainty was actually not factual," McKinney said. "I think the [joint] development agreements were put in place in order to support the focus and effort that [was] needed upfront to get the silicon up to a certain point, but that was always the intent to make it broadly available."

Here's a snapshot of what was covered (click the closed captioning button in the player for a lightly edited transcript):