Look for “CableLabs Certified” on cable modem

You wouldn’t think twice about buying a telephone modem, plugging it in between your computer and phone line and dialing up your service provider. You know it’s going to work because of modem standards.

But until recently if you tried that with a cable modem, you might be out of luck because your cable provider had a proprietary relationship with a different cable modem vendor.

In this age of mergers and convergence in the telecommunications world, such Balkanization doesn’t make sense. Cable industry players from manufacturers to network providers have realized that in order to compete more effectively for consumers’ dollars, they have to cooperate.

Under the auspices of Louisville-based industry research center CableLabs, these players have come up with an open standard known as DOCSIS (Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification).

After three years of development, the DOCSIS specification is now an international standard at the International Telecommunications Union, or ITU. It’s also changed its name to the more consumer-friendly “CableLabs Certified.” When shopping for a cable modem, consumers should look for the “CableLabs Certified” sticker (similar to the ubiquitous “Intel Inside”) to be sure the modem they bought in TCI territory also will work in Comcast country.

In March, Thomson Consumer Electronics and Toshiba products became the first to get the “CableLabs Certified” sticker.

“It’s like a UL (Underwriters Laboratories) certification,´ said CableLabs President Richard Green. “We want to send an image of the cable industry as being responsible and standing behind the product in the consumer marketplace.”

Rouzbeh Yassini sees far greater social implications to CableLabs certification. Inventor of the cable modem and founder of LANcity (bought by Bay Networks and now part of Nortel), Yassini is executive consultant to CableLabs.

Standards-based higher bandwidth at lower cost is one thing, Yassini said. But the greater good is that this enables the work-at-home concept where, because of greater bandwidth, there’s less traffic and less pollution.

“In the 20th century we built an oil-based industry, and in the 21st century we can build an information-based industry,” Yassini said. “If it was now 2099, we’d see that the cable modem has enabled this revolution, a bigger revolution than from the invention of the automobile.”

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