With DOCSIS 3.1 strategies in place and deployments well underway, the cable community is now set to focus much more time and effort on virtualization, cloudification, edge computing and open APIs.

But, as we know from the challenges the telcos have faced in recent years, figuring out how to introduce virtual functions and add IT capabilities to existing network architectures is tough. That's why CableLabs is helping to create an SDN and NFV blueprint that cable operators can use as a starting point for their plans and to take to the vendor community.

The cable industry's R&D lab has formed an initiative to create a standard architectural framework for SDN and NFV in cable networks that factors in existing industry specifications from bodies such as the IEEE, IETF and ETSI and highlights what APIs can be used to make virtual and physical elements, edge computing assets, NFVi, MANO and OSS elements work in a next-gen cable network environment.