Here's an industrially trending topic: Broadband speeds. We had the January 2013 FCC mandate for at least one Gigabit community in all 50 states by this year. We have Google's continued Gigabit push, expected to roll into 18 more cities this year. The National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA) is leading broadband expansion into 93% of U.S. cable homes, while driving initiatives to triple broadband speeds, and further the industry's leadership and innovation in broadband.

This isn't the easiest mandate, for service providers. Recall that broadband consumption continues to grow at 50% year-over-year.. And coming up fast are the things of the Internet of Everything, which put another multiplier on broadband consumption.

In short, and whether or not you believe Gigabit services are more "billboard speeds" right now, the Internet needs to go faster..and faster. That's why you'll be hearing so much from us this week at INTX about our new cBR-8 - the industry's first platform with the speed and capacity to deliver (not just test!) 10Gbps DOCSIS 3.1 and capable of supporting scaled deployments of bouquets of DOCSIS 3.0, DOCSIS 3.1, and converged data/video services.

That's tech-talk for super fast, available, and effective broadband - without the unpopular "forklift upgrade." We designed the cBR-8 that way on purpose, with three sustaining project goals: 1) massive bandwidth, 2) delivered cost-effectively, to 3) enable our customers a rapid market-entry with reliably competitive broadband products.

Here's what the cBR-8 brings to the broadband table:

• The ability for service providers to deliver Gigabit and Multi-Gig services, without forklift upgrades
• Field trials of DOCSIS 3.1 this year and deployments next (again without forklift upgrades!)
• A deployment plan that works on existing HFC plant
• A high-density, high-capacity design that slashes operational expenses, rack space and power consumption
• Convergence of video and DOCSIS 3.0 and 3.1 onto one high capacity all-IP platform we call "Evolved CCAP" (see related blog).
• A platform with the future of Cable access designed in -distributed CCAP, node-as-a-platform, SDN virtual CCAP and integration into an integrated multi-access network are all designed in

Without question, the cBR-8 is the lynchpin of our multi-access strategy for cable, which includes PON, Wi-Fi, SDN, and the ultimate path to network function virtualization. That said, innovations like Evolved CCAP and the cBR-8 aren't exactly easy to describe in words. Better to come see it - we're on the INTX floor in booth#523. Come by for some Gigs! We'll show you how and where the cBR-8 will take the industry's broadband speeds.

Tweet us @CiscoSPVideo if you any questions about#cBR8.