FW: [EFM] EFM Requirements
Harry, regarding your comment: "The (DOCSIS) protocol is rock solid and it works in millions of CM's deployed."
Rock solid? You have a funny definition of solid. There have been over 300 ECNs (engineering change notices) accepted against it in the past few years, and it is hardly dropping off to a trickle today.
This is attributable to the immense complexity and countless oversights in developing the specs. Even if it were rock solid, this level of complexity is in direct violation of the "minimal augmentation" statement in the EFM PAR Scope.
I am all for reuse if it makes sense. However I have yet to see such an argument that spells out DOCSIS specifics. Clearly you cannot be endorsing DOCSIS to the letter, so what exactly are you endorsing about DOCSIS? Details please, not high-level concepts.
Also, I would feel very sorry for the implementors that were handed the DOCSIS specifications without the benefit of all the DOCSIS old-guard to fill in all the holes that are left out of the specifications. I have seen enough agony from implementors at various companies the are working on DOCSIS product today, that *do* have a few remaining old-guard to ask questions of. Many times their questions are met with "seems obvious to me and it is described in another part of the spec" as the answer.
Often times the apparent reuse is a mirage, and it is better to start from scratch than to end up agonizing over how to stitch several dozen pieces together that have changed interfaces in their new embodiment in a fiber Ethernet network.
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Francois,
Correction: there are more than 2 DOCSIS Si vendors:
- BroadCom
- Connexant
- Texas Instruments
- STMicroelectronics
In addition, Scientific Atlanta and Pacific Broadband have both developed
their own silicon
for DOCSIS 1.0/1.1. The protocol is rock solid and it works in millions of
CM's deployed.
Harry.
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