By David McIntosh, Maria Stachelek, CableLabs
This paper provides a high-level overview of the PacketCable IP-based services delivery architecture as well as a more detailed discussion of the PacketCable Event Messages framework used to track access network resources used by those services. The cable plant has experienced significant upgrades in the past several years allowing for the delivery of advanced broadband services. The DOCSISTM 1.1 specification defines the robust, highly reliable, and highly-efficient broadband transport mechanism necessary to support time-critical services such as voice. The PacketCable architecture is a multimedia services delivery platform, layered over the DOCSIS 1.1 access network, designed to support a wide variety of quality-of-service (QoS) enabled IP-based services. The end-to-end architecture as designed[1][6], offers a complete system that includes: device provisioning, signaling, event messaging, configuration management, QoS, and security. These services are managed by specific servers and network endpoints that collectively create a PacketCable network. Voice over IP (VoIP) is the first service identified for delivery over the PacketCable architecture. Additional non-voice services are also being analyzed as candidate services for delivery over the PacketCable architecture. Examples of these beyondvoice services include multi-player gaming, videoconferencing, and unified messaging. The PacketCable Event Messages framework supports collection of information necessary to create a PSTN style call detail record (CDR) that may be used for purposes of customer billing, settlements, traffic