Cisco Ditches Its Flagship Cable Modem System
Cisco's flagship cable modem termination system (CMTS), the cBR-8, is nearing its end-of-life. The product, once a workhorse for many cable operators, will no longer be available for purchase from Cisco as of July 11, 2026.
Operators who still rely on the cBR-8 are facing important decisions about what to do next. Some are considering migrating to virtual CMTS platforms, while others may try to squeeze more out of their existing equipment or even make a leap to passive optical networking (PON).
Cisco officially launched the cBR-8 in May 2015, touting it as a converged cable access platform that could support multi-gigabit speeds on HFC networks. However, with rising memory costs and the increasing popularity of virtualized platforms, some operators are putting off their migration plans.