Vecima notches record quarter as Casa auction looms

Fueled by cable operators' distributed access architecture (DAA) upgrades, Vecima Networks notched record revenues in its fiscal third quarter.

Vecima posted fiscal Q3 revenues of $80.1 million Canadian dollars (US$58.86 million), beating year-ago revenues of C$78.3 million ($57.54 million), and C$62.0 million ($45.56 million) in the prior quarter. Sales of the company's Entra-branded DAA products jumped 69% to C$60.9 million ($47.75 million).

Vecima ended the quarter with 113 cable operator "engagements" worldwide, up from 106 in the year-ago quarter, with 58 ordering Entra products.

The quarter saw a "sharp ramp" of sales of Vecima's ERM-3 remote PHY node to Charter Communications as part of the operator's hybrid fiber/coax (HFC) network upgrade initiative, Vecima CEO Sumit Kumar said Wednesday on the company's earnings call.

'Major' revenue opportunity

Charter will be using Vecima's remote PHY node for a "substantial portion" of its footprint-wide DAA upgrade, Kumar said. But he didn't specify an exact amount.

"As such, it represents a major, multi-year revenue opportunity for Vecima," Kumar explained.

Vecima said it also scored certification of its EN9000 Generic Access Platform (GAP) node with a "leading tier 1 customer." GAP nodes rely on SCTE-based standards for the housings and service modular interfaces.

Related:Vecima enters the vCMTS game

Initial GAP nodes are expected to support DOCSIS and PON service modules, with the potential to tack on wireless service modules for Wi-Fi and 5G. Vecima didn't say which operator certified its new node, but Charter is considered the primary champion of GAP, which will be used by some operators in new deployments and for upgrades of legacy, proprietary nodes.

Kumar said he expects Vecima's GAP node to start to contribute in a "meaningful way" during the calendar year. "The vision of the long-term, multi-decade living node is coming to fruition within GAP," he said.

Looming Casa cable asset auction

Vecima's Q3 revenue record comes about as Vecima looks to gain control of the cable assets of Casa Systems through a $20 million stalking horse bid. Those Casa assets include nodes, cable modem termination systems (CMTSs) and a virtual CMTS.

Vecima has also developed its own vCMTS, putting it in competition in the category against Harmonic, the leader in the market, and CommScope. Kumar said a vCMTS lab trial with an unnamed major cable operator is underway and that field trials are expected to commence in Q4 2024.

Kumar didn't elaborate much on the proposed bid, other than to say he believes Vecima is the right fit for Casa's cable assets.

Related:Casa Systems to sell off its cable and 5G core/RAN businesses

At last check, an auction for Casa's cable assets (if necessary) will start the morning of May 29.

It's not clear whether Vecima will face any competitive bids, though Technetix CEO Paul Broadhurst told Light Reading last month he was considering making one.