CableLabs Prepares to Unveil DOCSIS 3.1 Using OFDM and LDPC to Nab 10 Gbps Down, 2 Gbps Up Light Reading notes that the new standard will likely incorporate suggestions from proposals drafted back in May at The Cable Show, potentially providing a maximum 10 Gbps of bandwidth downstream and 2 Gbps upstream. That will be achieved by utilizing more efficient, non-QAM modulation technologies, including orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM). Combined with Cable Labs is preparing to unveil their plans for the new DOCSIS 3.1 standard at the upcoming Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers (SCTE) Cable-Tec Expo in Orlando on October 18. Jeff Baumgartner atnotes that the new standard will likely incorporate suggestions from proposals drafted back in May at The Cable Show, potentially providing a maximum 10 Gbps of bandwidth downstream and 2 Gbps upstream. That will be achieved by utilizing more efficient, non-QAM modulation technologies, including orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM). Combined with LDPC , a forward error correction (FEC) technique designed to reduce line noise, CableLabs hopes to dramatically increase potential upstream and downstream speeds. An actual usable standard is expected to emerge sometime next year at the earliest.







News Jump Stark New Reality In The Telco Business: Dumb Pipes No Longer Cut It; AT&T Unveils Mix and Match Plans; + more news AT&T Extends Overage Charge Waiver; Verizon And T-Mobile Each Insist Their 5G Strategy Is The Right One; + more news War Of Words Heats Up: T-Mobile Fires Back At Verizon, AT&T; Amazon Intros Gaming Service To Take On Stadia; + more news Starlink's Network Faces Huge Limitations; AT&T Whines T-Mobile Merger Put Too Much Spectrum In One Place; + more news WISPs Get CBRS Range As Great As Six Miles At 100 Mbps Speeds; Windstream Officially Exits Bankruptcy; + more news Charter Relaunches Free 60-day Internet And Wi-Fi Offer; NCTA: FCC Should Stick With 25/3 Speed Threshold; + more news Comcast Shuts Off Internet for Subs Who Were Sold Service Illegally; AT&T, Verizon Team To Stop T-Mobile 5G; + more news California Defends Its Net Neutrality Law; AT&T's Traffic Up 20% Despite Data Traffic Actually Being Down; + more news Are The Comcast-Charter X1 Talks Dead In The Water?; AT&T May Offer Phone Plans With Ads For Discounts; + more news Europe's Top Court: Net Neutrality Rules Bar Zero Rating; ViacomCBS To Rebrand CBS All Access As Paramount+; + more news ---------------------- this week last week most discussed view:

topics flat nest

JigglyWiggly

join:2009-07-12

Pleasanton, CA 1 recommendation JigglyWiggly Member FEC forward error correction

that doesn't mean more ping does it?



if not

gimmie dis shit now rocafellanrd

join:2009-05-04 rocafellanrd Member Re: FEC Yes and no, but it really is the "line noise" that must be worried about. It's always the noise that has to be worried about. HarryH3

Premium Member

join:2005-02-21 HarryH3 Premium Member Will it just be wasted? Too bad most cable operators will just figure out how to share the extra speed among even more users, without a real increase at the endpoint, yet increase rates anyway.

SHoTTa35

@optonline.net SHoTTa35 Anon Re: Will it just be wasted?



So on the typical ISP with an average of say $30-40 for 15Mbps vs $60-70 for 50Mbps - $99-120 for 100Mbps.



Going with the higher ends here:



15Mbps = $40,000/month

50Mbps = $7,000/month

100Mbps = 12,000/month



I'm no MBA CEO having guy but i think it makes more money for them with lease amount of stress on the network.



I do agree with you however that there should be cheaper HIGHER SPEED plans but a guy can only dream 1000 more people with 15Mbps vs 100 people with 50-100Mbps.So on the typical ISP with an average of say $30-40 for 15Mbps vs $60-70 for 50Mbps - $99-120 for 100Mbps.Going with the higher ends here:15Mbps = $40,000/month50Mbps = $7,000/month100Mbps = 12,000/monthI'm no MBA CEO having guy but i think it makes more money for them with lease amount of stress on the network.I do agree with you however that there should be cheaper HIGHER SPEED plans but a guy can only dream brianiscool

join:2000-08-16

Tampa, FL 1 recommendation brianiscool Member Cap You will be capped at 250GB a month. lol

SpaethCo

Digital Plumber

MVM

join:2001-04-21

Minneapolis, MN 3 recommendations SpaethCo MVM Re: Cap This is a new and unique comment never before posted in this kind of thread.



Thank you for sharing it.

Sterling

IP Support Tier III

Premium Member

join:2003-05-30

Pittsburgh, PA Sterling to brianiscool

Premium Member to brianiscool

Apparently some of us, have selective reading skills or are incapable of change. Fortunately Comcast is cable of changing with the times, and has since increased the caps, and may remove the caps all together for the highest tiers.

pnh102

Reptiles Are Cuddly And Pretty

Premium Member

join:2002-05-02

Mount Airy, MD pnh102 Premium Member Pointless Low caps, high prices, and high overages... no reason to bother.

ArrayList

DevOps

Premium Member

join:2005-03-19

Mullica Hill, NJ ArrayList Premium Member Re: Pointless no reason? how about SCIENCE!? that's reason enough to keep the research going. br0adbanddoc

join:2001-12-31

Wilkes Barre, PA br0adbanddoc Member Re: Pointless Great comment, I agree entirely! Os

join:2011-01-26

US 1 recommendation Os to ArrayList

Member to ArrayList

If the ISP's could derail science to avoid ever upgrading their network, they would.



And since we have such robust competition and regulation, who could stop them? majortom1029

join:2006-10-19

Medford, NY majortom1029 Member pipe At what point does it become easier just to give every home one big internet pipe and have the tv, internet , and phone go through that instead of splitting everything into channels?



Cablevisions ipad and iphone app already does this . Just bond the channels in such a way that every house gets a symetrical conenction and the cablemodem per se handles all the routing for voice,data,and tv.

bbeesley

join:2003-08-07

Richardson, TX bbeesley Member Re: pipe said by majortom1029: At what point does it become easier just to give every home one big internet pipe and have the tv, internet , and phone go through that instead of splitting everything into channels? said by majortom1029: Cablevisions ipad and iphone app already does this . Just bond the channels in such a way that every house gets a symetrical conenction and the cablemodem per se handles all the routing for voice,data,and tv.





This isn't a bad thing, bonding of smaller rate channels exists within most networking technologies, both optical and electrical, to some degree and as your Cablevision example provides, is transparent to your home network.



Lastly, your Cablevision example is currently being developed in a CableLabs standard known as "Converged Cable Access Platform" or CCAP. It still uses 6Mhz QAM carriers but all of the video traffic becomes IP much like the Voice and Data traffic already is.



See » because the transmission medium is Coax, they PHY layer will generally specify a radio frequency mechanism. In the US this is NTSC 6Mhz channels because that is what television used to be. The channels are now commonly modulated digitally using QAM but they are still 6Mhz.These IP based aps are still using cable modems which are DOCSIS based and are likely bonding 6Mhz carriers.This isn't a bad thing, bonding of smaller rate channels exists within most networking technologies, both optical and electrical, to some degree and as your Cablevision example provides, is transparent to your home network.Lastly, your Cablevision example is currently being developed in a CableLabs standard known as "Converged Cable Access Platform" or CCAP. It still uses 6Mhz QAM carriers but all of the video traffic becomes IP much like the Voice and Data traffic already is.See » www.motorola.com/staticf ··· S-EN.pdf for an easy to understand run-down and » www.cablelabs.com/specif ··· 0809.pdf for more exacting technical details. majortom1029

join:2006-10-19

Medford, NY majortom1029 Member Re: pipe Cablelabs is developing a channel less standard, well atleast looking into it. IEEE is developing an ethernet over coax standard also.



Anyway with ccap it would allow a much bigger data pipe right ? Since it will free up all the channels for data . tmc8080

join:2004-04-24

Brooklyn, NY tmc8080 Member and the (hardware) vaporware award goes to? as I recall none of the developers talking about bonding 24 - 32 downstream docsis for faster bandwidth using the CURRENT docsis 3.0 modems; so it's highly likely that docsis 3.1 wil use NEW proprietary modems for this new modulation inclusion.



also unknown is can other docsis modulations function on the same coax or must everything else be thrown out to accomodate 3.1? cause if it can't play nice with older modems then EVEYONE's getting the upgrade.. and probably paying for it too.. in the form of higher prices-- not to mention they have to mfg about 30 million modems in the next year-- I suspect they can do this node-by-node rather than the entire network at once so that will help.



How much would faster tiers cost?

It seems reasonable to start somewhere between 150 & 300 megabits for entry level plans. for $30 a month.. if that's the case, 2013's gonna be great provided caps don't ruin the party (or high prices).

tshirt

Premium Member

join:2004-07-11

Snohomish, WA tshirt Premium Member Re: and the (hardware) vaporware award goes to? Yes OFDM require new equipment at both ends (fiber and coax are still fine) and I believe it can (as currently concived) coexist with D3 on different channels making transistion more gradual. of course they have to hammer out a standard,test it, change the standard, test it. this is a few years away. tmc8080

join:2004-04-24

Brooklyn, NY tmc8080 Member Re: and the (hardware) vaporware award goes to? said by tshirt: Yes OFDM require new equipment at both ends (fiber and coax are still fine) and I believe it can (as currently concived) coexist with D3 on different channels making transistion more gradual. of course they have to hammer out a standard,test it, change the standard, test it. this is a few years away.

Companies such as Comcast aren't gonna wait another 2 years, they are already moving forward with FTTP as it's available NOW... the calculus is once google fiber lights up.. Verizon's not gonna wait (very long)to push gigabit plans into the market..

tshirt

Premium Member

join:2004-07-11

Snohomish, WA tshirt Premium Member Re: and the (hardware) vaporware award goes to?

It's to cover the 70% that aren't close enough to the node for the FTTP they offer.

Their current FTTP should cover a lot of small businesses, and in-home offices, and exec,s home account, and those DRIVEN to have the fastest home WOW server , but in the long run if they (remember this is all cable companies AND the same modulation and correction scheme works over fiber and possibly bonded twisted pair ) could offer all sort of users undreamed of speeds, certainly everywhere cable can reach.

and remember how long D3 took even after most decided to skip over D2/D2+ (or whatever it was called) if you see any widespread/major deployment before 5 years I would be suprised, 6-8-10 seems more likely. This is NOT FTTP.It's to cover the 70% that aren't close enough to the node for the FTTP they offer.Their current FTTP should cover a lot of small businesses, and in-home offices, and exec,s home account, and those DRIVEN to have the fastest home WOW server, but in the long run if they (remember this is all cable companies AND the same modulation and correction scheme works over fiber and possibly bonded twisted pair) could offer all sort of users undreamed of speeds, certainly everywhere cable can reach.and remember how long D3 took even after most decided to skip over D2/D2+ (or whatever it was called) if you see any widespread/major deployment before 5 years I would be suprised, 6-8-10 seems more likely. tmc8080

join:2004-04-24

Brooklyn, NY tmc8080 Member Re: and the (hardware) vaporware award goes to? 2 years is possible in competitive markets.. however, all docsis standards have been increasingly long to iron out the UPSTREAM issues.. coax is very good at sending bandwidth signals ONE WAY, but not equally SYMMETRICAL on dozens of frequencies at the same time. as I've said before, it's likely that cable companies will see docsis as too asymmetric going forward.. consumers won't want asymmetrical tiers that create ratios of 10:1 15:1 on bandwidth-- cable companies will have to choose FTTP over coax as the last mile.



cable companies need to be able to get gigabit+ out of the next standard up & down virtually ALL computers made today come with gigabit ethernet ports. it's a shame not to finally take advantage of them with speeds at or above 100 megabits being affordable to the mass consumer. Kearnstd

Space Elf

Premium Member

join:2002-01-22

Mullica Hill, NJ Kearnstd Premium Member Re: and the (hardware) vaporware award goes to? Cable certainly can handle both directions very well. But the problem is in some areas they need FCC permission to shut down the bandwidth hogging analogs. Yep its their network but the FCC somehow legally gets to tell them what they can stop sending over it.



Optimally to extend the life of Coax will be to go completely switched digital video, But then people come out against the box rentals. Which always makes me laugh because any non OTA alternate to cable requires a full box on every TV. sludgehound

join:2007-03-12

New York, NY sludgehound Member TWC plot? Probably designed to keep one on the $4 month DOCSIS 3.0 modems. Users figures why lay out $100+ at BuyMore and

have hard to sell 'now obsolete' device tho will be 5 years until

TWC even gets to 3.1 land. Not even touch 3.0 really.

Idea I guess is one can always dump the lease modem for replacement upgrade vs eating the full buy. Takes what couple years to break even plus hassle of exchange and no support on

own purchase $100+ Motorola one.

Course to get full speeds there's the big hit to monthly bill when

jumping up tiers. rradina

join:2000-08-08

Chesterfield, MO 920.3 39.3

·Charter

1 recommendation rradina Member Why not call this DOCSIS 4? They are changing the modulation standard (PHY). Calling it 3.1 seems like it's just a firmware upgrade when this is a significant change.



Aside from the name, if it's cheaper to replace modems and head units vs. pushing fiber all the way to the customer, why wouldn't cable do this?



What isn't clear is how much spectrum is used for the max speed. Is there room for multiple on the same coax run or does the max speed require all of it? If not, how many on a single coax run and how much room is left for QAM video?



If it's possible to design a couple per node + keep the existing QAM video, cable could gradually evolve into a pure IP data and video solution. Most new TV's support IP video streams, as do desktops, laptops, tablets and even smart phones. Could it happen? Boy, I sure hope so. Of course content providers would have to be convinced of this being sufficiently secure. majortom1029

join:2006-10-19

Medford, NY majortom1029 Member Re: Why not call this DOCSIS 4? said by rradina: They are changing the modulation standard (PHY). Calling it 3.1 seems like it's just a firmware upgrade when this is a significant change.



Aside from the name, if it's cheaper to replace modems and head units vs. pushing fiber all the way to the customer, why wouldn't cable do this?



What isn't clear is how much spectrum is used for the max speed. Is there room for multiple on the same coax run or does the max speed require all of it? If not, how many on a single coax run and how much room is left for QAM video?



If it's possible to design a couple per node + keep the existing QAM video, cable could gradually evolve into a pure IP data and video solution. Most new TV's support IP video streams, as do desktops, laptops, tablets and even smart phones. Could it happen? Boy, I sure hope so. Of course content providers would have to be convinced of this being sufficiently secure.





Also if I read all this right t3.1 will allow parts of it. One thing it states is to move up the channels that upstream can use to 250mhz . As somebody pointed out above they are working on making it all IP. Look up ccap.Also if I read all this right t3.1 will allow parts of it. One thing it states is to move up the channels that upstream can use to 250mhz .

Anon4128

@comcast.net Anon4128 Anon Interesting news But I have to ask, is one of the new features of DOCSIS 3.1 lower bandwidth caps and higher prices? I'm really looking forward to a faster connection and returning to Internet browsing with images, gif's, and video's turned off.



Just like the old times that we all love, hate, yet miss. rradina

join:2000-08-08

Chesterfield, MO rradina Member Re: Interesting news



Oh how I pine for the days of my dial-up shell account. $30/month, e-mail, Usenet newsgroups and LYNX! Long live LYNX! davidhoffman

Premium Member

join:2009-11-19

Warner Robins, GA davidhoffman Premium Member DOCSIS 3.1? This is such a big change, I see them calling it DOCSIS 4.0 when the final adopted standard comes out. The DOCSIS 3.0 name is almost as bad as Windows Vista. Lots of hype and plenty of real world failure, especially in upstream. I see CableLabs wanting to move on from that mess, similar to MS wanting to get away from Vista. Or Chevrolet from the Vega. Or Ford from the Pinto.



As far as using the technology for just adding more users per node, instead of higher speed tiers, I do not see that. I think you will see the elimination of the really low tiers that are only there to compete with ADSL2+. It is silly to see Cox have a 1Mbps down/0.3Mbps up tier in a DOCSIS 3.0 world. It will be even sillier when this new technology is deployed. Offering 24Mbps down/4Mbps up as the bottom tier would be a great way for the cable companies to differentiate themselves from the ADSL2+ telephone companies. They should charge the same constant dollar amount for that service as they do for the 1/0.3 service of today. Just blast the telephone companies with a real value proposition to potential or existing cable HSI subscribers.



Caps will probably increase. I think Comcast and others are going to go the way Cox does. Different caps based on the speed tier you pay for. Plus possibly a standardized overage charge per GB, no matter what tier you subscribe to. The cable companies like the cap clauses. It gives them a relatively easy way to get rid of customers whose activities they may not like. It can be enforced through automatic throttling to dial-up speeds, very large overage charges, or shutting off service.

tshirt

Premium Member

join:2004-07-11

Snohomish, WA tshirt Premium Member Re: DOCSIS 3.1? ) with legacy QAM and narrowband gone.

OR

whatever beats this for less.

Currently they are aiming at a first, expandable, step that can take over and increase upstream.



as seen no this should be more efficient use of bandwidth then greater then 8 downstream channels per node, and 1/2 the power and cooling at the CMTS.

And it echo on down the line. I agree, this is a first step D4 will probably be the 2 way full speed over Epon EpoC epcot(well it was pretty advanced when it opened) with legacy QAM and narrowband gone.ORwhatever beats this for less.Currently they are aiming at a first, expandable, step that can take over and increase upstream.as seen no this should be more efficient use of bandwidth then greater then 8 downstream channels per node, and 1/2 the power and cooling at the CMTS.And it echo on down the line.

IowaCowboy

Supermarket Hero

Premium Member

join:2010-10-16

Springfield, MA IowaCowboy Premium Member Needed for Comcast's 305 Mbps option Comcast is going to offer 305 Mbps Internet and that will require an 8x4 channel bonded DOCSIS 3.0 modem. With DOCSIS 3.1, they'll be able to offer speeds more than 305. buckweet1980

join:2011-12-31

Allen, TX buckweet1980 Member Re: Needed for Comcast's 305 Mbps option Comcast is actually using FTTH for their 1st offering, not coax. It might move to coax down the road though. It's based off their metro-e services right now.

IowaCowboy

Supermarket Hero

Premium Member

join:2010-10-16

Springfield, MA IowaCowboy Premium Member Re: Needed for Comcast's 305 Mbps option I thought Comcast was a FTTN (hybrid fiber coax provider). In our area, they use coax in the last mile (even though the system was rebuilt in 2003). buckweet1980

join:2011-12-31

Allen, TX buckweet1980 Member Re: Needed for Comcast's 305 Mbps option Yes that is true except for the 305Mbps option that the other poster was speaking of.



I think they aren't doing 305Mbps on coax today due to technology maturity?...

buzz_4_20

join:2003-09-20

Biddeford, ME buzz_4_20 Member Upload They will still probably cap the upload at 5m.

rebus9

join:2002-03-26

Tampa Bay rebus9 Member Re: Upload said by buzz_4_20: They will still probably cap the upload at 5m.



You could make Terabit Ethernet for pennies per megabit, and they'd still fabricate some excuse.



The mere notion of caps on wireline services is evil, evil, evil. Huge capacity increases... yet they'll still decry the impending (non-existent) bandwidth crisis to justify the caps.You could make Terabit Ethernet for pennies per megabit, and they'd still fabricate some excuse.The mere notion of caps on wireline services is evil, evil, evil. your comment..

