Special Report: DOCSIS 3.1

DOCSIS 31 Special Report Cable MSOs Vendors Detail Deployment Plans Joyce Wang Senior Editor Its an exciting year for cable as the industry readies its transition to DOCSIS 31 capable of delivering greater capacity and speed with support for up to 50 more data throughput over the same spectrum With many initial DOCSIS 31 field tests taking place last year operators and vendors are working together to turn on their 31 gears and enable new services by yearend And everyone is doing it a little differently aimed to increase the density of its E6000 to support DOCSIS 31 on even more radio frequency ports and to support the expected MSO nodesplits of the future Cloonan said The vendor also is working on remote PHY systems that will offer DOCSIS 31 capabilities for Distributed Access Architecture DAA environments DAA enables cable operators to grow their broadband offerings without the expense of building out their Comcasts strategy is driven by its primary analog optic network goal which is to deploy DOCSIS 31 through Arris tier 1 cable MSO clients include Comout its network as quickly as possible Tony cast and Charters Time Warner Cable It also Werner president of technology and product acquired cloud video firm ActiveVideo through told us The MSO already has rolled out ad a joint venture with Charter whose acquivanced consumer trials of 31powered gigabit sition of TWC was approved by the FCC in service in Atlanta and Nashville and is expand May ARRIS is working closely with MSOs ing the service to Chicago Detroit and Miami to help them identify and refine their HFC Weve been encouraged by the performance plant evolution strategies In addition Arris weve seen in our initial employee trials and is participating with MSOs as they perform are excited to continue expanding DOCSIS earlystage field testing Cloonan said 31 going forward he said The company will He noted that earlystage MSOs that are perbe deploying 31 on a marketbymarket ba forming DOCSIS 31 field deployments tend sis Since 31 requires no digging and uses to focus on downstream deployments first to communications lines already in customers help with expected downstream bandwidth homes new markets can be launched with litgrowth in the near future In addition many tle to no disruption Werner noted MSOs use various techniques such as analog Vendors such as Arris also expect commer reclamation and nodesplits to free up space cial 31 deployments this year Going into in the upper portions of their spectrum to 2017 the number of deployments will rapidly place their first DOCSIS 31 OFDM channels rise according to Tom Cloonan CTO Net and then plan to gradually increase the numworks Solutions Arris a driving force be ber of 31 channels over time Some MSOs hind the original 31 proposal to MSOs and will do this by moving the future 31 channels CableLabs is working on nextgen systems into lower portions of the spectrum Oth 29268 ers will increase their spectral widths to 12 GHz to make room for the new 31 channels DOCSIS 31 Upstream channels will also be added in the near future Cloonan said Bastian However to fully leverage all that 31 has to offer operators should consider going fiberdeeper because shorter coax segments yield better SignaltoNoise Ratio SNR which in turn can support higher modulation profiles he said Many operators are also considering distributed access architecture which puts the PHY layer out in the fiber node The key to deploying DOCSIS 31 is to develop a 31 spectrum allocation plan and make sure the plant is as clean as possible he said Working with tier 1 cable ops Cisco has had early engagement field trials Its happening pretty fast said John Chapman CTO cable access business unit We are moving to execution phase this year with DOCSIS 31 The goal is to enable gigabit services in a short period of time to cable subs said Venkat Krishnamurthy director of software development with the longterm goal to enable multigiga To ensure a smooth transition Bastian adbit services allowing MSOs to compete with vises operators focus on these elements as fibertothehome deployment they implement 31 Use CableLabs certiCisco is working with MSOs on lab and fied equipment clear spectrum to support field trials on downstream 31 capabilities 31 qualify the outside plant test which 31 Krishnamurthy noted that several operator modulation profiles can be supported encustomers are interested in providing com sure the backoffice provisioning and billing mercial 31 services very soon The whole can support 31 and finally implement 31ecosystem is coming together he said In compliant operations support systems and terms of MSOs deployment strategy Krish network management systems namurthy said ops need to figure out where they can get dedicated spectrum for 31 The key to transition to 31 is the ability to free up spectrum and deliver high bandwidth services to new modems while maintaining 30 services he said Chapman noted we have seen a shift in how MSOs are using spectrum While todays spectrum is used for video content ops are looking to decrease their video channel lineup to make more room for DOCSIS he said noting that because most settops today have builtin IP capabilities transitioning video services to DOCSIS doesnt require a major upgrade The migration has already started Because DOCSIS 31 is backward compatible with 30 operators can simply allocate HFC spectrum to the 31 channels upgrade the CMTS to 31 deploy 31 CPE and away they go said SCTE CTO Chris CableLabs is looking to leverage DOCSIS 31 technology to support symmetric multiGigabit service over the cable network During its 2016 Winter Conference CableLabs announced a Full Duplex DOCSIS technology that applies emerging wireless network technology to increase upstream speeds for DOCSISbased broadband service The development is expected to see DOCSIS 31 network performance of up to 10 Gbps symmetrical on 1 GHz HFC networks with the potential for even better performance by using spectrum currently available for future expansion above 1 GHz CableLabs is looking to collaborate with its members and vendors to further validate the technology in the next few months said Belal Hamzeh CableLabs vp of wireless technologies The innovation effort could potentially transition into an RD project open to all interested participants