CED Magazine has a big issue on DOCSIS 3.0, the 100 Mbps cable modem spec from CableLabs. BigBand Networks demonstrated downstream data delivery rates in excess of 100 Mbps using their Cuda headend delivered to a Pace Micro DOCSIS 3.0 cable modem prototype at the IBC show in Amsterdam last month.
But don’t hold your breath - deployments of DOCSIS 3.0 remain several years away, says CED Magazine.
ABI Research predicts that DOCSIS 3.0 headend penetration will only reach about 60 percent by 2011 with penetration of home DOCSIS 3.0 gear just under 40 percent by then although some analysts predict that DOCSIS 3.0 will be a boon for equipment suppliers as soon as 2007.
Cable Labs says DOCSIS 3.0 will increase the capacity to a minimum of 160 Mbps (downstream to customers) and by a minimum of 120 Mbps (upstream). Chip makers like TI, Broadcom and Conexant are hot on the trail. Motorola hopes to have 3.0 CMTS silicon in-hand by Q3 2007. Then it will take another year before a product will be ready for full qualification testing.
Channel bonding is the key to faster speeds. Some operators may leverage pre-3.0 channel bonding to meet competition in pockets where telcos operate fiber-to-the-premises (FTTP) networks.
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What’s in DOCSIS 3.0?
Channel bonding: The spec calls for at least four downstream and four upstream channels, though a variety of configurations, to bond multiple 6 MHz channels for data. More bandwidth up: The upstream frequency band has been extended from 5-42 MHz to 5-88 MHz. Now 88 MHz serves as the split between the upstream and downstream. This essentially doubles the spectrum available for upstream channel bonding, IPv6: IPv6 is a next-gen addressing scheme that will live alongside the current generation of IP devices as the pool of existing IPv4 addresses exhausts itself E-router: A developing spec that will turn the 3.0 modem into a router and do away with the NAT (network address translation) headache Enhanced IP multicast: This will enable the ability to provision and manage IP multicast, and allow customers to subscribe to a session, and to allocate the proper amount of bandwidth for that particular session. This will allow the operator to provision and manage the IP connection. Enhanced security: Supports AES traffic encryption, which is stronger than DES, and could solve the modem cloning problem. SOURCE: CED Magazine |
Shaw Communications of Canada has proclaimed support for DOCSIS 3.0, issuing a statement in mid-August that it is committed to implementing it “as quickly as possible.”
Getting there is the trick, says CED. Operators are expected to start with a subset of DOCSIS 3.0 features. Topping the priority list: downstream channel bonding and IPv6.
The common prediction is that each household will need enough bandwidth to support at least two HD streams, IP-based video and music and voice-over-IP telephony.
“By 2010, you’re going to have to be able to provide 25 to 50 megabits per second to each home,” says Mark Milinkovich, Cisco Systems’ director of service provider solutions marketing. “Each home may consume a terabyte a month of games, movies and other media. Twenty homes will equal the entire Internet backbone of 1995.”
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