DOCSIS Archives

14 08, 2012

DOCSIS Security | Uncapping Cable Modems

Mia Colabrese2012-08-14T10:57:21-04:00August 14th, 2012|

So what is uncapping cable modems? Uncapping cable modems refers to activities performed to alter a DOCSIS cable modems settings. Plain and simple someone is messing with the cable modem's configuration file to get what they want. So what do they want? Greater bandwidth (the need for speed), wanting more than one public IP, or any other configurable options a DOCSIS modem can offer. Maybe they just want to prove they can do it and or feel they are getting the shaft from their cable provider. Really the psychology of people is

5 07, 2012

Subscribers get lower data rates than provisioned?

Mia Colabrese2020-06-09T09:36:58-04:00July 5th, 2012|

Why do my DOCSIS subscribers and their Cable Modems get lower speeds than what my DOCSIS config file says they should get? This is a common question that I am asked and it has more than one answer. All too often the RF plant is the first to blame for low DOCSIS cable modem speeds, but in many cases the root cause of the problem can be traced back to the cable modem configuration file and/or the lack of appropriate speed test applications in the headend. Also, some

20 06, 2012

Anga Cable 2012 – Tech Reviews

Mia Colabrese2020-08-06T11:32:53-04:00June 20th, 2012|

Anga Cable 2012 Full of Cool Tech If you missed this years Anga Cable 2012, fear not we attended and interviewed the new, innovative and coolest of the cool technology on the floor. In the coming weeks we will be covering a number of the top pics from the show including some sweet test equipment, hot cable modems, intelligent mapping applications, set tops you'll want in your home, and more. What is Anga Cable? If you are not familiar with Anga Cable, it is the European version of

15 05, 2012

SCTE DOCSIS 3.0 Presentation Blacksburg, VA

Mia Colabrese2012-05-15T09:30:18-04:00May 15th, 2012|

DOCSIS 3.0 Troubleshooting, SCTE Blacksburg, VA View more presentations from The Volpe Firm, Inc.

2 05, 2012

Why is QAM Getting Me Down?

Mia Colabrese2021-08-18T09:11:04-04:00May 2nd, 2012|

64-QAM lower than Analog video on the downstream? 64-QAM lower than 16-QAM on the upstream? Why is a 6.4 MHz channel lower than a 3.2 MHz DOCSIS channel? Someone said there is math for all of this, but man QAM is getting me down! These questions come up in every lecture I give on DOCSIS. Why do QAM measurements show up at different levels on a spectrum analyzer than analog measurements. What's more, why do QAM signals of different bandwidth have different levels? Some of the questions have

29 02, 2012

Impact of Impulse Noise on Adaptive Pre-Equalization

Mia Colabrese2021-11-24T09:26:04-05:00February 29th, 2012|

For those of you who have attended my seminars you are familiar with adaptive pre-equalization in cable modems (if not I'll explain it in detail momentarily). Also, if you have done any amount of RF plant troubleshooting you are certainly familiar with Impulse noise (again, I'll cover this too). But if you are like me, I never knew that the two topics were co-related.

27 02, 2012

DOCSIS 3.0 Cable Modem Registration

Mia Colabrese2021-08-17T16:15:14-04:00February 27th, 2012|

This article will discuss the channel bonding process and ultimately the DOCSIS 3.0 cable modem registration process. In order to be able to understand this article, I will make many references to my prior article on Cable Modem Registration which focused on DOCSIS 1.x and 2.0 cable modems.

26 01, 2012

Advanced Troubleshooting in a DOCSIS 3.0 Plant

Mia Colabrese2020-07-02T17:55:04-04:00January 26th, 2012|

If you missed the SCTE Cable-Tec 2011, I am making available my presentation and white paper on Advanced Troubleshooting in a DOCSIS 3.0 Plant. Each speaker had only 20 minutes to cover topics that could easily last hours, so the presentations are understandably brief. Below you will find my presentation in "Slideshare" for online viewing as well as a fully downloadable PowerPoint version. The PowerPoint version also has reader notes attached at the bottom of each slide which you may find useful. In addition, the animations work a little better in the downloadable version.

7 12, 2011

DOCSIS 3.0 Partial Service

Mia Colabrese2021-08-17T10:25:49-04:00December 7th, 2011|

Partial Service is a new term encountered in the DOCSIS 3.0 MULPI specification and realized in field deployments of DOCSIS 3.0 cable modems using upstream bonding. This was a topic that I touched on in this years SCTE Cable-Tec Expo, but will explore in greater detail in this article. Partial service can be considered a feature because the cable modem will stay online even when one or more upstream transmit channels goes offline.

23 11, 2011

Fresh Tech | Intraway Secures DOCSIS

Mia Colabrese2020-07-02T16:34:58-04:00November 23rd, 2011|

I first heard of Intraway's products through a LinkedIn request to talk about DOCSIS security from Intraway's CEO, Leandro Rzezak. This immediately peaked my interest becuase today our DOCSIS networks are inherently insecure and many are unaware of this. What do I mean by insecure? No, not crying and sniffling in a corner. They are open to theft of service, illegal intercept of the data transmitted, illegal wiretapping of phone calls, etc. Even with Baseline Privacy Interface Specification (BPI+) DOCSIS is quite hackable as evidenced on a number of well known hacking sites. The cool factor in the Fraud & Network Usage Control module offered by Intraway is that they have developed effective algorithms which sit on-top of the most used provisioning systems, Cisco's CNR and Incognito's BCC.