DOCSIS Archives

14 05, 2020

Plant Balancing in Distributed Access Architecture- Part Two

Mia Colabrese2021-08-17T10:45:06-04:00May 14th, 2020|

Plant Balancing in a Distributed Access Architecture (DAA) Part Two This is episode 59 of Get Your Tech On, our show on All Things DOCSIS. I'm Brady Volpe, Founder of The Volpe Firm and Nimble This. John Downey is with me today. John is CMTS Technical Leader at Cisco Systems, welcome John. Recap from last week: Balancing the plant is not the same in a distributed access architecture network When you migrate to Remote PHY - you lose analog video channels and those important analog test signals

19 12, 2019

DOCSIS Evolution

Mia Colabrese2021-08-15T18:29:09-04:00December 19th, 2019|

Where we were and where we are going Hello Everyone. This is episode 54 of Get Your Tech On, our show on All Things DOCSIS. I'm Brady Volpe, Founder of The Volpe Firm and Nimble This. John Downey is with me and also CMTS Technical Leader at Cisco Systems, welcome John. Today we are going to discuss DOCSIS Evolution But first from watchers: This is in reference to another episode (52) where we were discussing another viewer’s (Jessie) issues with Hitron modems: Jason writes: Hey there! I watch the

28 05, 2019

FDX More Options for Operators

Mia Colabrese2019-05-28T11:11:54-04:00May 28th, 2019|

The full duplex (FDX) DOCSIS extension to the DOCSIS 3.1 specification has been finalized in Annex J of that spec. What does this mean? A major goal of FDX DOCSIS is the ability to deliver symmetrical data speeds up to 10 Gbps in hybrid fiber/coax (HFC) networks. How does it work? I covered some of this in the Spring 2018 issue of Broadband Library on FDX which you can find here: https://broadbandlibrary.com/full-duplex-docsis/ and will further explore the benefits of FDX now. Why FDX Now? Why am I focusing

26 02, 2019

What Can DOCSIS PNM Do For Me?

Mia Colabrese2020-06-11T11:10:05-04:00February 26th, 2019|

It's a Question You Might Ask Yourself Proactive network maintenance (PNM) has been steadily growing in acceptance and popularity over the past several years with adoption amongst cable operators from Tier 1 such as Comcast all the way to the smallest Tier 4 operators — both in the U.S. and internationally — as a tool for optimizing their work force and improving subscriber quality of experience (QoE). No longer is it seen as a shiny gimmick or a novelty to detect the poltergeist in the network before it

14 12, 2018

Demystifying OOB and R-PHY

Mia Colabrese2020-04-02T12:21:56-04:00December 14th, 2018|

Benefits and Limitations, Choose your R-PHY Wisely In this article we dive into Data-Over-Cable Service Interface Specifications (DOCSIS) remote PHY (R-PHY) testing challenges and how these can be overcome using out-of-band (OOB) channel communications. Test and Measurement Challenges with R-PHY Let’s understand the fundamental challenges with testing in an R-PHY world. Today’s radio frequency (RF) test equipment, such as sweep, return path monitoring, and leakage is based on analog signals. Figure 1 illustrates how typical headend / hub test equipment signals traditionally flow to or from an analog

10 09, 2018

Optimizing the DOCSIS Upstream

Mia Colabrese2018-09-10T08:37:20-04:00September 10th, 2018|

Data-Over-Cable Service Interface Specifications (DOCSIS) version 3.1 offers a host of exciting possibilities and realities for cable operators. I have covered many of these topics in previous articles but the one thing that cannot be overlooked is the basics. It doesn’t matter how great these new technologies are if you do not pay attention to the foundation. It’s not any different than a house. If your foundation isn’t solid who cares if you have the best theater system in it. It can crumble under foot if the foundation

1 06, 2018

It’s All About FEC

Mia Colabrese2018-06-01T08:21:05-04:00June 1st, 2018|

We have all heard the stories of how well DOCSIS 3.1 is working. Perhaps your system has been involved in one of these stories too. One thing is true, DOCSIS 3.1 is working really well — even better than we had anticipated. Here is why DOCSIS 3.1 is working really well — it is all about forward error correction (FEC). [For the purpose of this article we will only discuss error correction in the downstream] Reed Solomon forward error correction (RS-FEC) has been used in all previous generations

20 02, 2018

Full Duplex DOCSIS

Mia Colabrese2020-04-02T12:23:26-04:00February 20th, 2018|

Putting the symmetry in DOCSIS and enabling increased bandwidth and speed. Why does symmetry matter you ask, especially in broadband? Well you have symmetry in fiber. Big deal, right? Yes, now FDX allows for coax to do something that it could never do before, have symmetry just like fiber. So FDX continues the alphabet soup of our industry but through symmetry allows for increased broadband and speed in coax. So let’s take another bite of the alphabet soup together. In my last article I covered remote PHY (R-PHY)

14 02, 2018

There’s an app for that…

Mia Colabrese2018-02-14T13:11:22-05:00February 14th, 2018|

DOCSIS 3.1 has gone from concept to silicon. Proactive Network Maintenance (PNM) is emerging as a staple in the industry, and we are seeing the cable rapidly evolving into an app-driven industry. It’s an exciting time to be in cable! In my last article I mentioned how ‘everything is becoming an app’. This has been mentioned recently in numerous articles. The typical subscriber - maybe even you - really likes the concept of apps. Think of how Netflix has transformed our industry. Netflix is really an app that

4 12, 2017

Remote-PHY and Full Duplex DOCSIS

Mia Colabrese2020-07-01T15:40:40-04:00December 4th, 2017|

Show Me The Money! Remote-PHY and Full Duplex DOCSIS Doesn’t the cable industry just love initialisms and acronyms? Just as you thought you were getting your mind around DOCSIS 3.1 the industry continues to move forward and drop a bunch more terms like remote-PHY (R-PHY) and full duplex (FDX) DOCSIS. I like soup, but we need a decoder ring for the alphabet soup we are eating. Don’t get me wrong, this is great stuff and awesome technology. CableLabs recently updated the DOCSIS 3.1 PHY specification to include FDX.