The Next Generation Cable Network: DOCSIS 3.0 [34:20] - a podcast by Gordon F Snyder Jr and Michael Qaissaunee

Title: The Next Generation Cable Network: DOCSIS 3.0

Intro: The
first DOCSIS standard, short for Data Over Cable Service Interface
Specifications, standard was released by the company Cable Labs in
1997. In this podcast we take a look at the history of these
standards and discuss DOCSIS 3.0 – the emerging standard in the
cable industry.

Mike:
Gordon, can you give us a brief history of the first DOCSIS
standards?

Gordon
– just covers up to 2.0

Mike:
What are “tiered services??

Tiered
services is business jargon for providing a service (such as telecom
connectivity or cable channel service) according to separate,
incrementally distinct quality and pay levels, or "tiers."
We’re seeing this term used a lot recently in political debate
regarding “net neutrality?.

Mike:
Can you tell us a little more about DOCSIS 3.0?

Sure
– in a nutshell it’s bigger, better, faster… It’s
a needed response to products from competitors like Verizon with FIOs
FTTH product and AT&T with the FTTN Lightspeed product. It’s
triple play broadband – voice video and data.

DOCSIS
3.0:

-
Much higher bandwidth through channel bonding

-
Starts at 160 Mbps Downstream, 60 Mbps Upstream and goes up from
there

   -
TI just rolled out their Puma 5 chip set a couple of weeks ago for
cable modems. The chipset supports new DOCSIS 3.0 features, such as
channel bonding, enable ultra high
downstream bandwidth rates of at least 160 Mbps in the residential data
and voice services configuration and 320 Mbps in video and business
services configuration. In addition Puma 5 also supports greater
quality of service with IPv6 and security
with Advanced Encryption Standard (AES).

-
Multiple 6 MHz (or 8 MHz) channels are bound, treating them logically
as one

• Channel
  bonding in both upstream and downstream

  
  
  

-
IPv6 for advanced networking capabilities

-
Expanded address space (2128 or 3.4 dodecillion)

• Improved
  operational capabilities

  
  
  

Mike:
How will IPv6 be rolled out?

There’s
a lot of speculation now but it looks like it will be in to phases.
John T. Chapman and Shalabh Goel from Cisco Systems have an
interesting piece we’ve got linked in the shownotes
(http://www.cable360.net/ct/sections/features/20942.html
)

“The
initial deployment phase allows the cable operator to set up an IPv6
control and management plane for managing the cable modems, set-top
boxes, and multimedia terminal adapters (MTAs) with a cost-effective
upgrade. In a subsequent deployment phase, cable operators can offer
IPv6 directly to the home network. Many new devices are already IPv6
capable, and cable operators could soon be running the largest IPV6
networks in the world.?

Mike:
What are some other key features of DOCSIS 3.0?

Other
key related DOCSIS 3.0 features, which may be migrated over time,
include:

• Enhanced
security, including advanced encryption standard (AES), security
provisioning and theft of service features;

• An
upstream frequency range extension to 85 MHz and a downstream
frequency extension to 1 GHz that allows an operator to add existing
capacity with plant upgrades at a later date;

• Enhanced
plant diagnostic features, including a cable modem diagnostic log,
enhanced signal quality monitoring, extension of IP data record
(IPDR) usage and capacity management.

Mike:
How about the commercial services?

(from:
http://www.cable360.net/ct/sections/features/20942.html)

DOCSIS
3.0 specifications define two technologies for business services over
DOCSIS: layer 2 virtual private networks (VPNs) and T-1 circuit
emulation.

Business
users will be able to videoconference from their PCs and PDAs and tap
into corporate networks through VPNs; residential customers will
subscribe to video-on-demand (VOD) and IP telephony services with low
latency and minimum packet loss; and users everywhere will be able to
upload and download files at much greater broadband speeds.

Mike:
When will it be available?

• Comcast
  demo’ed 150 Mbps at the May 14, 2007 Cable Show in Las Vegas.

  
  
  

• “The
  Associated Press described a demo in which a 30-second, 300MB
  television commercial was downloaded in a few seconds, while a
  standard cable modem took 16 minutes?.
  

  
  
  

• “Also
  downloaded, in less than four minutes, was the full 32-volume
  Encyclopedia Britannica 2007 and Merriam-Webster’s visual
  dictionary. With a standard cable modem, that download would have
  taken three hours and 12 minutes (dialup would have taken 2 weeks)?.

  
  
  

• “Comcast
  is currently trialing this in the Boston area. In one trial, the
  cable operator will set up an IP video headend to experiment with
  carrying voice, video and data over a single IP connection?.
  

  
  
  

According
to FierceIPTV
(http://www.fierceiptv.com/story/comcast-to-trial-docsis-3.0-iptv/2007-05-08
):

“Comcast's
planned converged-services trial will take place in a system that
serves 50,000 homes, and will include an IP-video headend and DOCSIS
3.0 STBs, as well as the Slingbox from Sling Media, dual mode
WiFi-cellular handsets and mobile phones capable of playing video.?

According
to Chapman and Goel: The industry consensus is that fully compliant
DOCSIS 3.0 CMTS* implementations will be available in 2008 to 2009.
Many cable operators will require the most critical DOCSIS 3.0
features, such as downstream channel bonding and IPv6, far earlier.
To meet this demand, many vendors’ CMTS products now include
early implementations of such a subset of DOCSIS 3.0 features.

*
CMTS: A cable modem termination system or CMTS is equipment typically
found in a cable company's headend, or at cable company hubsite and
is used to provide high speed data services, such as cable internet
or Voice over IP, to cable subscribers.

In
order to provide these high speed data services, a cable company will
connect its headend to the Internet via very high capacity data
links, also known as a circuit (canonical form of telecommunication
circuit), to a network service provider. On the subscriber side of
the headend, the CMTS enables the communication with subscribers'
cable modems. Different CMTSs are capable of serving different cable
modem population sizes - ranging from 4,000 cable modems to 150,000
or more. A given headend may have between half a dozen to a dozen or
more CMTSs to service the cable modem population served by that
headend.

One
way to think of a CMTS is to imagine a router with Ethernet
interfaces (connections) on one side and coax RF interfaces on the
other side. The RF/coax interfaces carry RF signals to and from the
subscriber's cable modem. (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CMTS
)

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