There is only 37 MHz available for upstream, from 5 MHz to 42 MHz (basic upstream frequncy allocation). There is 890 MHz avilable for downstream, from 112 MHz t

There is only 37 MHz available for upstream, from 5 MHz to 42 MHz (basic upstream frequncy allocation). There is 890 MHz avilable for downstream, from 112 MHz to 1002 MHz. https://www.excentis.com/blog/differences-between-us-docsis-and-eurodocsis-and-will-docsis-31-eliminate-them https://www.excentis.com/blog/differences-between-us-docsis-... Therefore, given that there is 24x more bandwidth in the downstream direction compared to upstream, it would make sense to offer 20:1 or higher ratios of DS:US speed to customers. Of course, if your HFC network is "good", i.e. has less users, you can sell higher speeds, or just grossly over-sell the service and "hope" not everyone uses the upload at the same time. Also, a correction: any given cable modem can support up to 32 bonded downstream channels for ~1200 Mbps per CPE, while the cable itself has capacity for ~130 channels, which is theoretically ~4900 Mbps of usable capacity, if there are no TV channels on the cable. However, there is still about ~200 Mbps of upload bandwidth on the cable for all customers, which is limited by the number of channels in the return path RF range. You can assign multiple customers to a single channel, but you can also segment the channels so that all customers get some channels out of the available range, but not exactly the same ones, which would increase the overall capacity of the network.