5 ms·

Unless I'm missing something about existing coax cable deployments, this would practically force large-scale fiber buildout. Cable isn't built to service symmet

by stu2010 6y ago

Unless I'm missing something about existing coax cable deployments, this would practically force large-scale fiber buildout. Cable isn't built to service symmetrical speeds, and more than that I don't think that most residential workloads benefit significantly from it. I do think that in the era of Zoom, a household could use ~20mbps upload, and I guess if we're trying to be forward looking, 100mbps is a target that's achievable right now (with fiber buildout).

betterunix2 6y ago
"this would practically force large-scale fiber buildout" Sounds good, I think it is pretty obvious that fiber is the future of wired connections. Comcast is already beginning to offer fiber service to achieve symmetric speeds and Verizon is planning a large-scale upgrade of its fiber optic endpoints to offer higher speeds (above gigabit service). If the industry needs a small regulatory nudge to move forward with this, great, let's do it.
jcrawfordor 6y ago
DOCSIS 3.1 is capable of 10gbps down, 1gbps up, and the currently less common 4.0 is capable of 10gbps down and 6gbps up. This is equivalent to and often better than a typical FttH PON media (which in the most common form are capable of 1gbps symmetric per string only). The major constraint preventing high upstream speeds is legacy equipment in cable carrier networks; there is progress on changing this but not especially fast. Regulatory action to require high upstream speeds for broadband incentives could significantly speed things up.
- packetlost 6y ago
  The protocol may support it, but remember that the bandwidth shared across and entire neighborhood or market is still only as good as the CMTS is capable of supporting, which is nowhere near that.
  - jcrawfordor 6y ago
    PON faces the exact same constraint, and because the core of most cable carrier networks is carrier fiber my experience is that new-installation CMTS typically have better transit (multi-gbps fiber) than PON (1gbps fiber common). This is for smaller municipal PON carriers, I know less about major operations like AT&T's and Verizon's.
    - packetlost 6y ago
      You can actually run DOCSIS over fiber too. I used to work for a mid-sized regional ISP that had everything from GPON, to DOCSIS cable, to every flavor of DSL. The backhaul throughput is the constraint everywhere, but so is signal loss over distance. The limiting factor for urban areas is usually oversubscribed and aging equipment (and building out new lines is very hard to do in an already developed area because legal/bureaucratic reasons), and the limiting factor for rural areas is the sheer distance needed to cover to get to maybe a couple dozen potential paying customers. The vast majority of the US is empty/undeveloped space with dozens to hundreds of miles in-between.
  - ip26 6y ago
    The interesting part is that fiber rollout would result in less bandwidth pooling on coax, which would make coax competitive again. I'm projecting it may never entirely go away for this reason- the cables are already buried, and the service will get better as demand decreases.
- benbristow 6y ago
  I'm on Virgin Media in the UK on their 'gigabit' package which runs on DOCSIS 3.1 for downstream but only DOCSIS 3.0 for upstream. https://www.speedtest.net/result/d/82702fa3-6527-442d-b092-98200f43463e.png https://www.speedtest.net/result/d/82702fa3-6527-442d-b092-9... 1000mbps for download and 50mbps for upload. They've always been rubbish with their down/up ratios though. Download speed advertises better than upload.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
Denvercoder9 6y ago
With DOCSIS 3.0 you can get up to 200 Mbit/s upstream, and DOCSIS 3.1 and 4.0 push that even further. There's even DOCSIS FDX (full duplex) that's fully symmetrical. It'll require some investment from the cable companies for sure, but I don't think this will be the end of cable service.
ori_b 6y ago
Sounds like a benefit.

betterunix2 6y ago

"this would practically force large-scale fiber buildout" Sounds good, I think it is pretty obvious that fiber is the future of wired connections. Comcast is already beginning to offer fiber service to achieve symmetric speeds and Verizon is planning a large-scale upgrade of its fiber optic endpoints to offer higher speeds (above gigabit service). If the industry needs a small regulatory nudge to move forward with this, great, let's do it.

jcrawfordor 6y ago

DOCSIS 3.1 is capable of 10gbps down, 1gbps up, and the currently less common 4.0 is capable of 10gbps down and 6gbps up. This is equivalent to and often better than a typical FttH PON media (which in the most common form are capable of 1gbps symmetric per string only). The major constraint preventing high upstream speeds is legacy equipment in cable carrier networks; there is progress on changing this but not especially fast. Regulatory action to require high upstream speeds for broadband incentives could significantly speed things up.

packetlost 6y ago
The protocol may support it, but remember that the bandwidth shared across and entire neighborhood or market is still only as good as the CMTS is capable of supporting, which is nowhere near that.
- jcrawfordor 6y ago
  PON faces the exact same constraint, and because the core of most cable carrier networks is carrier fiber my experience is that new-installation CMTS typically have better transit (multi-gbps fiber) than PON (1gbps fiber common). This is for smaller municipal PON carriers, I know less about major operations like AT&T's and Verizon's.
  - packetlost 6y ago
    You can actually run DOCSIS over fiber too. I used to work for a mid-sized regional ISP that had everything from GPON, to DOCSIS cable, to every flavor of DSL. The backhaul throughput is the constraint everywhere, but so is signal loss over distance. The limiting factor for urban areas is usually oversubscribed and aging equipment (and building out new lines is very hard to do in an already developed area because legal/bureaucratic reasons), and the limiting factor for rural areas is the sheer distance needed to cover to get to maybe a couple dozen potential paying customers. The vast majority of the US is empty/undeveloped space with dozens to hundreds of miles in-between.
- ip26 6y ago
  The interesting part is that fiber rollout would result in less bandwidth pooling on coax, which would make coax competitive again. I'm projecting it may never entirely go away for this reason- the cables are already buried, and the service will get better as demand decreases.
benbristow 6y ago
I'm on Virgin Media in the UK on their 'gigabit' package which runs on DOCSIS 3.1 for downstream but only DOCSIS 3.0 for upstream. https://www.speedtest.net/result/d/82702fa3-6527-442d-b092-98200f43463e.png https://www.speedtest.net/result/d/82702fa3-6527-442d-b092-9... 1000mbps for download and 50mbps for upload. They've always been rubbish with their down/up ratios though. Download speed advertises better than upload.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

Denvercoder9 6y ago

With DOCSIS 3.0 you can get up to 200 Mbit/s upstream, and DOCSIS 3.1 and 4.0 push that even further. There's even DOCSIS FDX (full duplex) that's fully symmetrical. It'll require some investment from the cable companies for sure, but I don't think this will be the end of cable service.

ori_b 6y ago

Sounds like a benefit.