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Most cable carriers, prominently Comcast, have issues with legacy channel allocations (e.g. for the On Demand feature for legacy Motorola STBs) that conflict wi

Most cable carriers, prominently Comcast, have issues with legacy channel allocations (e.g. for the On Demand feature for legacy Motorola STBs) that conflict with the channel allocations required for the higher upstream speeds supported by DOCSIS 3.0 and 3.1. This results in a de facto situation of upstream speeds being constrained to only a very small portion of the up to 2gbps upstream capability of 3.1, due to only having typically 3 QAM channels for upstream. Unfortunately, eliminating these issues requires large-scale replacement of not just equipment in the field (nodes and amplifiers which are broadly all being replaced anyway to support Node+Zero architecture) but equipment in customer homes: the legacy STBs. Cable carriers have found in the past that getting people to turn these in to swap out for newer models is excessively expensive in customer goodwill, and less so cost, so there's a major technical disincentive to such a change.

SaltyBackendGuy 6y ago
Sounds like an operational risk on an RCM somewhere in the ivory tower. Instead it's cheaper to stay competitive through regulatory capture. I wish bribing politicians was more expensive than providing a better product </r>
- ta8645 6y ago
  So we need to elect greedier politicians who wont accept a pittance as a bribe. </s>
  - ethbr0 6y ago
    Or just create a system that selects from a pool of already independently wealthy candidates.
    - LordDragonfang 6y ago
      People don't become "independently wealthy" by saying no to money, they do it by grasping at every bit they can. Wealth is positively, not inversely, correlated to greed. We literally just saw what happens when you put an "independently wealthy" in the oval office, he took a 10 million dollar bribe to greenlight an oil pipeline. Cap political donations per person and ban corporate donations. Money is not, and should not be legally considered, speech.
      - ethbr0 6y ago
        So... we should select politicians from the poor, then?
knodi 6y ago
Comcast not only has the man power but money to make this happen.
- jdxcode 6y ago
  and decades of lead time since they've been doing cable internet
908B64B197 6y ago
> Cable carriers have found in the past that getting people to turn these in to swap out for newer models is excessively expensive in customer goodwill, and less so cost, so there's a major technical disincentive to such a change. I wish carriers would have a different brand for "enthusiasts". The type of customer who won't mind going to his back-panel and swapping equipment if the rest of the network supports it.
- technofiend 6y ago
  They sort of support "pro" users, but at a premium. Comcast's 1GB package is somewhere between $80 and $100 depending on contract duration and payment options. 2GB internet is $299/mo plus $1k in installation fees! But at least in the review I read it's symmetrical. https://www.xfinity.com/support/articles/requirements-to-run-xfinity-internet-speeds-over-1-gbps https://www.xfinity.com/support/articles/requirements-to-run... https://medium.com/@Gtwy/comcasts-2000mbit-fiber-to-the-home-f106d64d5f51 https://medium.com/@Gtwy/comcasts-2000mbit-fiber-to-the-home...
  - rayiner 6y ago
    I have it and it’s glorious. Spendy, but you’ve got your own 10g port on a switch at Comcast’s headend. And it’s actually 3 gbps total (between the 1g and 10g ports on the switch).
    - technofiend 6y ago
      It sounds so much better than dealing with Comcast's cable plant. I keep a set of filters next to my modem so I can fiddle with the signal strength as large temperature changes affect it which in turn causes wild swings in my upload and download speeds. A truck roll might fix it once and for all but in the age of Covid that can't happen. Having fiber to the premises sounds heavenly next to that.
  - beowulfey 6y ago
    i believe the 2gb symmetrical plan is actual fiber to the home, rather than the cable of the 1gb plan. but im not an expert by any means
stefan_ 6y ago
Channel allocation suggests they can choose this. So stop offering fake 1Gbps and allocate some of that downstream to upstream instead?
cordite 6y ago
isn't this what that $30 a month rental fee is for?
nimbius 6y ago
>legacy channel allocations if this issue came from a cable provider it sounds like malarkey. Vector Orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing can be used with traditional OFDM receivers even if the channel arrives as much as 180 degrees out of phase for a traditional allocation. it permits vector subchannelling for modern receivers to get to "new" broadband regulated speeds. when the vector size M=1, VOFDM returns to OFDM and in other conditions it just turns back into SC-FDE Single-carrier (frequency-domain-equalization.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthogonal_frequency-division_multiplexing#Vector_OFDM_(VOFDM) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthogonal_frequency-division_... >Cable carriers have found in the past that getting people to turn these in to swap out for newer models is excessively expensive in customer goodwill cable companies are hardly a station of the cross. AT&T and Comcast are renown for forcing customers to pay for modem upgrades to support digital boxes. XFinity X1 boxes are basically outlining how cable TV intends to remain set-top relevant in the 21st century by transitioning the box to 802.11 and ethernet. its also hardly difficult to see a scenario where not only your cable provider forces you to change, but the FCC strong-arms you as well. in 2008 the FCC basically "rechannelled" the VHF and UHF fast-scan TV spectrums to make way for digital TV. IMO nows the time if they want to do it. cable TV is basicaly a dead animal and needs something, anything to keep it alive. full digital gigabit transition FTW.
- jcrawfordor 6y ago
  The quality of the channel often does not permit the use of OFDM until distribution amplifiers are replaced. Unfortunately this is a totally different issue for the upstream and downstream directions as well, which is why several carriers, including Comcast in many markets, currently do OFDM downstream and only QAM upstream. The downstream issue has, on the whole, always been easier to fix due to the design of the outside plant, which is why 1gbps down has become a standard cable offering in DOCSIS 3.1 markets. In the case of upstream channels they are constrained by a variety of different equipment, some of which predates the use of QAM for all metadata. Comcast is beginning a (presumably long) process of transitioning away from conventional cable television and to completely OTTd television service, which is essentially IPTV over DOCSIS, branded as Flex. This seems to be their long-term strategy and will allow a radically higher degree of flexibility in how they run their infrastructure. I would expect this to become the norm over the next ten years or so as DOCSIS is increasingly viewed as the primary purpose of the cable infrastructure.
archon810 6y ago
Supposedly, DOCSIS 4.0 FDX is the solution, and hopefully it's coming soon. https://twitter.com/ArtemR/status/1267220689548791809 https://twitter.com/ArtemR/status/1267220689548791809

SaltyBackendGuy 6y ago

Sounds like an operational risk on an RCM somewhere in the ivory tower. Instead it's cheaper to stay competitive through regulatory capture. I wish bribing politicians was more expensive than providing a better product </r>

ta8645 6y ago
So we need to elect greedier politicians who wont accept a pittance as a bribe. </s>
- ethbr0 6y ago
  Or just create a system that selects from a pool of already independently wealthy candidates.
  - LordDragonfang 6y ago
    People don't become "independently wealthy" by saying no to money, they do it by grasping at every bit they can. Wealth is positively, not inversely, correlated to greed. We literally just saw what happens when you put an "independently wealthy" in the oval office, he took a 10 million dollar bribe to greenlight an oil pipeline. Cap political donations per person and ban corporate donations. Money is not, and should not be legally considered, speech.
    - ethbr0 6y ago
      So... we should select politicians from the poor, then?

knodi 6y ago

Comcast not only has the man power but money to make this happen.

jdxcode 6y ago
and decades of lead time since they've been doing cable internet

908B64B197 6y ago

> Cable carriers have found in the past that getting people to turn these in to swap out for newer models is excessively expensive in customer goodwill, and less so cost, so there's a major technical disincentive to such a change. I wish carriers would have a different brand for "enthusiasts". The type of customer who won't mind going to his back-panel and swapping equipment if the rest of the network supports it.

technofiend 6y ago
They sort of support "pro" users, but at a premium. Comcast's 1GB package is somewhere between $80 and $100 depending on contract duration and payment options. 2GB internet is $299/mo plus $1k in installation fees! But at least in the review I read it's symmetrical. https://www.xfinity.com/support/articles/requirements-to-run-xfinity-internet-speeds-over-1-gbps https://www.xfinity.com/support/articles/requirements-to-run... https://medium.com/@Gtwy/comcasts-2000mbit-fiber-to-the-home-f106d64d5f51 https://medium.com/@Gtwy/comcasts-2000mbit-fiber-to-the-home...
- rayiner 6y ago
  I have it and it’s glorious. Spendy, but you’ve got your own 10g port on a switch at Comcast’s headend. And it’s actually 3 gbps total (between the 1g and 10g ports on the switch).
  - technofiend 6y ago
    It sounds so much better than dealing with Comcast's cable plant. I keep a set of filters next to my modem so I can fiddle with the signal strength as large temperature changes affect it which in turn causes wild swings in my upload and download speeds. A truck roll might fix it once and for all but in the age of Covid that can't happen. Having fiber to the premises sounds heavenly next to that.
- beowulfey 6y ago
  i believe the 2gb symmetrical plan is actual fiber to the home, rather than the cable of the 1gb plan. but im not an expert by any means

stefan_ 6y ago

Channel allocation suggests they can choose this. So stop offering fake 1Gbps and allocate some of that downstream to upstream instead?

cordite 6y ago

isn't this what that $30 a month rental fee is for?

nimbius 6y ago

>legacy channel allocations if this issue came from a cable provider it sounds like malarkey. Vector Orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing can be used with traditional OFDM receivers even if the channel arrives as much as 180 degrees out of phase for a traditional allocation. it permits vector subchannelling for modern receivers to get to "new" broadband regulated speeds. when the vector size M=1, VOFDM returns to OFDM and in other conditions it just turns back into SC-FDE Single-carrier (frequency-domain-equalization.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthogonal_frequency-division_multiplexing#Vector_OFDM_(VOFDM) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthogonal_frequency-division_... >Cable carriers have found in the past that getting people to turn these in to swap out for newer models is excessively expensive in customer goodwill cable companies are hardly a station of the cross. AT&T and Comcast are renown for forcing customers to pay for modem upgrades to support digital boxes. XFinity X1 boxes are basically outlining how cable TV intends to remain set-top relevant in the 21st century by transitioning the box to 802.11 and ethernet. its also hardly difficult to see a scenario where not only your cable provider forces you to change, but the FCC strong-arms you as well. in 2008 the FCC basically "rechannelled" the VHF and UHF fast-scan TV spectrums to make way for digital TV. IMO nows the time if they want to do it. cable TV is basicaly a dead animal and needs something, anything to keep it alive. full digital gigabit transition FTW.

jcrawfordor 6y ago
The quality of the channel often does not permit the use of OFDM until distribution amplifiers are replaced. Unfortunately this is a totally different issue for the upstream and downstream directions as well, which is why several carriers, including Comcast in many markets, currently do OFDM downstream and only QAM upstream. The downstream issue has, on the whole, always been easier to fix due to the design of the outside plant, which is why 1gbps down has become a standard cable offering in DOCSIS 3.1 markets. In the case of upstream channels they are constrained by a variety of different equipment, some of which predates the use of QAM for all metadata. Comcast is beginning a (presumably long) process of transitioning away from conventional cable television and to completely OTTd television service, which is essentially IPTV over DOCSIS, branded as Flex. This seems to be their long-term strategy and will allow a radically higher degree of flexibility in how they run their infrastructure. I would expect this to become the norm over the next ten years or so as DOCSIS is increasingly viewed as the primary purpose of the cable infrastructure.

archon810 6y ago

Supposedly, DOCSIS 4.0 FDX is the solution, and hopefully it's coming soon. https://twitter.com/ArtemR/status/1267220689548791809 https://twitter.com/ArtemR/status/1267220689548791809