1,000 Mhz cable systems?

The technology exist, it is a matter of the cable-co's asking for the upgrade!!

It's a matter of cost. Here's a good article on the subject:

http://www.cedmagazine.com/article/C...dustryid=43679

There are a few 1 GHz systems out there, not many but they exist. There's some 750 and 550 MHz systems contemplating upgrading to 1GHz. Scientific Atlanta, C-Cor, and Motorola are a few manufacturers of 1GHz nodes and line gear.

The problems for current systems are cost. If your system is only 550 MHz or lower its is a minimal difference in cost to upgrade it to 1GHz as opposed to 870 MHz. Since 550 or lower systems have to redo just about everything, might as well have the labor cost go into deploying 1GHz equipment, rather than have to go back and do it later. Most systems already upgraded to either 750 or 870 MHz, so they have to wait until the system depreciates enough to warrant the added expense. If the system was redesigned well, some 1GHz equipment can just drop into current 750 or 870 housings. That's all dependent on the plant design and line equipment manufacturer.

99% of current cable boxes and modems only have tuners that go up to 864 MHz. So really that extra space is a moot point right now. It does provide extra headroom for DOCSIS 3.0 channel bonded downstream. DOCSIS 3.0 modems are likely to have 1 GHz tuners. There are a few set top boxes coming out with 1 GHz tuners, but since the majority of deployed boxes can't go that high, it's unlikely for an operator to put anything in that band besides data or niche programming that would require a box swap.

Delving into the literature for switched-digital-video (SDV) systems, manufacturers suggest that SDV can benefit 750-MHz cable systems by avoiding costlier, more-complex upgrades to 860+ MHz. My NYC TWC system in 860+ MHz but is generally overloaded for much more HD sources. Nationwide, TWC is slated to add SDV this year. -- John

Adelphia's former systems, now owned by TW and Comcast, that weren't upgraded and are at 550 Mhz are being upgraded to 1 Gig. Going from 860 to 1 Gig doesn't offer that big of a benefit but 550 to 1 Gig does.

Most of the work consists of running more fiber and placing additional nodes throughout their plant. Coax also needs to be added where needed. Of course all active and passive electronics on the poles need to be replaced with 1 Gig equipment as well.

I have also been hearing that they would like to lower the Subs per Node. Most are at 500 Subs per Node now and I've heard some would like to lower that to 100, probably more so in the larger cities obviously.

Hopefully they keep adding bandwidth or learn how to use it more efficiently, because they sure could us more Hi-Def channels. What I have now sucks!

I really see SDV or moving the expanded basic tier to digital only a much more viable solution than a 1GHz upgrade. Unless of course your already a 550 MHz system or lower, then might as well upgrade to 1GHz while your out there doing the work and spending the money. Perhaps a poorly performing, noisy, leaky, failng 750MHz system could contemplate an upgrade, but if its working fine might as well do less costly solutions.

With fiber able to offer 50 ~ 100 mbps packages to the home, DOCSIS 3.0 channel bonding can be used to combine 4-16 downstream channels. Say you are running a 1GHz system, you could allocate EIA Channels 135 through 151 for data/voice. Then you can compete with fiber's 100 mbps packages.

38.8 mbps (256QAM) * 16 channels = 620.8 mbps per node downstream.

Whats the first iteration of Fios? 620-680 mbps per 32 customers?

A few years ago the cable company wired my neighborhood with a second cable. I'm not a subscriber so I don't know how they use two of them.

Seems simple enough to solve the cable bandwidth problem. Use more cables.

--- CHAS

What about Cable Companies offering VoIP? Most homes don't need to have 200-500+ channels simultaneously sent into their homes. If every home was allocated 20 Mbps to 100 Mbps into their home from IP Gigabit fiber ethernet nodes, you'd end up with anywhere between 5 SD or 1 HD or maybe 20 SD or 10 HD simultaneous IP channels channels of you choice on demand, or something more realistic...And the we can get rid of RF tuners for cable and use open media players to view content...A STB could still provide the currently requested connections to legacy DTV accessories...gee...already...???

So maybe someday you'll be able to take advantage of the 10/100/1000 ethernet connection on you DTV / DVR / STB...???

Or is that just too simplistic???

Curious...I thought Cable Companies finally realized discrete 6 Mhz channels analog or QAM (compress pixelated artifacts trying to put 12 lbs of stuff into a 6 lbs bag) is old business and IP over Gigabit Ethernet was possibly the future???

For wireless, it could too---Wi-MAX???

Z

1GHz would be totally unnecessary if it weren't for the analog channels taking up 400MHz of the system. Verizon is eventually going to upgrade to GPON, which is a 2.4Gbps data rate, with the usual PON splitting.

Between SDV (blech!) and moving the analog channels to digital, they could meet or exceed the near-term PON-based FTTP speeds on a 750MHz system. FTTP is still better, as there's no intrinsic limit (not one that matters, anyway) to the amount of bandwidth that can be pushed to the home or business, unlike cable, since you can always just light up another wavelength. Eventually, the cable companies will have to push fiber all the way to the premises, but it'll be quite a while yet before the coax runs out of room.

...
With competition to PONs, the Active Ethernet FTTP looks promising...like SureWest in CA, that advertises "fiber-to-the-premise IP-based network features high-definition video and Internet speeds of up to 50 Mbps."

IMO, that's by far the best architecture. If any good comes of AT&T's idiotic ADSL2+ play, it'll be that they'll be perfectly positioned to switch to full on GigE or 10GigE over fiber. More than likely they'll rip out the VRADs and go with PON though, because it saves on maintenance and electricity.

time warner cable in dallas is upgrading its dual line areas to 1ghz cable systems that use motorola/

That's going to be a lot of cable box replacement, unless they only use the upper end for cable modems, in which case they'll be replacing a lot of those, instead.

Just saw a presser that says some systems are going to go to 3 GHz "to compete with F.O.":

http://www.vyyo.com/

That vyyo stuff looks really promising. Great thing is its a spectrum overlay, so completely compatible with current cable equipment. They can leverage the extra bandwidth with new devices when they need it. Wonder if this will ever take off? Proprietary solutions sometimes take a lot of clout to become a standardized solution.