PHILADELPHIA—Comcast has conducted tests during the Virtual SCTE Cable-Tec Expo 2021 that produced some firsts in the development of 10G technologies.
The innovations are important because they move the company and the cable industry towards the delivery of much faster broadband services, which in turn could enable a host of other new ways to deliver video and entertainment to consumers.
“During Virtual SCTE Cable-Tec Expo 2021, our team conducted what we believe to be the world’s first test of a 10G connection all the way from our network to a modem,” Elad Nafshi, senior vice president of the Next Generation Access Network at Comcast wrote in a blog post about the tests. “To do this, the team activated what we believe to be another world first – a virtualized cable modem termination system (vCMTS) powered by Full Duplex DOCSIS 4.0 Technology.”
“The accomplishment is truly groundbreaking because it proves our ability to upgrade existing vCMTS platform via a software upgrade to DOCSIS 4.0 FDX and gives us the ability to deliver multi-gig upload and download speeds,” he added.
“Over the past 18 months, innovation around 10G, which will deliver the next generation of speed and performance to hundreds of millions of people worldwide – has accelerated dramatically,” he also noted.
“A key advantage of Full Duplex and other 10G technologies is that they will unlock multigigabit upload and download speeds over connections already installed in homes worldwide, without the need to dig up yards and neighborhoods across the country," he wrote. "This means that 10G will allow us to deliver next generation speeds to many more people, much faster than other technologies.”
“In the live lab demonstration, we were able to connect all of the key network elements necessary to deliver 10G signals from our network to the neighborhoods we serve…and all the way into our customers’ homes,” he said.
As part of the test, Comcast tech teams implemented Full Duplex (FDX) DOCSIS 4.0 capabilities into a CMTS, or “virtualized” vCMTS, which is an essential component of Comcast's network and will be a critical link to delivering 10G, he said.
In order to complete the full connection, DOCSIS 3.1 modems were configured to operate in the FDX band.
“What makes this accomplishment truly groundbreaking is that it proves our ability to upgrade our existing vCMTS platform via a software upgrade to DOCSIS 4.0 Full Duplex and gives us the ability to deliver multi-gig upload and download speeds,” he explained.
