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With 4K likely to become
mainstream and OTTenabled TV Everywhere
now a basic part of service
provision, how will
networks cope? Which
players are ahead of the
game with FTTH, DOCSIS
and advanced DSL? What
technologies can be
brought to bear to help
challenged networks cope?
Colin Mann investigates.
or cable operators, DOCSIS 3.1
has been heralded as the means
to offer high-speed, bandwidthhungry services without the need for
extensive and expensive network
upgrades, but to what extent can the
deployment of new technologies and
DOCSIS 3.1 ensure these are
minimised?
“DOCSIS 3.1 allows operators to extract
more out of the existing network,” explains
Cornel Ciocirlan, CTO, EMEA, ARRIS.
“Whereas DOCSIS 3.0 was not developed
beyond 32 single carrier QAM channels,
DOCSIS 3.1 breaks that barrier and adds the
ability for operators to offer speeds that go
beyond 1Gbps and even 2Gbps. The ability to
do that with the existing network is going to
help reduce investment overall and the
amount of network upgrades required.”
“However, in order to unlock the full
potential of DOCSIS 3.1 operators have to
invest in the network to some degree. They are
already doing that on an ongoing basis with
targeted node splits and capacity
improvements as required.
DOCSIS 3.1 allows
operators to
F
extract more out of the existing spectrum but
also to opening new areas of the spectrum
with increased spectral efficiency. So if
operators want to remain competitive, the
deployment of DOCSIS 3.1 really goes hand in
hand with continued investments in the
network. Moving to DOCSIS 3.1 isn’t driven by
a need to reduce investment – it’s about being
able to offer better services for subscribers and
staying competitive into the next decade.”
TRUE. According to Ian Trow, senior
director, emerging technology and strategy at
Harmonic, DOCSIS 3.1 includes capabilities
that allow cable operators to deploy true
Gigabit services. “However, in order to take
advantage of the technology, operators must
find enough free spectrum in their networks to
deploy new DOCSIS 3.1 channels. This is a
problem for many operators that also have
requirements to deploy an increased amount
of TV channels as well as provide more ondemand services, all requiring more
spectrum to be
allocated.”
“To help with this issue, DOCSIS 3.1
allows operators to utilise more spectrum —an
additional 200 MHz, taking the network up to
1.2 Ghz. While this enables DOCSIS 3.1
technology to be deployed in the extended
spectrum, it does, however, require some
element of network rebuild. Other solutions
include deploying more aggressive
compression schemes, such as HEVC, in
14 EUROMEDIA
order to reduce the proportion of spectrum
consumed by digital video services, or turning
off analogue services. New network
architectures can also be supported with
DOCSIS 3.1 via remote-PHY technology,
where the RF modulation and demodulation
components sit much deeper in the network,
allowing for better RF performance to support
higher data rates. Again, this will r