DOCSIS

After thumbing through every 2014 issue of this magazine, five tech trends rose to the top:

1. We’re now squarely in the middle of the transition to “all-IP” (Internet Protocol), as the umbrella covering cloud-delivered services, bandwidth (wired and wireless), connected devices, TV everywhere, and all else in the technological vogue. It began with the cable modem, in the late ‘90s. Nobody really knows when the “all” part of “all-IP” will happen — but “not in my lifetime” is a seldom-heard response.

2. This year, the term “OTT” — Over-the-Top — became less a categorical description of Netflix, Amazon, and the rest of the new ilk of video competition, and more a common technological ingredient, used by all. In short, with every step toward cloud, operators are “over-the-topping themselves.”

3. The recognition that “the competition” now extends beyond satellite and telco-delivered services, to the OTT camp, brought with it a new “tech culture” reality. Vendors, operators and programmers alike spent a sizeable chunk of 2014 retooling to work at “web speed,” which means adopting agile software and “DevOps” strategies.

4. RDK, the Reference Design Kit, rose in strategic importance this year, again, and big time. Evidence: In October, Liberty Global CEO Mike Fries off-handedly called RDK “a DOCSIS moment,” referencing the cable modem specification that changed the economics of what became the broadband industry.

5. “Speed vs. capacity” will sustain as one of the more important tech subtleties. It’s the “gig” that can gum things up: GigaHertz is a unit of capacity, Gigabyte a unit of storage, and Gigabit a measure of speed. But! As important is throughput, or, the amount of stuff we’re moving to and from our various screens. Knowing the distinctions matters.

That’s the short list! Merry merry, and may your 2015 technologies be kind and useful.

This column originally appeared in the Platforms section of Multichannel News.

By now, hopefully, you’ve heard that there’s a new chapter coming in cable modems. It’s the latest iteration in the specification known by technologists as “DOCSIS 3.1” for “Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification.”

DOCSIS 3.1 is a doozy — both in terms of what it will do for broadband capacity, and the sheer density of the tech talk that surrounds it.

Hey! Let’s face it. “QAM” is a little long in the tooth, as impressively nerdy industrial tech-talk goes. Not to worry. With 3.1, you too can impress your friends and colleagues by blurting out 3.1-speak like “Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing with Low Density Parity Check.”

Feature-wise, DOCSIS 3.1 is so crammed with improvements that some of us wondered why it didn’t qualify as “DOCSIS 4.0.” (Answer: To thwart any misperceptions from the investor community about “forklift upgrades.”)

First off: DOCSIS 3.1 matters and was devised because of the billowing consumer demand for broadband usage — 50% and higher compound growth, since about 2009. Again: In the history of consumable goods, nothing has grown at a sustained rate of 50%, year over year.

DOCSIS 3.1 basics: When complete (2013) and in market (2014?), it will expand the industry’s downstream and upstream carrying capacity for digital, IP traffic by 50%.

“Half as much again” is always a big deal, especially for that spectrally anemic upstream signal path.

Also impressive about DOCSIS 3.1: It could enable connection speeds of 10 Gigabits per second (Gbps.) Note: Don’t inhale too deeply on this one. It’s 10 Gbps if and only if all other channels on a system are empty. No analog, no SD or HD video, no broadband, no voice.

Let’s get back to the tech-talk of 3.1. What makes for these enormous gains in IP capacity and speed is a new (to cable) form of modulation called “OFDM” (see above.) OFDM, when coupled with a new (to cable) form of forward error correction (LDPC), brings the 50% efficiency gains.

OFDM is widely used by mobile carriers, because they’re already pretty bandwidth-challenged (ship any video from your phone lately?). It works by chopping the typical 6 MHz digital cable channel into smaller “subcarriers,” in the lingo. That’s good for both transmission and dealing with impairments.

That’s the basics of DOCSIS 3.1 — why it matters, and how to talk about it with aplomb. Watch for it to be a major undercurrent of the 2013 cable-tech scene.

This column originally appeared in the Platforms section of Multichannel News.

In this segment, Jay  — a very active member of the DOCSIS community — describes operational impacts, M-CMTS, and the integration challenges associated with launching and activating DOCSIS 3.0-based technology. Directed and produced by the fabulous David Knappe with equally fabulous Joe Bondulich on camera and lighting.

Video courtesy Multichannel News.

The DOCSIS specification is well known for its hammer impact on cable modem cost curves, and this trend will continue with DOCSIS 3.0. Also discussed in this Part 2 interview with Comcast CTO Tony Werner: The use of channel bonding in the upstream signal path, and tips for operators just beginning their D-3 rollouts.

Video courtesy Multichannel News.

Leading into the 2007 Cable Show, I sat down with Tony Werner, CTO of Comcast, to discuss some of the hot issues of the time: Switched digital video, HDTV, and OCAP.

Video courtesy Multichannel News.

At the 2006 SCTE Cable-Tec Expo, I moderated the annual CTO Panel, which included Marwan Fawaz/Adelphia and Charter (“Chartelphia!); Dave Fellows/Comcast, Dr. Paul Liao/Panasonic, and Vince Roberts/Disney, ABC. This closing segment hits on tech policy, DOCSIS 3.0, channel bonding, and “sling” media.

Video courtesy SCTE.