Energy2020

SCTE Expo 2014: Capacity Observations

DENVER–Capacity. Always a hot ticket at tech fests, like the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineer’s annual Cable-Tec Expo, during a week of Colorado gorgeousness.  (The last time Expo graced Denver, we were Blizzard City.)

Here’s a weave of notable trends about capacity, gleaned from four jam-packed days of impressively nerdy tech-talk.

The next brink of capacity expansion maneuvers is at hand, and like the last time, engineers characterize their options as “tools in the toolbox.” Usually there are three. Last time, they were: Switched digital video; building out to 1 GHz, spectrally; and analog spectrum reclamation, to make room for all-digital.

Three is the number this time around, too. The front-runner: DOCSIS 3.1, the next grand slam in broadband capacity expansions, which doubles capacity in the forward/downstream and reverse/upstream signal directions. According to panelists at an all-day DOCSIS 3.1 Symposium preceding Expo, we’ll start seeing those modems and gateways sometime next year.

Second, and harder to swallow because it involves labor costs, is any of the many flavors of “fiber-deeper.” While it’s never fun to be the guy digging through the petunias to attach a new wire to the house, sometimes it just makes sense: New builds. After a catastrophic event.

It is in this category that you hear talk of “remote PHY,” “R-FOG,” and “distributed CCAP,” among others.

Option three goes higher again, spectrally — to 1.2 GHz, and even 1.7 GHz; the DOCSIS 3.1 spec mentions both. Nowadays, some operators built to 1 GHz; most sit at either 750 MHz or 860 MHz.

Going to 1.2 GHz tastes delicious, at first. Depending on the starting point — which involves how amplifiers are spaced on the wires — a move to 1.2 GHz bumps overall downstream capacity by as much as 60 percent. (What!)

Let’s do the math. Say the current spectral top is 750 MHz. If the new goal is 1.2 GHz, which is the same as 1200 MHz, the difference is 450 MHz. There’s the 60 percent.

Hang on! Turns out a power predicament accompanies a move to 1.2 GHz. Meaning a doubling of the power required to push amplifiers that high.

This all came to light at the tail end of an Arris-hosted breakfast on the last day of Expo, when a man in the audience, during the closing Q&A, asked about it.

It’s why we should all be glad for another Big Thing that happened during SCTE Expo: An effort, called Energy2020, to reduce power consumption “per unit” (per every component in a system, from “cloud to ground”) by 20%, by 2020. It’s an enormously ambitious goal, especially in the face of multiple “power hog” examples, like powering 1.2 GHz plant.

That’s the trajectory of capacity, if the trend lines of the SCTE Expo are true. Which they usually are.

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

A Summer of Power

If there’s one thing that stands out as a technology darling of Summer 2014, it’s the bombardment of gadgetry designed to keep the stuff of the digital garden charged and ready.

 

Two such things showed up on the doorstep last week as evidence, amongst tons of other affordable (meaning sub-$100) options.

 

One: The Mophie “Juice Pack,” which clamps onto your phone, acting as both protective case and power source. Charge the bottom part of the two-piece case, slide it onto the phone. When the phone gets low on juice, push the button on the back of the case, to pop it into charging mode. Voila! Suddenly the iPhone5 works all day and into the evening.

 

The second: A fold-up solar panel, made by Anker, and sent over for evaluation by the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers, presumably to point out what can happen as the industry continues to focus its attention on sustainable energy.

 

How it works: Unfold it. Find a wide, sunny place (it’s a lengthy bugger, unfolding to about yardstick length.)  Plug your gadget into one of two USB ports; watch it charge.

 

Obviously, a sunny day matters with this one, and the documentation contains all kinds of near apologies for the weather. (Sorry, Seattle!)

 

The Anker panel folds up to about the size of a large Kindle; it doesn’t hold a charge, just dispenses energy to gadgets as available by the sun.

 

Advancements in battery life aren’t new — and the volume of R&D around the category continues to run at a sprint pace. It’s because of all of our stuff, of course, that needs and drains energy.  More drain if you’re using your phone as a wireless access point, or if you forget to turn off the Blutooth transmitter.

 

(Or, in my case, if you plugged your stuff into an unprotected outlet in another country, promptly frying the charger and elbowing the battery into fast drain.)

 

My strong preference, between the case/charger and the solar panel, is the panel. It’s sunny 333 days per year in Colorado, and the charging mechanism from the sun seems to go much faster than when plugged into the wall.

 

Of course, always an option is to plug the charging case into the solar panel, thus using the sun to fill up the battery.

 

In mulling the “power summer” that is 2014, one thing seems pretty clear: The industry could assuage the embarrassingly huge and widely observed electricity draw of things like set-top boxes by including some form of solar alternative. Most people want to make a difference, and doing the “right thing” by plugging into the sun seems a pretty easy way to deliver a “feel good” experience.

 

On the other hand, there’s only a few weeks left of summer. Unplugging is also an option.

 

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

 UPDATE: Less than a week after this ran in Multichannel, both devices stopped working. Well, technically, my iPhone5 stopped liking them. “Accessory not supported.” Charging activity instantly stopped. Boo. I subsequently got a “Boostcase,” which so far keeps on working….