Comcast claims gigabit DOCSIS 3.1 first
December 24, 2015
US cable MSO Comcast is claiming a world first with the installation of what the company believes to be the world’s first gigabit DOCSIS 3.1 modem on a customer-facing network.
“The next-generation technology that will deliver gigabit Internet speeds moved from the laboratory to the living room late last month,” wrote Tony Werner, Executive Vice President & Chief Technology Officer in Comcast’s Technology Blog.
“At a home in the Philadelphia area, we took the next important step forward in delivering gigabit speed broadband over our hybrid fibre coaxial network. The test used the standard cable connections that we have in homes across the country. All we needed was a new modem, a software upgrade to the device that serves that neighbourhood, and a few good engineers.”
“Two months ago, we wrote that the future of gigabit technology was nearly here. Now we’ve seen it in action on our network. We will continue testing over the coming months, as we get ready to start delivering DOCSIS 3.1-powered service to our customers. Before the end of 2016, we will begin offering a new gigabit speed choice that works over the existing connections in our customers’ homes in several parts of the country.”
“The beauty of DOCSIS 3.1 is that it is backwards compatible, so no digging up streets or backyards. This technology, when combined with the extensive upgrades we have already completed on our advanced Hybrid Fibre-Coaxial network, will provide more gigabit choices for our customers.”
“Over the coming months, we will activate more test homes with this state of the art DOCSIS 3.1 technology so that we can observe how it performs in multiple real-world environments and make whatever minor modifications necessary to get it ready for deployment to our customers. Since installing the first live DOCSIS 3.1 modem here in Philadelphia, we’ve continued to expand the trials to additional locations in Pennsylvania, Northern California and Atlanta, Georgia.”
“We still have a lot of work to do, but these tests confirm that DOCSIS 3.1 will work over our existing network as currently configured,” he concluded.