DOCSIS 3.0 Channel Bonding Moves Forward as Cisco, TI Announce Interop Results

Cisco Systems Inc. and Texas Instruments have successfully completed interoperability testing of upstream channel bonding, as described in the DOCSIS 3.0 spec, on their gear.

The Cisco equipment involved was the uBR10012 Cable Modem Termination System (CMTS) platform. TI brought its Puma 5 CPE development platform to the table for the test.

Channel bonding combines multiple radio frequency channels to allow for higher broadband connectivity, in this case over cable networks.

Super-fast broadband based on channel bonding was a key theme at NCTA’s The Cable Show this May in Las Vegas, where Comcast Corp. CEO Brian Roberts used his opening keynote address to demo cable modem connectivity in the 150mbps range. (The peak downstream data rate for with channel bonding is around 160mbps while the peak upstream is about 120mpbs.)

“This successful demonstration of upstream channel bonding clearly shows there is significant momentum for DOCSIS 3.0. We believe this as an important milestone with DOCSIS 3.0 enabling a new generation of high-bandwidth services that will benefit businesses and consumers around the world,” said Tony Werner, Comcast Cable CTO.

Comcast has been the central cableco proponent is expediting the move to DOCSIS 3.0 and the channel bonding and other benefits it brings.

While full DOCSIS 3.0 equipment is expected to be available in 2009 or 2010, Comcast has been pushing the vendor community to submit gear for 3.0 certification as soon as possible in hopes of having full- and pre-DOCSIS 3.0 gear available in the 2008-09 timeframe. Because DOCSIS 3.0 is such a big, feature-rich spec, Comcast prioritized the most important functions for the vendor community so if they are not ready for full DOCSIS 3.0 compliance testing, they can offer certification gear with more limited functionality like the large upstream bandwidth and IPv6, Comcast’s senior vice president of new media development, Steve Craddock, told xchange at the recent Cable Show. However, there is a “sunset date” on the pre-DOCSIS 3.0 gear to become fully compliant with the standard, and that will be in March 2009, he said.

At Comcast’s behest, the large cablecos met with vendors last September so the equipment companies could review their DOCSIS 3.0 road maps, but it wasn’t especially promising, according to Craddock. So Comcast put together a DOCSIS 3.0 acceleration team, including folks from the business and engineering sides of its organization. That team is working with vendors one on one to try and get them to accelerate their equipment development and certification schedules, which Comcast is hoping to bump up 12 to 15 months from the original CableLabs DOCSIS 3.0 timeline.

Comcast wants to move up the schedule because it needs to scale, Craddock explained. So rather than do that with nodes splits, which are expensive, it would rather do it via an early move to DOCSIS 3.0, he said.

TI has been the key vendor championing this acceleration along with Comcast, with the support of the other major cablecos and various other vendors.

Real DOCSIS 3.0 products should be ramping in January 2008, said Peter Percosan, TI’s director of broadband strategy, in a discussion with xchange in May. Percosan, along with Craddock, and executives from two European cablecos, Cox and Time Warner Cable, were at a breakfast panel at The Cable Show talking about their support for this effort.

Cisco Systems Inc. www.cisco.com/go/serviceprovider
Comcast Corp. www.comcast.com

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