Cisco and Texas Instruments (TI) have completed interoperability testing of DOCSIS 3.0 upstream channel bonding.
The interop testing was done at CableLabs and paired Cisco’s uBR10012 CMTS with TI’s Puma DOCSIS 3.0 CPE development platform.
Upstream and downstream channel bonding is a key component for DOCSIS 3.0, and for cable operators. It allows operators to combine several radio frequency channels in order to increase bandwidth on the upstream and downstream throughput for customers. Downstream data-transmission rates are in the hundreds of megabits and can scale to potentially gigabits per second.
“This successful demonstration of upstream channel bonding clearly shows there is significant momentum for DOCSIS 3.0,” said Tony Werner, Comcast’s CTO. “We believe this is an important milestone, with DOCSIS 3.0 enabling a new generation of high-bandwidth services that will benefit businesses and consumers around the world.”
While Arris Inc. garnered a lot of attention earlier this year with Comcast CEO Brian Roberts’ data-transmission demonstration at the NCTA show, Cisco has also been showing its own version of wideband technology at several industry conferences.
The increased speeds of channel bonding, along with node splits and other technologies, will give the cable industry a way to combat the speeds of telcos who are using fiber optics to homes or to curbs for their high-speed data services.
Cisco has previously demonstrated downstream channel bonding, multicast and IPv6, which are also key components of DOCSIS 3.0. While cable operators haven’t set a timetable for DOCSIS 3.0 deployments, equipment should be available from vendors starting later this year, or early next year. Some cable operators are already using wideband to increase their high-speed throughput rates.