Golden Channels, an MSO that serves about 440,000 cable subs in Israel, has completed a beta test of a technology platform from Xtend Networks Ltd. that’s designed to boost a cable network’s capacity to 3 GHz.
Dr. Hillel Weinstein, Xtend’s CEO and co-founder, says the extra capacity will come in handy as MSOs begin to deploy bandwidth-sapping services and applications such as video-on-demand and high-definition television in earnest.
Because Xtend’s equipment lives on a network’s physical layer, Dr. Weinstein says operators only need to augment, instead of replace, their existing infrastructure to make the quantum leap to 3 GHz.
Still, cable operators will have to install several components, including new power passing splitters, fiber node multiplexing technology and a consumer-side interface box. Specifically, Xtend’s XHUB interfaces with the fiber node, its Xtendifiers are installed parallel with existing line extenders, and its XTB device is linked to a customer’s cable modem or set-top box.
Xtend also claims its gear can operate over DOCSIS, DVB and IP networks because each component is based on open specifications and standards.
“All we do is upgrade the basic electronic elements,” Dr. Weinstein says, noting that the additions would cost an operator, at most, about 2 cents per subscriber per MHz.
Xtend, which will make its formal domestic debut at next week’s Cable-Tec Expo in San Antonio, says it is in the process of appointing an executive to conduct business in the United States.
Though Xtend’s technology is designed to blow the doors off of state-of-the-art 860 MHz cable systems, U.S. operators have said their currently upgraded networks (750 MHz and above) should be able to shoulder the load for the foreseeable future — as long as the existing bandwidth is used smartly and efficiently.
That’s because cable operators still have several tools and techniques at their disposal, including grooming of digital spectrum, reclaiming analog spectrum and shifting from 64 QAM (quadrature amplitude modulation) to a more bandwidth-efficient 256 QAM. Additionally, an operator that initially offered high-speed data service via proprietary means and added a parallel DOCSIS network later on could recover an entire channel if all HSD customers were migrated to one DOCSIS platform.
