Multi-Gig DOCSIS 3.1

The big news from CableLabs last week was that the smart people there are working on symmetrical multi-gigabit version of DOCSIS 3.1—“Full Duplex DOCSIS 3.1,” they’re calling it -- that can deliver upstream and downstream speeds of up to 10 gigs over existing 1GHz HFC networks. 

We’ll leave the technical details to Belal Hamzeh and Dan Rice, who authored a blog on the breakthrough, but from where we sit, technology breakthroughs that improve cable’s competitive position against would-be challengers are good for all of us in the industry.

We’ve opined before that cable operators will have the advantage in an Internet of Things world, where smart devices are connected through STBs or other broadband hubs in the home.  It’s our belief that cable’s established relationships with customers gives the industry a leg up against competitors who must go through the time and expense of building networks, attracting customers and generating revenue.

Cable has maintained its leadership in part because how operators and vendors have met changing customer needs by leveraging the flexibility of the industry’s existing HFC plant.  Like the advanced services and 4K set-top boxes that our customers already are bringing to market, Full Duplex DOCSIS 3.1 will help the industry compete for subscriber loyalty in the years ahead.

Alticast Sponsors the RDK Training Summit at CableLabs

Alticast partnered with CableLabs and RDK this past week by sponsoring the RDK Training Summit at the CableLabs headquarters in Louisville, CO. This three-day event offered training sessions introducing the RDK architecture, Yocto build system and to provide a deeper insight into the individual RDK components. The event was a mix of lectures, demonstrations and interactive exercises to familiarize the attendees with building, developing, debugging and testing of RDK solutions.

Alticast sponsored by the opening night evening cocktail session. Our RDK Product Manager, Mark Johnson, demo'd our technology using the RDK platform at our table set up during the cocktail hour. He also presented, along with Bum-joon Kim, Integrating RDK with Back-end Subsystems & Application Framework, during the Wednesday afternoon session.

Alticast's Bum-joon Kim and Mark Johnson present "Integrating RDK with Back-End Subsystems & Application Framework."

Our next event will take the team to the CableLabs Summer Conference in Keystone, CO on August 2-4. We will be demonstrating our Cloud Services platform, RDK-IoT, and DRM, Android Application Framework. If you are attending and would like to meet with our team, please email us at jotoole@alticast.com to reserve a time.