This publication has been discontinued on July 19, 2011.
High-speed networking is rapidly becoming the standard for the industry. Cable Modem offerings now control some 63 percent of the residential and small-business broadband market. The CABLE MODEM AND BROADBAND SERVICES report delves into all aspects of the cable modem market: technology, costs, competing technologies, applications, and developments.
Among the topics covered are:
- A view from 10,000 ft
- A quick survey of competing technologies
- Legacy hybrid-fiber-coax infrastructure
- Frequency and bandwidth allocations
- Fiber and coaxial cable plants
- Amplifiers and their power requirements
- Modulation techniques
- Error management
- Data Over Cable System Interface Specifications (DOCSIS 2.0)
- Diagnostics
- Markets and regulatory issues: residential and corporate
- 64 QAM and 256 QAM
- Amplifiers, equalizers, attenuators
- Quadrature Phase-Shift Keying (QPSK) modulation
- Residential use in the USA and the rest of the world
- A look at the crying need for good RF engineers
The easy-to-read plain-language report has more than 60 tables and charts, including figures showing salient features of DOCSIS, download comparison times, QPSK and QAM modulations, cable infrastructure, diagnostics and market shares.
Authors of this must-read report are Amitava Dutta-Roy, Ph.D., Fellow, IEEE and IEE, author of many widely referenced technical articles and speaker on Last-Mile Access Technologies, and a recipient of an ASBPE Award; with Curt Harler, M.S. a renowned telecommunications and networking author, recipient of the 1996 International Communications Association Industry Achievement award for communications writing. Harler was for many years the editor-in-chief of COMMUNICATIONS NEWS and has co-authored other successful reports for GII including the recent IP-BASED NETWORK MANAGEMENT report.
This report is bullish on cable modem technology. However, in view of other options, this report looks at Cable Modem versus other service offerings such as DSL and satellite, fiber-to-the-home and power line.
Whether your company is just starting to work with Cable Modem technology or is looking to expand an existing program, the CABLE MODEM AND BROADBAND SERVICES report is a must-read.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction and 10,000-foot view of market
2. Choosing a broadband access method
- 2.1 Wireless: Cellular phones or personal digital assistants?
- 2.2. Satellite
- 2.3. Digital subscriber line
- 2.4. Cable modem
- 2.5. Power line
- 2.6. Fiber to the home
- 2.7. Cable modem and ADSL are the strongest contenders
- 2.8. Factors other than last-mile affect the final access speed
- 2.9. Monthly charges
- 2.10. What are the considerations important for customers?
- 2.11. Future providers' watch list
- 2.12. Watch TV and surf the Net!
3. Infrastructure of a typical cable TV plant
- 3.1 A quick glimpse into the operation of a legacy HFC system
- 3.2 Components of a legacy HFC system
- 3.2.1 Frequency and bandwidth
- 3.2.2 Cable plant consisting of two distinct parts:
- 3.2.3 Equipment: hardware and software
- 3.2.4 Operations and Support Systems (OSS)
4. CableLabs and DOCSIS5. Frequency allocations and bandwidth
5. Frequency allocations and bandwidth
- 5.1. Downstream Internet Data
- 5.2. Upstream Internet Data
6. Cable plant
- 6.1 Fiber cables
- 6.2 Coaxial cables
- 6.2.1 Feeder Cables (a.k.a. trunk cables)
- 6.2.2 Drop cables
- 6.3 Directional Couplers
- 6.4 Splitters
7. RF Amplifiers
- 7.1 Amplifiers in the forward or downstream path
- 7.2 Amplifiers for the return signals
- 7.3 Equalizer, attenuator and gain of return path amplifier
- 7.4 Funnel effect
- 7.4.1 Proprietary approach to control the accumulation of noise at fiber nodes
8. Supply of AC Power to amplifiers
9. Upgrade of legacy HFC plants to carry Internet traffic
10. Modulation
- 10.1 Quadrature Phase-Shift Keying (QPSK) modulation
- 10.1.1 Data rates obtained through QPSK upstream
- 10.2 Demodulation of QPSK
- 10.3 Quadrature amplitude modulation
- 10.3.1 16-QAM
- 10.3.2 64-QAM and 256-QAM
- 10.4 Demodulation of QAM
- 10.4.1 16-QAM
- 10.4.2 64-QAM and 256-QAM
- 10.5 How many effective bits per second are obtainable from CM?
11. Forward error control (FEC)
12. Interleaving of data
13. Dissecting the hardware
- 13.1 Inside a cable modem termination system
- 13.2 Inside a cable modem
14. DOCSIS protocols
- 14.1 Relationship with other established protocols
- 14.2 Time-division multiple access (TDMA)
- 14.3 Significance of mini-slots
- 14.4 Ranging
- 14.5 Is the cable modem always on? DHCP
- 14.6 Requests and grants
- 14.7 Classification of bursts
- 14.8 What will DOCSIS v. 2.0 bring?
- 14.9 TDMA vs. S-CDMA
15. Diagnosis
16. Cable Telephony: Present and future trends
17. Operation support system (OSS)
18. Market studies for residential use
- 18.1 U.S.A.
- 18.2 Rest of the world (Europe, PAC_RIM, Latin America and Asia)
19. Corporate users
20. Scarcity of RF engineers
21. Acknowledgments
22. For more information
