DOCSIS 3: What will it mean for cable customers?
 

With the ongoing rollout of 50Mbit broadband, and the move from DOCSIS 1.x to 3, what effect, if any, will this have on network stability? Sure, the increased downstream bandwidth will be nice to have when required, however my main interest is the increased upstream bandwidth, and QoS features that v3.0 (well.. v1.1 and above for that matter) can facilitate.

At present i note that my cable modem is using a Docsis 1.0 config file (a protocol that has been around since 1997), so i'm excited at the prospect of a stable connection with low latency and exceptional gaming performance. VM could once again be known a a gaming ISP (which they are far from in my book right about now) if they play their cards right and use the technology to the fullest.

I have a background in IT, and some networking education (such as CCNA), but i must admit that my knowledge of WAN infrastructure is somewhat lacking. I know there are people here who certainly aren't lacking in this area, so my question is... will DOCSIS 3 make a blind bit of difference? :)

Nicers,
OLDo

Re: DOCSIS 3: What will it mean for cable customers?
 

it will to the 20mb and 50mb users, not to the 10mb users tho.

50mb users will be put onto docsis 3 and 20mb will start using docsis 2.0 so im told by an engineer who works for Virgin.

Re: DOCSIS 3: What will it mean for cable customers?
 

Your engineer is not quite there, all customers will in time be load balanced between the legacy platform and the next generation CMTS, and all tiers will be moved onto DOCSIS 2 with the 50Mbit on DOCSIS 3.

---------- Post added at 17:21 ---------- Previous post was at 17:18 ----------

Thusfar the move to DOCSIS 3 has done nothing, areas are already running on 1.1 upstreams (16QAM 3.2MHz width).

Virgin are apparently shortly to release ATDMA upstreams (max upstream moves from 8.8Mbit to 26.4Mbit usable bandwidth).

What it will mean for the services themselves, we'll see. Virgin may just take the additional downstream and upstream bandwidth and use it to pack more customers onto less hardware.

Re: DOCSIS 3: What will it mean for cable customers?
 

What does it actually take to move customers from DOCSIS 1 (which currently the bulk of users on M, L and XL are connected via) to DOCSIS 1.1? It'd put a hindrance on cloning, and I reckon it's as simple as flicking a switch. If it caused any problems, customers would ring up and ask why their broadband isn't working.

Re: DOCSIS 3: What will it mean for cable customers?
 

On properly compliant hardware not much, on the garbage VM purchase on the cheap and give to customers I'm not sure.

You do need to do some configuration on the CMTS, some changes to the modem configuration file:

and not a huge amount else in theory.

Practise, God knows, VM are more interested in the STM functionality of the code than the BPI+ functionality ;)

Re: DOCSIS 3: What will it mean for cable customers?
 

Wouldn't have thought there was any "may" about it..

Methinks the mother of all broadband, seriously needs to start thinking about birth control options :dozey:

Re: DOCSIS 3: What will it mean for cable customers?
 

i second that lol

Re: DOCSIS 3: What will it mean for cable customers?
 

Sadly this isn't universal though. (not using that here on any channel).

Re: DOCSIS 3: What will it mean for cable customers?
 

Which means that there's no requirement to. As VM offer such asymmetrical services in a lot of areas they have downstreams saturating well before upstream bandwidth becomes 'an issue'.

Re: DOCSIS 3: What will it mean for cable customers?
 

I can't host more than 8 player games on Call of Duty (PS3) on the 20Mbit service. My friend has 8Mbit ADSL with 448Kbit upload and can host 12. We don't use 1.1 either, but who says there's no requirement for it? ;)

Re: DOCSIS 3: What will it mean for cable customers?
 

Wouldn't really help with that but certainly higher upstream caps would rock.

Re: DOCSIS 3: What will it mean for cable customers?
 

Why not? Clearly the upstream bandwidth isn't the limiting factor.. what is?

Re: DOCSIS 3: What will it mean for cable customers?
 

Usually the routing of the network.. Ping times don't really matter to most people, but they do to gamers. Games do not necessarily send a lot of data down the network, but what data they do send needs to be at the server ASAP..