Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes
By Jeff Finkelstein –
I do not know about you, but I feel like the past few years were just a blur. Partly due to the pandemic, but also in how what was once a fairly straight-forward choice of moving over time from DOCSIS 3.1 to DOCSIS 4.0, which we know would potentially last for the next 15 to 20 years. At last year’s SCTE Cable-Tec Expo the energy was palpable in how many of the sessions and show floor technologies encompassed DOCSIS 4.0 ESD and FDX. It seemed almost everyone was talking about DOCSIS 4.0, had products for DOCSIS 4.0, or were going to develop them. FTTH had representation as well, but not at the same intensity.
Since last year’s SCTE Expo advancements have been made in both ESD and FDX. Vendors were using better silicon, more dynamic range, squeaking out every bit per second per hertz, and things were looking quite good for the future. Many were planning on ways to begin replacing legacy equipment, both passives and actives, with new advanced technologies that would last a long time.
Some current angst was not caused by anything that happened with DOCSIS 4.0. Instead, it came from those inside the industry looking even further out as some were thinking about not DOCSIS.next, but Cable.next.
I am referring to the introduction of some interesting technologies, particularly DOCSIS 5.0 and NROC. DOCSIS 5.0 extends DOCSIS upstream to 1 GHz and downstream to 3 GHz, which yields approximately 25 Gbps DS and 10 Gbps US, which is most impressive. NROC utilizes 5G technologies and may go up to 6 GHz with certain constraints and may provide around the same or slightly higher speeds as DOCSIS 5.0.
Now, this is how innovation works. While we deploy any given technology, the smart kids are out there pondering not only how to make them better, but also what possibilities may come next.
As Jeff’s Rule #27 states:
The most important job of any technology is to replace itself
Meaning that any technology that does not easily allow itself to be superseded needs to be avoided if there are any other choices. We frequently get sucked into the gravitational pull of new technologies simply as they sound exciting. I wrote about this a while ago in my article titled “Shiny Object Syndrome.” In that article I addressed how easily we get pulled into the vortex of new and improved technologies that promise to make things better than we could ever expect from current technologies. Which leads to the dreaded “analysis paralysis” we all know too well.
Look around you at all the options that are being discussed in the industry. I count 12 different technology directions that are being considered at any given time.
Those technologies are (drum roll please):
- DOCSIS 3.1 1 GHz
- DOCSIS 3.1 1.2 GHz
- DOCSIS 4.0 ESD 1.8 GHz
- DOCSIS 4.0 FDX 1.2 GHz
- DOCSIS 4.0 FDX 1.8 GHz
- DOCSIS 5.0 3 GHz
- NROC up to 6 GHz
- EPON 10G/25G/50G/100G
- GPON/XGS-PON/NG-PON2
- P2P ethernet
- FWA
- 5G
Each is worth considering in its own right. However, like all technologies they do not exist in a vacuum. There were technologies we deployed 30 years ago that have matured and morphed over the years into what we deploy today. I believe we can say that things have worked out rather well for the industry as we made it through a pandemic with very few challenges. That showed us how well DOCSIS and xPON have held up over the years to continue meeting customer demands.
No one knew how things would turn out during the pandemic. I remember well meetings we had with operators worldwide to share our findings and ways to eke everything we could out of the various technologies we all had deployed. We managed to meet the new supply and demand curve requirements with little muss or fuss.
Fortunately (or unfortunately) I have a rule that addressed this reality.
Jeff’s Rule #56:
There is an established order of things, but sometimes it can get mixed up
Transforming from past to future technologies may look like a straight line, but it is actually a maze of twisty little passages all alike. While we met the new demand, we did not expect the inversion of the supply and demand curve from the past state of more demand than supply into the modern version resulting from DOCSIS 3.1 of more supply than demand. DOCSIS 3.1 in a high-split scenario providing approximately 10 Gbps downstream and 1.5 Gbps upstream gave us a long road to follow before we ran out of capacity. At least without a requirement to provide speeds greater than what the technology may support.
DOCSIS 4.0 was created to handle the next-generational needs with capacity of up to 10 Gbps DS and 6 Gbps upstream. Yes, it required an upgrade to the cable plant, but as an industry we knew how to do that and do so economically.
As with any new technology there were a few false starts with DOCSIS 4.0, but they were addressed, and alignment was achieved. The future was indeed quite bright for the cable industry.
What happened?
This is purely observational on my part, but with more supply than demand and the slowdown in growth, the industry started looking for ways to save on both opex and capex. How long can we use currently deployed technologies? What is the least cost way to move to future technologies?
How many times have we all heard about the “time value of money”? It is better to spend today’s dollars tomorrow than to spend them today. Now, I am hardly a business person. I do not understand the nuances of business strategies, but after 45 years in technical fields I do understand the technology life cycle. So much so that I wrote the following rule:
Jeff’s Rule #30:
We talk about the time value of money, but not the money value of time
I understand we want to save as much money as we can by delaying things. What we miss in that thinking is the amount of time it takes to deploy any new technology. To rebuild a cable plant is not measured in months, it is measured in years. To deploy a virtual CMTS is not plug-and-play. We can only do so much in any given time window without negatively impacting customers. The sooner we start, the better off we will be in the future state.
We must use the time we have available wisely. Waiting to make decisions on whether ESD vs FDX, 1.2 GHz vs 1.8 GHz vs 3 GHz, coax vs fiber, vCMTS vs monolithic CMTS, are costly delays. There are only so many resources out there to do the work and the sooner we begin the sooner we get done.
It does not mean we cannot be methodical in our analysis, just that once decisions are made, without an extraordinary reason to change, we need to continue down the path. We have teams staffed up to execute the strategy, vendors have created products, and silicon vendors have invested in building the new silicon needed. Every false start has far-reaching impact on the entire ecosystem.
In conclusion, remember Jeff’s rule #77:
There is no right or wrong side of the road, there is only the road
Choose wisely.
Jeff Finkelstein,
Prior to retirement, Jeff Finkelstein was the Chief Access Scientist for Cox Communications in Atlanta, Georgia. He has been a key contributor to engineering at Cox since 2002 and is an innovator of advanced technologies including proactive network maintenance, active queue management, flexible MAC architecture, DOCSIS 3.1, and DOCSIS 4.0. His responsibilities included defining the future cable network vision and teaching innovation at Cox. Jeff has over 50 patents issued or pending. He is also a long-time member of the SCTE Chattahoochee Chapter and member of the Cable TV Pioneers class of 2022.
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