The Futurist

Battle Royale: FDX vs ESD

By Jeff Finkelstein — If you have been in the cable industry for a while, you are used to reading and hearing about new technologies on the horizon. It seems that almost daily we are inundated with the promises of new technology that will solve all our problems.

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Complexity is Complex

By Jeff Finkelstein — For the past few months many photons and electrons have nobly given their ever so short life for the singular purpose of informing the industry about DOCSIS 4.0.

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There Are No Straight Lines

By Jeff Finkelstein — For those who have been following my column on a regular basis, you may remember a few articles talking about new technologies on the horizon. Just when you think it is safe to get into the technology water, up pops a new technology that confuses things.

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Yoga for DOCSIS

By Jeff Finkelstein — I am amazed at how the flexible, yoga-like abilities of DOCSIS allow us to continuously improve it with incremental evolutionary changes that leverage past efforts. Thanks to the continuing work by CableLabs, vendors and operators, the useful life of the cable plant still has a long, long way to go.

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Would You Like Fries With That?

By Jeff Finkelstein — Like many of my and later generations, I spent time working in a fast food restaurant as a way to make money while in college. Having gone to college at 16 years old my work choices were limited by: the distance to where my dorm was located as I did not have a car and took public transit.

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E = MC2 (Energy = Milk * Coffee2)

By Jeff Finkelstein – The first step major step towards modularity in DOCSIS networks came in the form of M-CMTS. The modular CMTS decomposed the PHY from the MAC by using edge-QAM modulators to provide the physical layer.

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