10G Standards, Network Field Tests Expected This Year

Expect this year to bring finalization of 10G standards and the first field tests by cable ISPs of 10G network technology, industry executives said in recent interviews. Modem companies are awaiting those DOCSIS 4.0 standards and those field trials so they know what to build. CableLabs Chief Research and Development Officer Mariam Sorond said the DOCSIS 4.0 specs being created by a consortium of CableLabs members with working groups and vendors should be finalized early this year. It's a process similar to how DOCSIS 3.1 was hammered out.

Mediacom expects to do field trials in Q2 of network technology and capacity to provide 10G, said Senior Vice President-Legal and Public Affairs Tom Larsen. He hopes it's the first cable company to field trial 10G. "We would love to have the bragging rights," he said.

Currently, modems aren't available that can handle the 10-gigabit symmetrical data traffic promised in the cable industry's 10G plan unveiled a year ago (see 1901070048). So Mediacom is focusing on network improvements, Larsen said. He said vendors often want to ensure that providers are doing field trials before they start production, but once that happens, they should be able to scale up quickly. The first iteration of such modems could be incrementally faster than what's available now as they build toward handling 10G, he said.

Altice is doing service trials now of 10G, it emailed us. It didn't elaborate.

NCTA expects other cable operators to also do field trials this year to show network capability to do 10 Gbps capacity. It said operators incrementally will ramp up speeds offered to subscribers over the next several years. The association said 10 Gb speeds will surely come well before the decade's end, with five to seven years seeming more likely for 10 Gbps symmetrical.

Charter Communications said "the fundamental beauty of our network is that it is upgradable." The 1 Gbps speeds available across its footprint "has us on the path to get to 10G," it said. "On our way, we can go to multi-gig speeds, with a path to symmetrical." Comcast didn't comment.

Windbreak Cable, with subscribers in eastern Wyoming and western Nebraska, has been analyzing its network and expects to do network upgrades this summer, CEO Bill Bauer said. A major constraint is lack of middle-mile capacity between a headend and wherever Windbreak can procure needed bandwidth, he said. Bauer said manufacturing of headend equipment is needed, along with cable modems that can support full duplex 10G.

Rather than 5G competition,10G is being driven more by concerns about competition from government-subsidized overbuilding, Larsen said. He said the field trials might show how 10G could support 5G deployment, with 10G modems acting as 5G small cells. “We view it as a business opportunity,” providing backhaul services to wireless carriers, he said.

Bauer said 10G deployments are far more imminent than 5G, particularly in rural markets. Fifth-generation wireless "is really reinventing everything" in its use of higher frequencies, he said. 5G infrastructure isn't likely in the foreseeable future in rural markets, he said, while the 10G evolutionary step "is going to happen in rural Nebraska sooner."