SCTE PRESENTS DOCSIS 3.1 is still very common; there is no sign of wireless wireline, but it is being discussed. Work is also underway in integrating 5G with the broadband system. However, DSL is being eroded by fixed broadband access, and its speeds are unable to match those of the other technologies. Broadhurst likened the pacy market to the early days of cable where it was “connections, connections, connections”, but about 2% of properties remain very difficult to reach, so new technologies are being developed to address this. Generally, operators are focusing on CAPEX efficiency, demanding any network upgrades are made for minimal cost. “Operators are employing what they call a ‘cap and grow” Broadhurst explained, “which is essentially upgrading to DOCSIS 3.1+, giving you up to five OFDM blocks, that’s the capability to do 8Gbps down, two up, which makes cable competitive with XGS-PON, or DOCSIS 4.0. DOCSIS 4.0 gives you even more, more like ten.” In Europe, there is a move towards DOCSIS 4.0 technology, but in a declining market against new fibre-to-the-home build, leading to network upgrades being made only at a minimal cost. “FTTX is really the big thing and there are markets like the UK where there are over 200 altnet companies,” Broadhurst continued. “In Germany, we’re also seeing large investments. In Southern Europe the regulatory situation allowed telecoms companies to invest in fibre early on.” On the networks themselves, 20% of customers are using 80% of the capacity, so operators are moving these onto fibre. David Whitehead, Senior Director of Sales Engineering and Solution Architecture, EMEA, Harmonic, said offloading some cable subs onto a fibre network worked if you were fortunate enough to have a parallel deployment. “But for those that don’t, it means more capacity. And that increased capacity for cable can come with more spectrum on DOCSIS 3.1, the DOCSIS 3.1+technologies, and increasingly moving to DOCSIS 4.0. “Charter’s view of the cost of migrating to DOCSIS 4.0 was about $100 per subscriber connection. And that is very achievable compared to the cost of building a parallel fibre network.”
Just as George Bernard Shaw observed that England and America were two countries divided by a common language, SCTE’s Across the Pond sessions (25 June, London) proved much the same is true for cable and telecoms technology. In his introduction SCTE President Dr Anthony Basham described the two countries as being on a “parallel journey”. “Even though we’re transitioning from cable to fibre all the principles are the same. It’s just using fibre, instead of cable, for broadcasting,” he said. It was a theme picked up by Paul Broadhurst, President and Chief Executive, Technetix, who observed that there were almost as many similarities as there were differences. Cable veteran and former Treasurer of the SCTE, Broadhurst is well placed to make this assessment, with half of his business coming from North America and the other half from Europe. In North America, cable broadband is still the leading distribution technology and grew to 60% from 56% during the Covid period of the early part of the decade. Behind this was the combination of telecoms, XDSL and broadband in a market where that hadn’t previously been too much competition. “Lots of people were working from home, at a sort of 30- to 50Mbps max DSL connection, which is all right for streaming video, but just not good enough with all its latency issues for video calls.” In Latin America, where there is plenty of competition from smaller fibre companies, cable has itself been turning to fibre, mainly G-PON “because G-PON is good enough.” Whereas in Northern Europe, all the fibre rollouts are mainly X-PON, which offers the ability to deliver speeds of around 10Gbps, though there is some G-PON. Broadhurst went on, “If you’re a cable broadband provider, you’ve sort of got fixed wireless access attacking at the bottom at the low end. And you’ve got fibre, which is the more sexy technology in the way people perceive it attacking at the top end.” DOCSIS was now “holding its own” with a loss of only one or two per cent a year in a market that Broadhurst described as a “slow melting ice cube” and “no sign it won’t be a main player in 20 years”. Operators are now upgrading to DOCSIS 3.1+ or DOCSIS 4.0, which will be the first operators to have upgraded their outside plant in 20 years.
SEPTEMBER 2025 Volume 47 No.3
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