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DOCSIS 3.1 - 1Gb/s from UPC in 2016

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Comments

  • #32
    Nollog
    Registered Users Posts: 5,406 ✭✭✭Nollog


    Looks like I'll have a hard choice to make in a year or two, with eircom, upc, and evolve offering gigabit.

    :D good times.


  • #33
    Cuddlesworth
    Registered Users Posts: 13,980 ✭✭✭✭Cuddlesworth


    bk wrote: »
    MOD: Can we keep this thread on topic. This is about DOCSIS 3.1 and not about areas that UPC don't service or rural broadband.

    Roughly half the homes in Ireland have UPC. The prospect that they could all be getting 1Gb/s speeds by next year is very exciting and very positive for the Irish Broadband market.

    Yeah, I can't wait for all the posts in this forum.

    "I got 1 gig from UPC but my speedtest only shows 90Mb. And my connection keeps dying every 20 minutes."


  • #34
    bk
    Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 22,439 Mod ✭✭✭✭bk


    Cuddlesworth wrote: »
    "I got 1 gig from UPC but my speedtest only shows 90Mb. And my connection keeps dying every 20 minutes."

    Well, DOCSIS 3.1 will require new modems and given the UPC Ireland now reports to Virgin Media in the UK and VM have by far the best routers of any ISP in the UK (dual band, dual radio 802.11ac models, with excellent wifi performance and bridging officially supported), I'm hoping we will see much better routers in future from UPC.

    Of course even with 802.11ac you still won't get 1Gb/s over wireless (400 to 500Mb/s over AC is more likely) and we will still have plenty of people on old n wireless PC's getting nowhere near even those speeds.


  • #35
    Dave..M
    Registered Users Posts: 693 ✭✭✭Dave..M


    I note that UPC have upped their 240MB package to 55 from 45, perhaps to cool demand for the product, I also note that their adverts for 240 (The email I got post price change for example) notes '85% of your speed the majority of the time'. I think these are indicative of UPC's realization (certainly in the older upgrade areas) of the need to push fiber deeper into their loop ahead of their docsis 3.1 products official launch (the cringeworthy 'gigasphere' name will hopefully fade away) although presumably the higher speeds will be aimed at marketing literature and business users for the first while, full docsis 3 speeds (500) are only available to business users for example so the network in these areas is fiber deep already. In any event these things only cause other providers to up their game quicker which is good for everyone.


  • #36
    bk
    Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 22,439 Mod ✭✭✭✭bk


    Dave..M wrote: »
    I note that UPC have upped their 240MB package to 55 from 45

    Oh, that is disappointing! Also the 120Mb/s up from €40 to €45

    Though there seems to be positive changes in the phone packages.

    The 240Mb/s package now seems to include unlimited calls to landlines and mobiles in 22 countries (up from 400 minutes to just international landlines).

    The 120Mb/s package now includes unlimited calls to Irish landlines and mobiles and 400 minutes international (before it didn't include mobiles).

    However I'd say most people wouldn't care about these changes and just see it as a price increase.

    I agree the 240Mb/s product most have been too popular and most have been straining their network.


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  • #37
    bk
    Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 22,439 Mod ✭✭✭✭bk


    I came across this incredibly interesting presentation about cable networks, DOCSIS 3.1, the upgrade phases involved with it and the cost trade off versus FTTH here:

    https://tfictfg.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/16-harris-impacts-on-cable-hfc-networks.pdf

    Some interesting points from it.

    - In order to reach 1Gb/s services, it looks like UPC would need to turn off their analogue TV services in order to gain enough bandwidth to support it.

    I wonder how UPC would handle this. While analogue TV is very old tech at this stage, I believe it is still very popular with many UPC customers as a way to get free multi-room and as a "free"/illegal TV add on to their Broadband only services.

    I suppose they could just turn it off and make everyone upgrade to digital TV boxes. Perhaps they could offer a cheap 17 channel digital TV multi-room service for €2 or €3 per month per extra box.

    More innovatively, I wonder if they might encode the 17 SD channels using Saorview compatible DVB-T/Mpeg4! All 17 SD channels would easily fit on just one channel, saving the space of 16 analogue channels for broadband and people could use their existing Saorview compatible TV's and STB's to continue getting cheap and easy multiroom.

    Seems like an excellent compromise to me, but I wonder if there would be technical or licensing issues that would block this.

    It doesn't seem to be a widespread thing, but it does look like other cable TV operators in Europe do this:

    http://www.broadbandtvnews.com/2009/07/10/caiw-tests-dvb-t-over-cable/

    - It seems that in future 10GB/s will be possible over cable using DOCSIS 3.1

    In order to get to 5GB/s they would need to move to an all IP platform (in other words get rid of both analgoue and digital TV channels and move fully to an IPTV platform) over existing 1GHz cable.

    In order to get to 10GB/s they would need to move to all IP platform and also upgrade the RF amplifiers, etc. and maybe cable to support 1.7GHz cable.

    It is also likely node splitting and increased cable backhaul would be required.

    - Another interesting idea starting to be though about is moving the RF head end very close to the customer in a similar way to FTT Node or even FTT Dp in telephone networks. Having Fiber very close to the customers house, and then using very high quality coax for the last few hundred meters could deliver incredibly high speeds. Without the need to dig up peoples homes to lay FTTH.

    Interesting times ahead.


  • #38
    Nollog
    Registered Users Posts: 5,406 ✭✭✭Nollog


    They've been trying to get people off analogue for years.

    No idea how the dish thing they do works, but if it's not analogue, I can see them dropping analogue no problem.


  • #39
    bk
    Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 22,439 Mod ✭✭✭✭bk


    /\/ollog wrote: »
    They've been trying to get people off analogue for years.

    No idea how the dish thing they do works, but if it's not analogue, I can see them dropping analogue no problem.

    MMDS do you mean? It is all digital.

    They already have no analogue service in Cork (Cork used a weird scrambling system in the past).

    However I do think their analogue service is still important for the rest of their network, where many customers are still exclusively signed up for it.


  • #40
    The Cush
    Registered Users Posts: 15,476 ✭✭✭✭The Cush


    bk wrote: »
    More innovatively, I wonder if they might encode the 17 SD channels using Saorview compatible DVB-T/Mpeg4! All 17 SD channels would easily fit on just one channel, saving the space of 16 analogue channels for broadband and people could use their existing Saorview compatible TV's and STB's to continue getting cheap and easy multiroom.

    Seems like an excellent compromise to me, but I wonder if there would be technical or licensing issues that would block this.

    It doesn't seem to be a widespread thing, but it does look like other cable TV operators in Europe do this:

    http://www.broadbandtvnews.com/2009/07/10/caiw-tests-dvb-t-over-cable/

    At least 1 Irish cable company offers it channels using DVB-T with both MPEG-2/-4 decoding over cable (http://www.crossan.ie/index.php/faqs/why-wont-my-digital-tv-tune-to-the-service-correctly/), don't know of any other here or abroad. Probably not widely used as it wouldn't be as spectrum efficient as DVB-C.

    17 SD channels would require at least require 2 muxes for any sort of decent audio/video quality. I remember a few years ago a temp version of RTÉ2 on Saorview running at about 1Mbps and the video quality was dire. 3e currently uses about 2Mbps (IIRC) of useful mux capacity (c. 23 Mbps).

    On the UPC cable networks in Holland and Switzerland a package of unencrypted basic channels are made available using the DVB-C standard that can be viewed using any DVB-C TV or STB in the home (basic sub required). This done to encourage the large analogue subscriber base on these networks away from analogue TV to digital.

    bk wrote: »
    They already have no analogue service in Cork (Cork used a weird scrambling system in the past).

    UPC cable in Cork still carries the 4 traditional channels - http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=93434879


  • #41
    bk
    Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 22,439 Mod ✭✭✭✭bk


    The Cush wrote: »
    At least 1 Irish cable company offers it channels using DVB-T with both MPEG-2/-4 decoding over cable (http://www.crossan.ie/index.php/faqs/why-wont-my-digital-tv-tune-to-the-service-correctly/), don't know of any other here or abroad. Probably not widely used as it wouldn't be as spectrum efficient as DVB-C.

    Very interesting, that setup is exactly what I was thinking UPC could do.

    100+ digital channels for just €16 per month! That is fantastic value for money. And it includes free digital multiroom and no digital boxes needed if your TV's support saorview.

    A really wonderful service. Though I'd imagine the service suffers from lack of good PVR and series link solution.

    Shows how expensive UPC's TV service has gotten in recent years, starting at €30 for just 50 channels or 4 times more expensive then this service!
    The Cush wrote: »
    17 SD channels would require at least require 2 muxes for any sort of decent audio/video quality. I remember a few years ago a temp version of RTÉ2 on Saorview running at about 1Mbps and the video quality was dire. 3e currently uses about 2Mbps (IIRC) of useful mux capacity (c. 23 Mbps).

    You could probably get away with 1.5Mb/s with MPEG4 for SD, like Netflix seemingly uses for its SD service. I use to have Smarts MPEG4 IPTV service that used 2Mb/s and that was superb, almost DVD like.

    You could possibly fit all 17 channels at 1.5Mb/s in one DVB-T mux. DVB-T at the extreme of it's specs (64-QAM, etc.) allows up to 31Mb/s per mux.

    However I agree that would be a very tight fit and 2 muxes would be much better. Even then going from 17 channels down to just 2 would be a massive bandwidth saving for UPC and would likely allow them to easily deploy 1Gb/s services.
    The Cush wrote: »
    On the UPC cable networks in Holland and Switzerland a package of unencrypted basic channels are made available using the DVB-C standard that can be viewed using any DVB-C TV or STB in the home (basic sub required). This done to encourage the large analogue subscriber base on these networks away from analogue TV to digital.

    Yup and they could do the same here in Ireland. Though I think going DVB-T would be better for UPC Ireland. Few TV's sold in Ireland are DVB-C compatible, however DVB-T/Saorview is much more common.

    Yes DVB-C is much more efficient then DVB-T and it would be even more efficient when you consider they could simply just turn off the encryption on the 17 channels currently carried on the digital service, rather then duplicating them on the DVB-T mux. But the downside is UPC would likely need to sell lots of decoder boxes to support the people switching over from analogue TV service.


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  • #42
    Nollog
    Registered Users Posts: 5,406 ✭✭✭Nollog


    bk wrote: »
    MMDS do you mean? It is all digital.

    They already have no analogue service in Cork (Cork used a weird scrambling system in the past).

    However I do think their analogue service is still important for the rest of their network, where many customers are still exclusively signed up for it.

    That's it, mmds.

    They actively call everyone on analog-only to offer them pretty decent upgrade offers.
    Have been for a pretty long time.


  • #43
    The Cush
    Registered Users Posts: 15,476 ✭✭✭✭The Cush


    /\/ollog wrote: »
    That's it, mmds.

    They actively call everyone on analog-only to offer them pretty decent upgrade offers.
    Have been for a pretty long time.

    The MMDS service ends April 2016, for those living in rural/non-cabled areas UPC has no replacement service for these subscribers (30,200 end Dec).

    Analogue only cable subscribers are down to about 40,000 at the end of Dec with an average reduction of about 10,000 p.a. for the last few years.


  • #44
    bk
    Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 22,439 Mod ✭✭✭✭bk


    The Cush wrote: »
    The MMDS service ends April 2016, for those living in rural/non-cabled areas UPC has no replacement service for these subscribers (30,200 end Dec).

    Really, there is little reason for MMDS to continue to exist. It offers far less then Sky for the same money!

    I expect UPC will happily close this service down, perhaps to a deal to move the remaining customers over to Sky for free.
    The Cush wrote: »
    Analogue only cable subscribers are down to about 40,000 at the end of Dec with an average reduction of about 10,000 p.a. for the last few years.

    That figure can be misleading, I expect there are many if not most digital and broadband only customers using the analogue TV service for free multiroom. I think UPC would get a lot of customer resistance if they tried turning it off with no alternative.


  • #45
    Arthur Moldy Bearded
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,019 ✭✭✭ Arthur Moldy Bearded


    I understand this thread is a bit old now but didn't want to start a new thread.

    Are Virgin Media running DOCSIS 3.1 on any part of their network yet? Lab tests started in 2014 with a rollout due 2016. I believe the new VM modem supports the 3.1

    Does anyone have any update on the VM rollout of the 3.1 standard?


  • #46
    Gonzo
    Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 16,699 Mod ✭✭✭✭Gonzo


    back when Virgin Media were known as UPC they were making quick advances, keeping close to other UPC networks throughout Europe, since changing brand to Virgin Media very little positive changes has happened and their service in the UK isn't even as fast as here. I'm wondering are we gonna see VM upgrade speeds at a slower pace compared to when they were known as UPC. I thought VM would easily have a 500 meg package by now. Once Eir's FTTH network reachs more people VM will have to upgrade anyway and provider most users with new modems.


  • #47
    zg3409
    Registered Users Posts: 6,546 ✭✭✭zg3409


    What I heard years ago is the backbone to each area is 4Gb/s and that is shared out to all users in an area over the coax cable to each house. Naturally virgin voice is given priority & business & high tier are next priority, while home users are lower priority. Assuming an area has say 500 houses, 50 businesses that would mean 500Mb service would need them to upgrade the fibre which may be easy as normally they have spare strands (called dark fibre) and can upgrade the equipment on both ends. Docsis applies only between the backbone cabinet and the homes, and they can run multiple systems and they could add loads of capacity if they removed the 17 analogue channels.

    I don't think capacity is really the issue, but adding more capacity would cost more money, which will only happen if there is a business case, which would only apply if they are losing customers to competitions. Definitely fibre to the phone cabinet exists and is live in many UPC areas, and those with Sky Satellite TV are being bombarded with their quite expensive over phone line to the nearest phone cabinet service.

    I would have thought a more budget service would be a better grabber or keeper of users, although it seems these are offered but only to those threatening to leave. In many cases, by the time they call Virgin, they have already signed up to a competing service. Its simply a numbers game. The technology exists and is available, at a price.


  • #48
    random_punter_2
    Registered Users Posts: 15 ✭random_punter_2


    >What I heard years ago is the backbone to each area is 4Gb/s

    I dont see why backhaul would be 4gbs, if they are running an IP backbone over fiber surely the aggregation speeds would be industry standard which is 1gb, 10gbs, 40gbs, 100gbs.


  • #49
    Cuddlesworth
    Registered Users Posts: 13,980 ✭✭✭✭Cuddlesworth


    random_punter_2 wrote: »
    >What I heard years ago is the backbone to each area is 4Gb/s

    I dont see why backhaul would be 4gbs, if they are running an IP backbone over fiber surely the aggregation speeds would be industry standard which is 1gb, 10gbs, 40gbs, 100gbs.

    Its a standard in Fibre channel, so not really applicable here. Its probably just four 1 gig single mode links bonded over 8 cables. Which could be upgraded to 40gigs but would require equipment overhaul.

    Its probably worth noting that 4gbps is more then enough for most estates anyway. You would require a large number of customers pulling down at max speeds and in reality, this doesn't happen outside of torrents.


  • #50
    digiman
    Registered Users Posts: 4,198 ✭✭✭digiman


    Cuddlesworth wrote: »
    Its a standard in Fibre channel, so not really applicable here. Its probably just four 1 gig single mode links bonded over 8 cables. Which could be upgraded to 40gigs but would require equipment overhaul.

    Its probably worth noting that 4gbps is more then enough for most estates anyway. You would require a large number of customers pulling down at max speeds and in reality, this doesn't happen outside of torrents.

    At todays traffic levels, 4Gb/s would be fine for around 1-1.5k customers without anyone seeing congestion.


  • #51
    lotas
    Registered Users Posts: 925 ✭✭✭lotas


    digiman wrote: »
    At todays traffic levels, 4Gb/s would be fine for around 1-1.5k customers without anyone seeing congestion.

    4K netflix needs at least 25mb/s to stream properly... thats about 167 people watching 4k streams at peak hours, and your bandwidth is used... yea, most people dont have 4k TVs, but I can still see 4g being saturated soon enough...


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  • #52
    KeRbDoG
    Registered Users Posts: 4,211 ✭✭✭KeRbDoG


    Unsure if it has been mentioned in this thread or not but corporate clients can get a 1Gb/s cable service from VM via cable right now but isn't available to normal consumers

    Edit: Ah, turns out the info I was given was wrong. It's a 400/50 uncontended service, fixed IP


  • #53
    godskitchen
    Registered Users Posts: 1,824 ✭✭✭godskitchen


    KeRbDoG wrote: »
    Unsure if it has been mentioned in this thread or not but corporate clients can get a 1Gb/s cable service from VM via cable right now but isn't available to normal consumers

    What's the upload?


  • #54
    KeRbDoG
    Registered Users Posts: 4,211 ✭✭✭KeRbDoG


    godskitchen wrote: »
    What's the upload?

    Ah, turns out the info I was given was wrong. It's a 400/50 uncontended service, fixed IP


  • #55
    PAKNET
    Closed Accounts Posts: 226 ✭✭PAKNET


    Virgin do 1Gb alright but it's delivered as fibre right into the premises.

    The cost is also about as much a month as their top tier DOCSIS product would cost you for a whole year though!

    Has the added bonus of an SLA though :-)


  • #56
    digiman
    Registered Users Posts: 4,198 ✭✭✭digiman


    lotas wrote: »
    4K netflix needs at least 25mb/s to stream properly... thats about 167 people watching 4k streams at peak hours, and your bandwidth is used... yea, most people dont have 4k TVs, but I can still see 4g being saturated soon enough...

    I find my 4k Netflix videos run at just over 15Mb/s.

    However not everybody is online at the same time and not everyone watches 4k Netflix or even Netflix at all. You will find that 4Gb/s will happily serve 2k customers for the next year or so.

    But to be honest with the cost of optics these days it's better to just put in 10Gb transceivers from day one now as it will cost you more for a field engineer to go to site and turn up a new link.


  • #57
    Cuddlesworth
    Registered Users Posts: 13,980 ✭✭✭✭Cuddlesworth


    lotas wrote: »
    4K netflix needs at least 25mb/s to stream properly... thats about 167 people watching 4k streams at peak hours, and your bandwidth is used... yea, most people dont have 4k TVs, but I can still see 4g being saturated soon enough...

    Not really how video streaming works, even 4k. It usually works on bursty TCP transmission with a local cache coupled with H265 and TV/Film type formats, bandwidth usage is greatly reduced. Also Netflix would scale down a image to sub 4k without most people noticing. We have a **** ton of youtube streams at lunch time using far less then a gig.

    Also, its not uncommon for ISP equipment to be able to utilise varied bandwidth on fibre. 8 fibres could be 4/4, or 7/1 depending on the requirements.

    Plus a 10gig backbone isn't a huge deal for a company like Virgin.


  • #58
    lotas
    Registered Users Posts: 925 ✭✭✭lotas


    KeRbDoG wrote: »
    Unsure if it has been mentioned in this thread or not but corporate clients can get a 1Gb/s cable service from VM via cable right now but isn't available to normal consumers

    Edit: Ah, turns out the info I was given was wrong. It's a 400/50 uncontended service, fixed IP

    Im on a business package... I have 400/40 currently, and they offered a 500/50, but it was nearly 2x the price...


  • #59
    ED E
    Registered Users Posts: 36,163 ✭✭✭✭ED E


    https://www.multichannel.com/pr-feed/liberty-global-selected-vector-technologies-solutions

    If a vendor was only recently selected you can bet RoI wont see any new gear for at least a year or two.


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