Just a few years after cable systems began upgrading to DOCSIS 3.0 to improve broadband speeds and performance through channel bonding, CableLabs is set to formalize next-generation DOCSIS 3.1 by the end of this month, allowing cable broadband speeds to reach well into the gigabits.

“We made a fairly bold assertion in October of last year that we would have them substantially complete and publicly issued by the end of 2013,” Matt Schmitt, director of DOCSIS at CableLabs said this morning. “This is quite a bit faster than we have ever pulled off before. It’s not a small project to do a new DOCSIS with a new physical layer underneath. It was an industry-wide effort and I tell you what, they’ve been busting their tails.”

Schmitt

Schmitt discussed the new standard at the DOCSIS 3.1 Engineering Pre-conference Symposium held in Atlanta.

The new standard for cable broadband was designed to protect the industry from competing technologies — notably fiber to the home service which offers immediate gigabit broadband capacity. DOCSIS 3.1 was designed to support up to 10/1Gbps speeds using larger spectrum bands cable operators are opening for data services after switching off analog cable television channels.

Cable operators are not expected to offer gigabit broadband service in most areas. Many operators still dedicate the largest amount of their available bandwidth to analog cable television channels. But DOCSIS 3.1 provides scalability as operators move towards digital television delivery. It also offers 50 percent more data capacity over DOCSIS 3.0 over the same spectrum.

DOCSIS 3.1 uses a new modulation scheme coupled with more robust forward error correction (FEC) to improve efficiency and performance. The new standard dumps Reed-Solomon FEC in favor of low-density parity check (LDPC) technology. DOCSIS 3.1 relies on orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM), also used by wireless carriers to boost performance over limited spectrum.

Despite the new standard, DOCSIS 3.1 will be fully backwards-compatible with DOCSIS 3.0, which means customers buying their own cable modems will not find them obsolete anytime soon. When a customer decides they want faster broadband speeds, the cable operator can advise if a new DOCSIS 3.1 modem is needed. In most cases, it will not.

Most cable operators are expected to take at least a year lab testing the new technology and waiting for vendors to incorporate support for DOCSIS 3.1 in future generations of cable broadband equipment.

Comcast, one of the more speed-aggressive cable operators likely to be an early adopter of DOCSIS 3.1, indicated it would probably be 2015 before customers can buy DOCSIS 3.1-powered products. But Comcast will begin trials next year, according to Jorge Salinger, vice president of access architecture.

Time Warner Cable plans to use the next generation of DOCSIS as they migrate from conventional MPEG-based video delivery to IP video transport on a Converged Cable Access Platform (CCAP). But Time Warner Cable customers don’t usually get the fastest possible broadband speeds. For most of the country, the cable operator’s top speed is 50/5Mbps.

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Speaker Interview with Ralph Brown of Cable Labs at Cable Congress 2013 in London 3-11-13.mp4[/flv]

Ralph Brown, chief technology officer of CableLabs, talked about DOCSIS 3.1 and the cable industry’s future technology needs in this interview from March 2013. (5 minutes)

AT&T today announced it has agreed to lease exclusive rights to its nearly 9,100 cell sites and sell outright an extra 600 towers to Crown Castle International Corp. for $4.85 billion in cash, filling the wireless company’s coffers for possible acquisitions, especially in Europe.

Under the terms of the deal, Crown Castle will lease and run the towers for an average of 28 years, after which the company will be able to buy them outright for around $4.2 billion.

Crown Castle will gain more than 9,000 AT&T cell towers available to lease to other providers.

AT&T is seeking to monetize its extensive portfolio of cell towers while protecting rights of access. The cell phone company is guaranteed subleases on the towers for at least a decade for $1,900 per month per site, with annual rent increases of 2 percent, with a right to renew for up to 50 years total. AT&T will also have access to reserve capacity on the towers for future use.

The money will help AT&T’s balance sheet as it undertakes a $14 billion network upgrade and plans a shareholder-friendly stock buyback that may top $11 billion.

After the deal closes, Crown Castle will become the nation’s largest provider of shared wireless infrastructure, operating more than 40,000 communications towers in the United States alone. This is not the first deal Crown Castle has done with major wireless carriers. In November 2012, Crown acquired exclusive rights to lease and operate 7,100 T-Mobile USA cell towers.

In the past, many wireless carriers refused to share tower space for competitive reasons. Today, the demand for wireless data is forcing carriers to increase the number of cell sites to improve coverage and capacity. Many carriers now share cell sites to cut costs and avoid the regulatory burdens and citizen objections that often come with a proposed new tower. Crown Castle’s acquisition is likely to boost leasing of the AT&T cell sites. At present, AT&T’s towers only have 1.7 tenants per site, including AT&T. Crown Castle towers average 2.8 tenants per site. Potential clients for the AT&T towers include the three other major carriers: Verizon Wireless, Sprint, and T-Mobile.

Azerbaijan, a former Soviet Republic in the Caucuses, is getting fiber to the home service and a nationwide speed guarantee of 10-100Mbps for all 9.3 million Azeris, no matter where they live in the country.

Most large cities will be scheduled for fiber to the home service, as part of successive annual budgets planned for telecommunications upgrades. The government has spent $182 million on telecom services so far this year, according to the Ministry of Telecommunications and Information Technologies.

From January to September, 673.3 kilometers of fiber optic cables were laid, primarily by Aztelekom, the country’s largest telecom provider. Much of the initial spending is for upgrades to the Azerbaijani telephone system, a combination or wired and wireless services.

The ministry plans to provide all areas of Azerbaijan with fiber speed Internet access by 2017. At present, 70 percent of Azerbaijan’s population uses the Internet and 50 percent have the service at home.

Officials claim the goal of the fiber project is to deliver blanket broadband coverage to the entire country, with speeds at least 100Mbps by 2017.

Azerbaijan sees fiber broadband as a critical part of the country’s development to meet the economic challenges of the digital economy. The government considers traditional telephone based DSL and cable modem technology wholly inadequate to the task. Presently, ADSL is the most common technology in Azerbaijan, but is limited to 2-8Mbps — performance now deemed obsolete and unacceptable by the ministry.

Azerbaijan’s largest ISP

The World Economic Forum’s report “Global Information Technology 2013″ ranked Azerbaijan 56th on the Networked Readiness Index among 144 world countries even before the fiber service is constructed. The U.S. is ranked 9th, Canada is ranked 12th.

Azerbaijan’s aggressive deployment of fiber optics has won recognition from the World Economic Forum for laying the foundation for much higher rankings in the future.

Much of the funding for the project comes from the Azerbaijani State Oil Fund, a special purpose state organization dedicated to sharing revenues from oil and gas production with the Azeri people through investments in social-economically important projects. Oil wealth is considered a national resource, not a windfall for oil industry executives and shareholders. The fund has helped build housing for persons displaced in the Armenian-Azerbaijan conflict over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region, construct potable water systems, and finance public transportation and telecommunications projects.

Azerbaijan plans to manufacture its own fiber cables for the project inside the country in a joint venture with an Austrian firm.

[flv width=”480″ height=”380”]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Azerbaijani ICT.mp4[/flv]

The Azerbaijan Ministry of Telecommunications and Information Technologies produced this English language introduction to telecom services and broadband (collectively called ‘ICT’) in the country.  “CIS” refers to the Commonwealth of Independent States, which includes many of the republics constituting the former U.S.S.R., as well as Russia itself.  (7 minutes)

Verizon Voice Link

Verizon’s wireless solution for landline infrastructure damaged during last year’s Hurricane Sandy has not been a runaway success for the phone company, only attracting 120 customers on New Jersey’s barrier island.

After Hurricane Sandy damaged the telephone network on the peninsula, Verizon announced it would reinstate telephone service using Verizon Voice Link — a wireless landline replacement that works over Verizon Wireless’ network. The announcement was not well received by New Jersey residents — customers don’t want the service and after Verizon Wireless experienced a major service outage in Ocean County, N.J. in September, many don’t trust the service to be as reliable as the landlines it replaced.

Mantoloking resident Peter Flihan thinks Verizon delivered its own blow to the island, post-Sandy. Flihan has Voice Link, but after using it he says he wants his old landline back and is very unhappy with the performance of Verizon’s wireless replacement.

“They told us this was the greatest thing in the world,” Flihan told the New York Times.

But the service takes away more than it provides, argue consumer groups including the AARP. Flihan’s old landline worked during power outages, Verizon Voice Link only has two hours of backup battery talk time. Landlines reliably reach 911. Verizon is less confident about Voice Link, going out of its way to disavow any responsibility if a customer cannot reach the emergency number because of technical problems or network congestion. Data services of all kinds don’t work with Voice Link either, even the venerable old dial-up modem. Neither will fax machines, medical monitoring equipment, or home security systems.

Flihan complains Verizon’s Voice Link can’t even reliably manage the function it was designed for — making and receiving voice phone calls.

Flihan told the newspaper roughly 25 percent of the calls he makes through the landline replacement do not go through the first time he dials, or sometimes the second or third. Other times, calls are disturbed with unusual clicking sounds, static, and other voices breaking into the line.

Fire Island residents report Voice Link also misses incoming calls, refuses to ring phone lines and often sends callers straight to voice mail. Others get recordings or busy signals.

Verizon disclaims legal responsibility for failed 911 calls in its Voice Link terms and conditions.

Verizon’s attempt to retire landlines in high cost areas has proven to be a public relations debacle for the phone company. More than 1,700 negative comments have been received by the New York Public Service Commission about Voice Link’s performance on Fire Island. Politicians also delivered repeated lashings to the phone company, claiming Verizon was abdicating its responsibilities by seeking to offer second-rate phone service.

In New Jersey, residents at least have a choice. Verizon maintains a monopoly on Fire Island, but in New Jersey it competes with Comcast, which also provides phone service.

Lee Gierczynski, a Verizon spokesman, noted Verizon’s landline business suffered even before Hurricane Sandy arrived. The FiOS-less island has left Verizon with a 25 percent market share. Verizon Voice Link’s numbers are even lower. Gierczynski admitted Verizon Voice Link has only 120 (out of 540 affected customers) signed up on the island.

While Verizon has refused to invest in an upgraded network for impacted customers, Comcast issued a press release announcing major upgrades for the New Jersey shore.

Comcast upgraded 144 miles of infrastructure supporting the hardest hit communities, reopened renovated service centers with increased staffing and extended hours, increased the number of available service technicians, and provided free access to an expanded Wi-Fi network.

“We know that Hurricane Sandy complicated life for millions of people, and many of our employees and facilities were affected by the storm,” said LeAnn Talbot, senior vice president of Comcast’s Freedom Region. “We were here for the Jersey Shore during and immediately after Sandy, we have been here to support since then and will remain as a partner tomorrow and beyond as people and communities work to rebuild.”

This summer, Comcast introduced its X1 set-top platform, rolled out a new Wireless Gateway, added a home security option, and opened thousands of additional Wi-Fi hotspots across coastal New Jersey. Customers were also given a dedicated phone number to reach Comcast regarding its rebuilding efforts.

Comcast invited Verizon customers to switch to its telephone service and noted it works fine for faxing, security systems and medical devices.

But Mantoloking resident Christine Wilder still isn’t happy.

“I didn’t want Voice Link,” Wilder told the Asbury Park Press last summer. Wilder signed up for Comcast, but would rather have her copper landline back.

Unfortunately for Flihan and Wilder, although Fire Island residents’ loud displeasure drowned Verizon’s plans for Voice Link in New York, those affected in New Jersey are fewer in number. To date, their criticism of Voice Link has not made Verizon uncomfortable enough to change course as they have on Fire Island and bring a FiOS fiber network solution to Mantoloking and other affected boroughs.

That face “troubles” New Jersey Rate Counsel Stefanie A. Brand.

“I am not sure why New Jersey is not getting the same level of service as New York from Verizon,” Brand told the newspaper in September. “It’s not enough to simply say there is cable in Mantoloking; therefore we don’t need to meet our obligation. Why are they not willing to do it for similarly situated customers in New Jersey?”

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Verizon Voice Link A Reliable Alternative 10-3-13.mp4[/flv]

Verizon produced this video defending Voice Link as a reliable alternative to customers experiencing persistent problems with their landline service. (2 minutes)

A joint venture between Verizon, Comcast, and Time Warner Cable to explore the development of innovative new services delivered across cable and wireless networks has been terminated, according to Fran Shammo, Verizon’s chief financial officer.

Speaking on a quarterly results conference call, Shammo acknowledged the companies still have a cross-marketing agreement selling Verizon Wireless service to Comcast and Time Warner Cable subscribers and pitching cable service inside Verizon Wireless stores. A Verizon spokesperson admitted the parties abandoned the effort to co-develop new products and services at the end of August.

Shammo pointed to Verizon’s recent buyout of Vodafone’s share in Verizon Wireless as one of the market changes that led to dissolving the partnership with the two cable companies. Shammo indicated bringing Verizon Wireless under the full control of Verizon Communications allows the company to develop, market, and distribute its own products and services across both Verizon Wireless and fiber optic FiOS platforms.

Had the joint venture continued, Verizon’s FiOS network might have suffered a competitive disadvantage, being unable to capitalize on the exclusivity of new services developed by Verizon to better compete against the two cable companies that share many Verizon service areas.

Verizon FiOS has already garnered a 39% market share with room to grow in major cities like New York City, Philadelphia, and Washington where Verizon has not yet completed its fiber optic buildout.