Charter Communications has announced gigabit broadband is available on the Hawaiian island of Oahu for $104.99/month, thanks to DOCSIS 3.1 upgrades being tested in the state.

Spectrum customers in Hawaii will also find their Standard tier internet speeds have also been doubled to 200Mbps, up from 100Mbps. A year ago, the company was selling 60Mbps broadband for the same $65 price it now charges for speeds more than triple as fast.

Charter has been at the rear of companies upgrading to DOCSIS 3.1 technology, primarily because the company is still upgrading legacy Time Warner Cable systems to free up space for boosting broadband speeds. The last analog television service in legacy Time Warner territory is not expected to disappear until 2019, with around half of former Time Warner Cable customers still waiting for upgrades. Charter executives don’t mind that the company is among the last, claiming that by the time DOCSIS 3.1 is fully deployed across their systems, equipment will be cheaper and more plentiful.

Charter plans to roll out DOCSIS 3.1 upgrades in selected cities — almost all facing substantial competition from Verizon FiOS, AT&T Fiber, or a municipal gigabit fiber provider — starting in 2018. But most markets will have to wait until 2019 or later before gigabit speeds become available from Spectrum.

Charter CEO Thomas Rutledge added Spectrum customers will see base plan speeds increase as the company continues its upgrade strategy.

Charter Communications has informed shareholders it will soon introduce gigabit speed broadband plans in select cities.

“In a couple of months, we’ll launch gigabit speeds offerings in several key markets using DOCSIS 3.1, with more launches planned through 2018,” said Charter CEO Thomas Rutledge. “We expect DOCSIS 3.1 modems to be priced similarly to DOCSIS 3.0 modems when purchased at scale, and we’ll begin to buy exclusively DOCSIS 3.1 modems and drive higher entry-level speeds.”

Charter will not be following Comcast and Altice with fiber to the home upgrades for customers looking for the fastest possible speed. Instead, it will begin limited rollouts of current DOCSIS 3.1 technology, which will support gigabit download speeds with a considerably more limited upload speed.

Charter may have accidentally leaked the first place it plans to offer gigabit service – Oahu, Hawaii, by jumping the gun on a support page (quickly removed yesterday) discovered by a DSL Reports reader.

Charter executives have consistently told shareholders the priority for the company this year is to continue upgrading its acquired Time Warner Cable and Bright House cable systems to support Spectrum’s standardized internet speed of 100Mbps. (An unadvertised upgrade option to 300Mbps is also available for approximately $105/mo with a one time $199.99 upgrade fee. Legacy markets still awaiting upgrades continue to receive 60Mbps with an unadvertised upgrade option to 100Mbps for approximately $105/mo with a one time $199.99 upgrade fee.)

Charter is facing competitive pressure from Google and telephone company competitors upgrading to fiber to the home service. Hawaiian Telcom, for example, now offers gigabit broadband options on Oahu. Charter’s gigabit offerings are most likely to be introduced in markets where it already faces gigabit competition. For areas that don’t, Charter is moving forward with less dramatic upgrades that currently top out at 300Mbps.

“As of today, we offer [standard] internet speeds of 100Mbps in over 75% of our entire footprint, up from just 50% at the end of the second quarter,” added Rutledge. “And we expect to offer minimum speeds in excess of 100Mbps in nearly all of our passings by year-end.”

Rutledge did not define what the next set of broadband speed tiers would be.

Rutledge also announced new Spectrum broadband customers would be getting an improved Wi-Fi router, known as Wave 2, specifically developed and designed by Charter’s engineers.

“It has much faster speeds and even better propagation of reliability throughout the home,” Rutledge offered.

CableLabs has resolved the cable industry’s long-standing competitive disadvantage with fiber optic broadband with the introduction of a Full Duplex (FDX) DOCSIS 3.1 specification.

“FDX DOCSIS 3.1 is an extension of the DOCSIS 3.1 specification that will significantly increase upstream capacity and enable symmetric multi-Gbps services over existing HFC networks,” CableLabs wrote. “Full Duplex DOCSIS 3.1 technology builds on the successful completion of the DOCSIS 3.1 specification, which has made deployments of 10Gbps downstream and 1Gbps upstream broadband speeds a reality.”

Cable operators that adopt FDX will be able to sell identical upstream and downstream speeds to customers. The new standard concurrently uses the same spectrum reserved for broadband service for uploads and downloads. The technology was developed using Time Division Duplexing (TDD).

The new standard is 100% compatible with DOCSIS 3.1, which is slowly being implemented by cable operators around the country. However, it is not compatible with DOCSIS 3.0, which is still the predominate cable broadband technology standard in use in North America. As DOCSIS 3.1 gradually gets introduced, some cable modem manufacturers are building modems compatible with both DOCSIS 3.0 and 3.1, so equipment is not rendered obsolete in the next few years. But early adopters will likely not find modems supporting FDX DOCSIS 3.1 for up to two years.

The prerequisites for cable operators interested in deploying the new standard are significant. The most important requirement is the adoption of “node+0” architecture, which requires deploying fiber optics deep into the cable company’s network.

The history of the DOCSIS standard powering cable broadband.

How cable systems work

In the early days of cable, companies relied primarily on coaxial cable between its “headend” — often its main office, and customers. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, cable companies began replacing sections of its copper coaxial cable with fiber optics, a more reliable technology with fewer failure points. There was considerable debate about how much copper cable should be scrapped, based primarily on the cost to deploy fiber. More fiber = more money, less fiber = less reliability. Anyone who subscribed to cable in the 1970s and 1980s was well acquainted with frequent outages, often caused by a failure in one of the many amplifiers cable system operators used to get signals from their office to individual customers.

Many cable companies eventually settled on plotting each fiber optic route to the center of a circle on a map with a 1-kilometer radius. In most suburban areas, this meant that each fiber “node” would serve around 500 customers. The cable company would continue to use its existing coaxial cable to extend into neighborhoods and reach subscribers. Over the last 5-10 years, some cable companies have invested to push fiber optics “deeper” into their networks, which means further reducing the amount of copper coaxial cable still in use.

Today, in many cities, the average cable subscriber can theoretically find the location where a cable company’s fiber connection interfaces with coaxial cable somewhere within a three block radius.

To make FDX DOCSIS 3.1 work, cable companies need enough fiber pushed towards customers to completely eliminate the use of amplifiers. That is what “node+0” means: from the fiber node to the customer, there are zero amplifiers.

Timeline

Because of the cost implications, some cable operators may initially offer FDX DOCSIS 3.1 only to their commercial clients, especially in areas where a fiber competitor does not exist.

Although many cable operators doubt symmetrical broadband is attractive to residential customers, it does offer the cable industry the talking point its networks will be gigabit-capable without an investment in fiber to the home service.

The cable industry expects to test the technology in late 2018 or early 2019, with the expectation it will be introduced for sale starting in 2020.

With many cable operators reporting a need to double network capacity every 18-24 months to keep up with customer traffic demands, the industry is spending time and money contemplating how to meet future needs while also finding ways to cut costs and make networks more efficient.

Top technology executives from five major cable operators answered questions (sub. req’d.) from Multichannel News about their current broadband networks and their plans for the future. Some, like Mediacom, are aggressively adopting DOCSIS 3.1 cable broadband upgrades for their customers while companies like Cox and Comcast are deploying multiple solutions that use both traditional hybrid fiber-coax network technology and, on occasion, fiber-to-the-home to boost speed and performance. But at least one cable company — Charter Communications — thinks it can continue operating its existing DOCSIS 3 network without major upgrades for several years to come.

Cable Broadband Traffic Can Be Handled

“We’ve been on a pretty steady path of doubling our network capacity every 18-24 months for several years, and I don’t see anything that makes me think that will change,” said Tony Werner, president of technology and product at Comcast. “We’ve been strategically extending fiber further into our network to meet customer demand, and that effort, combined with our commitment to deploying DOCSIS 3.1 has given us a network that’s powerful, flexible, and ready for what’s next.”

J.R. Walden, senior vice president of technology at Mediacom was more aggressive.

“We have completed the removal of all the analog channels. That was the big step one,” Walden said. “Step two was to start transitioning high-speed data over to DOCSIS 3.1, so we’re not adding any more 3.0 channels, and reuse spectrum for 3.1, which is a bit more efficient. The whole company is 3.1, all the modems we’re buying since June have been 3.1, so we’ve begun that next transition.”

Walden added Mediacom is also trying to improve broadband performance by reducing the number of customers sharing the same connection.

“We average about 285 homes to 290 homes per node as an average,” he said.

Mediacom is also scrapping older technology on the TV side to open new bandwidth. The cable company is getting rid of MPEG-2-only set-top boxes so the company can transition its video lineup to MPEG-4. But even that won’t last long. Walden admits the company will then quickly start moving less-viewed channels and some premium networks to IP delivery.

Traditional cable broadband service relies on a hybrid fiber-coax network.

In its European markets, Liberty Global has adopted Converged Cable Access Platform (CCAP) equipment across its footprint. CCAP technology saves cable operators space and operates more efficiently, and supports future convergence of technologies that cable operators want to adopt in the future. CCAP has helped Liberty Global deal with its 45% traffic growth by making upgrades easier. The company is also using advanced features of CCAP to better balance how many customers are sharing a connection. The next step is adopting DOCSIS 3.1.

“Seventy to 80% of our plant will be DOCSIS 3.1 ready by the end of next year, giving us a path to even greater capacity expansion allowing us to continue to increase the available capacity across our access network, upstream and downstream,” said Dan Hennessy, chief architect of network architecture for Liberty.

Charter is prioritizing maximizing performance on the network it already has.

“Our priority is to constantly balance capacity against demand. It’s a never-ending quest,” said Jay Rolls, Charter’s chief technology officer. “We watch it very closely, and we’re very pragmatic about it — the volume of tools, metrics and ways to see what’s really happening, and invest accordingly, is really deepening in ways that matter.”

Is Fiber-to-the-Home in Your Future?

While some cable operators like Altice’s Cablevision are scrapping their existing hybrid fiber-coax networks in favor of fiber-to-the-home (FTTH), America’s largest cable operators are not in any hurry to follow Altice.

Comcast has expanded its fiber network closer to customers in the last few years, but sees no need to convert customers to FTTH service.

“I feel pretty strongly that the best path ahead is to leverage the existing coaxial network and DOCSIS resources to the fullest, then inch towards FTTH, over time Why? Because we can. We don’t have to build an entire network just to turn up one customer.”

The next generation of cable broadband service may depend on CCAP – technology that will cut operator costs and lay the foundation for changing the way video and other services are delivered to customers.

Cox has a 10-year Network 2.0 plan that will bring fiber closer to customers, but not directly to every home. More important to Cox is having the option to support symmetrical speeds, which means delivering upload speeds as fast as download speeds. In the meantime, network cabling Greensboro can improve your current connectivity and reliability, preparing your network for high-speed internet.

“We’re also thinking about the fiber investment and fiber deep as it relates to our wireless strategy, enabling some of our customers with a small cell strategy but also positioning ourselves to take advantage of that in the future, as well as thinking about fiber deep to benefit both residential and our commercial customers simultaneously,” said Kevin Hart, Cox’s executive vice president and chief product and technology officer.

Liberty/Virgin Media’s Project Lightning is bringing cable broadband and TV service to places in the UK that never had cable service before.

In Europe, Liberty Global’s “Project Lightning” network expansion initiative is building out traditional cable service in the United Kingdom. Most of the UK never adopted cable service, favoring small satellite dish service instead. Now Liberty Global is putting cable expansion on its priority list. But decades after most North Americans got cable service for the first time, today’s new buildouts are based largely on fiber optics — either fiber to the home or fiber to the neighborhood, where coaxial cable completes the journey to a customer’s home.

Charter admits the technology it will use in the future partly depends on what the competition is offering. Rolls says the company can eventually roll out DOCSIS 3.1, take fiber deeper, or offer symmetrical download/upload speeds presumably targeted towards its commercial customers. But he also suggested Charter’s existing network can continue to deliver acceptable levels of service without spending a lot on major upgrades.

“It’s a rational approach, where we’re trying to balance the needs, the available technologies, and the costs,” Rolls said. But he also suggested DOCSIS 3.1 isn’t always the answer to upgrades. “DOCSIS 3.1 has some pretty remarkable capabilities, but it’s not necessarily a hard-and-fast reason to not take fiber deeper, for instance [allowing for additional DOCSIS 3 node splits]. Different situations drive different capacity decisions.”

Walden agreed, and Mediacom customers should not expect more than DOCSIS 3.1 upgrades for the near future.

“[Fiber deep] is a bit further out, at least as a large-scale type of project,” Walden told Multichannel News. “I think fiber deep for multi-dwelling units, high-density areas and some planned higher end communities doing deeper fiber or fiber-to-the-home [is happening]. But as a wholesale [change] and going to node+0 kind of architecture, I don’t see that in the next two years.”

Are Symmetrical Speeds Important for Customers?

Verizon’s fiber to the home service FiOS uses symmetrical broadband speeds to its advantage in the marketplace.

Many fiber to the home networks offer customers identical upload and download speeds, but cable broadband was designed to favor downstream speeds over upstream. That decision was based on the premise the majority of users will receive much more traffic than they send. But as the internet evolves, some are wondering if cable broadband’s asymmetric design is now outdated and some competitors like Verizon’s FiOS fiber to the home service now use its symmetrical speed advantage as a selling point.

Cox Communications does not think most customers care, even though its network upgrades are laying the foundation to deliver symmetrical speeds.

“It’s a little but further out on the horizon,” said Hart. “The upstream growth rate is ticking up a couple of notches, but not to the tune that we would need significant additional capacity and/or a complementary need for symmetrical bandwidth. [A]t this stage, the symmetrical is a nice-to-have for residential and definitely will be a good option for our commercial customers.”

Rolls isn’t sure if symmetrical speeds are important to customers either and Charter has no specific plans to move towards upload speed upgrades.

“The world of applications and services continues to evolve, obviously, but so far we’ve been able to meet those needs with an asymmetrical topology,” Rolls said. “That said, things like real-time gaming, augmented and virtual reality, and the Internet of Things — some of those will likely drive more symmetry in the network. It remains to be seen.”

Despite claims from some industry-backed researchers and former members of Congress that Net Neutrality has reduced investment in telecommunications, a new research note from Deutsche Bank shows America’s top telephone and cable companies are spending billions on fiber upgrades to power wireless, business, and consumer broadband.

“Telecoms have become much more public signaling their intent to increase fiber investment, with AT&T and Verizon leading the spending ramp,” reports Deutsche Bank Markets Research.

Verizon has been on a fiber spending spree in the northeastern United States, signing contracts with Corning and Prysmian worth $1.3 billion to guarantee a steady supply of 2.5 million miles of fiber optic cable Verizon plans to buy over the next three years. Much of that spending allows Verizon to lay a foundation for its future 5G wireless services, which will require fiber to the neighborhood networks. But in cities like Boston, Verizon is also once again expanding its FiOS fiber to the home service to consumers.

AT&T is committed to connecting 12.5 million homes to gigabit-ready fiber broadband by 2019 — part of a deal it made with the FCC to win approval of its acquisition of DirecTV. AT&T claims it has already connected 5.5 million homes to its gigabit AT&T Fiber network, expected to reach 7 million by the end of this year.

Deutsche Bank thinks providers’ future drive towards 5G service will also simultaneously benefit fiber to the home expansion, because the same fiber network can power both services.

“To support the upcoming innovations such as autonomous driving, IoT, smart cities, the US needs to densify its fiber network,” Deutsche Bank said. “The U.S. fiber penetration rate is 20% vs. 75% for leading OECD countries, which suggests a large gap needs to be closed.”

Altice founder Patrick Drahi (second from left) and Altice USA CEO Dexter Goei (center) visit a Cablevision fiber deployment on Long Island, N.Y.

The bank predicts companies will spend around $175 billion over the next 10 years building out their fiber networks, with most of the spending coming from the phone companies, who may see fiber buildouts as their best attempt to level the playing field with cable operators’ hybrid fiber-coaxial cable networks. As cable operators expand their networks to reach more business parks, they have been gradually stealing market share for phone and data services from phone companies. Consumer broadband is also increasingly dominated by cable operators in areas where phone companies still rely on selling DSL services.

FierceCable notes Comcast and Altice have stepped up aggressive spending on fiber networks for their consumer and business customers. Altice is planning to decommission Cablevision’s existing coaxial cable network and move customers to fiber-to-the-home service. Comcast is deploying fiber services while still selling traditional cable broadband upgraded to DOCSIS 3.1, which supports substantially faster broadband speeds. The two networks co-exist side-by-side. Customer need dictates which network Comcast will use to supply service.

Customers benefit differently in each state, depending on what type of service is available. Comcast’s large footprint in Pennsylvania, outside of Philadelphia, is usually served by traditional coaxial cable. Verizon still sells DSL in much of the state. In Massachusetts, Verizon is building out its FiOS network to serve metro Boston while Comcast will depend on DOCSIS 3.1 upgrades to speed up its internet service. In New Jersey, long a battleground for Verizon’s FiOS service the company stopped aggressively expanding several years ago, Comcast has announced DOCSIS 3.1 upgrades for the entire state.

Independent phone companies are also seeing a bleak future without fiber upgrades. Both CenturyLink and Windstream are planning moderately aggressive fiber expansion, particularly in urban service areas and where they face fierce cable competition. Frontier continues its more modest approach to fiber expansion, usually placing fiber in new housing developments and in places where its copper facilities have been severely damaged or have to be relocated because of infrastructure projects.

None of the companies have cited Net Neutrality as a factor in their future broadband expansion plans. In fact, fiber networks have opened the door to new business opportunities to the companies installing them, and the high-capacity networks are likely to further reduce traffic/transit costs, while boosting speeds. That undercuts the business model of selling digital slow and fast lanes.