The NCTA and its president, Michael Powell, introduced the term "10G" back at CES 2019. It's been cable's aspirational counter-offensive to the wireless industry's omnipresent 5G initiative ever since. 

Member company Comcast -- on the forefront of HFC network innovation -- has run with the term. It even used it this past week as it promoted the cable industry's first live-deployment of a next-generation DOCSIS 4.0 broadband services, which Comcast says can deliver symmetrical speeds of up to 2 gigabits per second over old-world hybrid-fiber coax cables. 

But T-Mobile filed a complaint in February with the National Advertising Division. And the watchdog said Friday that it has sided with the wireless company. The group said Comcast shouldn't market its Xfinity wireline broadband service with the "10G" moniker unless it can actually deliver 10 Gbps over it. 

Comcast does sell the $300-a-month "Gigabit Pro" fiber-to-the-home service, but NAD contends that's not the package that Comcast is plying the "10G" term to. 

"In evaluating support for this claim, NAD found that Comcast’s description of its entire network as '10G' conveys the message that all consumers on the network will receive a significant increase in speed up to 10 Gbps speeds," NAD said. "However, only one of Xfinity’s many plans (Gigabit Pro) can reach 10 Gbps, and to access that service tier requires the installation of fiber to the premises. Further, NAD determined that the evidence in the record was insufficient to support the broad, unqualified message that the 'Xfinity 10G Network' is vastly superior to 5G."

NAD said it concluded that Comcast didn't provide a "reasonable" basis for the terms “10G," “Xfinity 10G" and “Xfinity 10G Network," and it needs to stop using the marketing term that way. Alternatively, the group added, Comcast can modify its marketing so that it's clear that 10G is an "aspirational" term. 

Comcast, perhaps perplexed that the wireless industry has gotten away all these years with "5G" describing "fifth-generation" networks and not 5 Gbps service, has appealed the decision, NAD added. 

TMT companies tend to abide by NAD rulings. Earlier this week, for example, Google said it would stop making the claim that its YouTube TV service is "$600 cheaper than cable" after the NAD sided with a Charter Communications complaint and then subsequently rejected Google's appeal. 

Don't look now, but the latest upgrade to the Wi-Fi standard, IEEE 802.11be (aka "Wi-Fi 7), is here … almost. 

On Wednesday, the No. 2-sized U.S. cable company, Charter Communications, announced that it has partnered with Qualcomm Technologies to deliver Wi-Fi 7 routers to its Spectrum Advanced WiFi customers starting in 2024, when the Wi-Fi standard is set to be fully baked. 

Also read: WiFi Gets Its Biggest Upgrade in Decades

Spectrum Wi-Fi users, who can lease their routers for $5 a month, are in for a major speed boost, with Wi-Fi 7 capable of throughputs up to 46 gigabits per second. That's 4.8 times faster than routers built around the current Wi-Fi 6 standard (802.11ax) and 13 times faster than Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac). 

Wi-Fi 7 is already being marketed around a key tech acronym — EHT (aka “extremely high throughput”). 

Debuting in 2019, Wi-Fi 6 offered a major speed advantage over Wi-Fi 5. Two years later, the standard was "extended" into Wi-Fi 6E, which took advantage of the Federal Communications Commission’s decision to allocate 1,200 MHz of 6 GHz spectrum for unlicensed use. That immediately tripled the bandwidth available with incumbent 2.4 GHz  and 5 GHz spectrum bands. 

Our sibling pub, Tom's Guide, published back in February a useful comparison of Wi-Fi 6E and Wi-Fi 7.

Wi-Fi 7 further builds on that, doubling maximum channel bandwidth to 320 MHz.

Wi-Fi 7 also offers an increase in quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM), a technique for encoding radio signals. Wi-Fi 7 ups the 1024-QAM of Wi-Fi 6 to 4096-QAM — comparable to TVs jumping from HD to 4K resolutions. 

Wi-Fi 7 also includes a new feature called “multi-link operation” (MLO), which enables the aggregation of multiple radio links in different spectrum bands. This increases throughput and cuts down on network congestion and latency. 

“The leading Wi-Fi 7 innovations from Qualcomm Technologies will enable our Advanced Wi-Fi service to continue delivering robust and responsive internet connectivity and ultra-fast Wi-Fi speeds to our customers,” Dave Rodrian, Charter’s group VP of Wi-Fi products, said in a statement. “This next generation of Wi-Fi will support the delivery of new experiences, such as fully immersive, ultra-low latency VR, and aligns with our network evolution plan to enable multi-gig wireless connectivity across our entire footprint.”

In case you haven't heard by now, Comcast has embarked on an ambitious quest to upgrade by 2025 its entire broadband network into a symmetrical multi-gigabit-per-second "10G" transom, powered by Full Duplex (FDX) DOCSIS 4.0 technology, and delivered over a virtualized distributed access architecture (DAA) scheme using virtual cable modem termination system (vCMTS). 

But wait, there's more. 

Showing off the range of ways it can deliver fast internet using this new network tech, Comcast on Thursday published a blog from its Chief Network Officer, Elad Nafshi, who described a customer trial conducted by the cable company in Denver late last year in which fiber-to-the-premises (FTTP) was delivered using a new method. 

Leveraging the DAA and vCMTS capabilities of Comcast's new network, targeted FTTP was delivered using a virtual broadband network gateway (vBNG) and a remote optical line terminal (rOLT) plugged into the node.

"Traditionally, fiber and coaxial networks have relied on different platforms to service customers -- each with its own separate technologies, customer solutions and speeds — but this is changing," Nafshi wrote.

The technology differs from Comcast's existing  -- and pricy -- "Gigabit Pro" FTTH service, which delivers symmetrical 6 Gbps speeds. 

Nafshi didn't specify any kind of timeline as to when Comcast's new vBNG/rOLT tech might actually be deployed. 

Describing potential use cases, Nafshi added that Comcast's new 10G network "affords unprecedented optionality, which empowers us to deploy the right network for the right location at the right economics as we continue to expand our network to more homes. For many customers, this means leveraging the connections already in place in their homes, which are typically coax. For others, like those in untapped rural areas or newly built multifamily buildings, it might mean fiber. We can make the best decision for our customers’ needs when it comes to how we deliver connectivity in the most efficient, cost-effective and timely manner possible."

Charter Communications this week presented to investors a three-phase plan to upgrade 85% of a broadband network with 55 million passings to 5 gigabit-per-second download speeds by 2025, all with a low, low cost of just $100 per passing. 

How low? Pretty low, especially when you compare Charter to the competish.

Comcast has pledged to spend $200 per passing on a plan to convert its network to Full Duplex DOCSIS 4.0 by 2025. Meanwhile, some fiber-to-the-home providers are spending as much as $1,500 per passing to upgrade. In that context, Charter's total eventual outlay of $5.5 billion seems like a relative bargain.

So with Charter conducting its first "investor day" presentation under its new CEO, former CFO Chris Winfrey, Wall Street embraced the frugal No. 2 U.S. cable operator with open arms Wednesday, right?

Uh, no.

Charter also outlined a $5 billion investment in rural broadband development, with $1.2 billion of that coming via the fed's Rural Digital Opportunity Fund. Charter needs to invest in its networks. It's seeing wireless operators undercut its broadband growth with Fixed Wireless Access service offerings. And like Comcast, it needs to upgrade its network performance to remain competitive and rekindle growth.

But the more than $10 billion in outlined capital expenditures was reportedly far more than investors had expected.

As presented Tuesday by Rich DiGeronimo, Charter’s president of product and technology, Charter will conduct the upgrade in three phases:

* Phase 1 -- In 15% of its footprint, starting in four mid-sized markets in 2023 and continuing throughout the year, Charter will execute high node splits to increase usable spectrum to 1.2 GHz. This will enable downstream internet speeds of 2 gigabits per and upstream speeds of 1 Gbps.

* Phase 2 -- Beginning in early 2024, Charter will combine high-split upgrades with the implementation of Distributed Access Architecture using Remote PHY, adding another 50% of its footprint to the upgrade cycle. This upgrade will result in downstream speeds of up to 5 Gbps.

* Phase 3 -- The nation's No. 2 sized cable operator will begin in late 2024 to upgrade the remaining 35% of its footprint with Extended Spectrum DOCSIS 4.0 technology, delivering speeds of up to 10 Gbps. ■

Comcast said it has successfully established the very first live, symmetrical multi-gigabit connection to a real-life Philadelphia business using Full Duplex DOCSIS 4.0 technology.

The world's first live "10G" connection sets up wide-scale deployment of next-generation cable network broadband services starting in 2023, per Comcast's previously announced plan. It wants to have FDX DOCSIS 4.0 services available to 50 million homes and businesses by 2025.

FDX DOCSIS 4.0 uses the same legacy cable already installed in the last mile reaching homes and businesses.

The No. 1 U.S. cable operator has announced a steady progression of successful tests using the new network technology. In September, it announced that it had completed its final lab test of the scheme, delivering symmetrical speeds of 4 gigabits per second.

The cable industry has put Full Duplex DOCSIS 4.0 and various other new network technology innovations into a marketing bucket it calls "10G," an effort to counter punch the wireless industry's ongoing -- and quite successful -- 5G push.

Cable operators are currently losing ground in wireline broadband as wireless companies use excess 5G capacity to deliver fixed wireless access (FWA) services to residences. T-Mobile and Verizon added 920,000 FWA customers in the third quarter as the top U.S. cable operators tacked on less than 40,000 of their own broadband customers.

The cable industry hopes the superior performance of 10G enabled services will restore it to growth, but the market seems to be driven more by enticing consumer economics right now. T-Mobile Home Internet, for example, is undercutting cable with a $50-a-month price point, despite lagging a bit in performance.

Meanwhile, data recently published by OpenVault suggests that only around 15% of the U.S. broadband market has signed on for 1 Gbps internet at this point.

Still, the cable biz persists in its belief that superior performance will ultimately win out.

“This live trial combines years of technology innovation and versatility to create a clear path to next-generation speed, reliability and performance for all the homes in our footprint, not just a select few,” said Charlie Herrin, president of technology, product and experience at Comcast Cable. “What excites us most about 10G technology is the ability to continue our longstanding commitment to delivering our best technologies to everyone we serve.” ■

“Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together … mass hysteria!” 

Dr. Peter Venkman, famously played by Bill Murray in the 1984 film comedy Ghostbusters, could have just as easily been talking about the state of the current U.S. telecommunications industry. 

Cable companies are now wireless operators, with Comcast having its most customer additions ever in the third quarter for its five-year-old Xfinity Mobile service and surpassing 5 million service lines. 

And wireless companies are now seriously eating into the dominant market share long enjoyed by cable in-home broadband. T-Mobile on Thursday announced the addition of 578,000 high-speed internet customers in the third quarter, most of them using 5G fixed wireless access (FWA) technology. 

That follows Verizon's report last week of its best-ever quarterly FWA growth, tacking on 342,000 subscribers in Q3. 

T-Mobile’s “5G Home Internet” service is priced at $50 a month, severely undercutting competition from incumbent cable operators. 

Cable operators, which saw their residential and customer broadband ranks swell mightily amid the pandemic, are mostly flat in terms of subscriber growth these days. 

Comcast, which didn’t add any broadband users in the second quarter, reported narrow gains of 10,000 residential internet customers and 5,000 business subscribers. Charter announced the addition of 61,000 residential broadband users Friday in Q3, reversing a loss of 42,000 last quarter. 

Largely because of their flat broadband growth, Wall Street has hammered both of the top two U.S. cable companies this year. Comcast spiked Thursday after it largely met equity analyst guidance on revenue and other key metrics. But overall, since the beginning of 2022, its stock is down around 40%. 

Charter is up over 4% on the Nasdaq Friday after its morning Q3 earnings report, but it's also down around 40% since the beginning of the year. 

Also read: Cable Broadband Customer Growth Was Down by Around 500K in Q1 ... but Fixed Wireless Added 500K 

Cable executives have largely dismissed the competitive threat posed by FWA, noting that wireless networks don't offer the capacity and performance needed to effectively service a mass user base once scale gets a lot bigger. 

Of course, in a recession, charging a monthly premium of $20 or more to customers makes that a harder sell. 

Still, on Thursday, during Comcast’s Q3 earnings call, Comcast Cable CEO Dave Watson largely maintained the industry posture. 

”There hasn’t been a notable shift in the competitive environment from either fiber or fixed wireless,” Watson told equity analysts. “It’s almost three years since we’ve competed against those early launches in fixed wireless. ... We take it seriously ... Our goal and the game plan is to focus on our ubiquitous network advantage that we have, not looking at our competitors so often at a very local level have to make trade-offs on their network decisions.” 

Watson said that ultimately, cable’s transition to next-generation “10G” networks — a marketing umbrella that includes multi-gigabit DOCSIS 4.0 technology — will sway momentum back to the cable industry. 

“Our DOCSIS 4.0 game plan is a very robust one,” he said. “It puts us in position to deliver capacity and speeds on every application that's out there. Our goal has always been to develop a better product and deliver it. That’s very different from our competitors, where you just add value, and now including mobile. But we just have a different broadband product that's better in terms of overall speed and coverage and Wi-Fi.” ▪️

CommScope has announced a key customer win as it tries to maintain its position as the top cable technology vendor amid the cable industry’s “10G” network tech transition.

Hickory, North Carolina-based CommScope will be the primary tech vendor for the nation’s fifth-largest cable operator, Mediacom Communications, as it transitions its network to a virtualized Distributed Access Architecture (DAA) configuration.

In engineering-speak, CommScope will supply Blooming Grove, New York-based Mediacom, which serves around 1.47 million broadband customers, with its RD2322 RxD, “operating as a Remote MACPHY Device in the OM4120 Optical Node, configured with a high-split (204 MHz) upstream.”

CommScope and Mediacom have already collaborated on a successful trial in Ames, Iowa, of the vendor’s Remote PHY solutions, which featured CommScope products including the E6000 Converged Cable Access Platform (CCAP) Core, OM6000 node, Remote PHY Device (RPD) and Video Unified Edge (VUE).

The top cable operators, including Comcast and Charter Communications, have already begun the process of upgrading their 1 gigabit-per-second-capable DOCSIS 3.1 networks to the new Full Duplex DOCSIS 4.0 standard, which will provide symmetrical multi-Gbps speeds both upstream and downstream. 

Simultaneously, they’re virtualizing expensive, power-intensive proprietary cable-network hardware, migrating these devices’ functions to software running on commodity x86 servers, under the catchall heading DAA. (The cable industry has thrown both FDX DOCSIS 4.0 and DAA into an even broader bucket it calls 10G.)

Insurgent vendors including Harmonic have targeted CommScope's dominant market share in cable tech with new DAA software solutions. But the Mediacom win seems to show that CommScope is at least holding its own. Neither CommScope nor Mediacom disclosed how much money is involved in the commitment. 

“CommScope’s flexible solutions have allowed us to take advantage of our installed base of nodes, as well as the RD2322 RxD's ability to operate as a Remote MACPHY device, to make a smooth and efficient transition to our network of the future,” Mediacom chief technology officer JR Walden said in a statement. 

Added Guy Sucharczuk, senior VP and general manager of Access Network Solutions for CommScope, “This is a significant step forward for Mediacom's network, and it's a showcase for how CommScope is equipping the world’s leading operators for the 10G future.” ■

Comcast announced cross-tier free internet speed increases for more than 20 million of its broadband customers across 39 states. 

The impacted tiers include the following:

• Performance Starter/Connect from 50 megabits per second to 75 Mbps
• Performance/Connect More from 100 Mbps to 200 Mbps
• Performance Pro/Fast from 300 Mbps to 400 Mbps
• Blast/Superfast from 600 Mbps to 800 Mbps
• Extreme Pro/Gigabit (formerly Ultrafast) from 900 Mbps to 1 Gbps

Comcast ended the second quarter with 32.16 million high-speed internet users. The cable company, however, experienced flat broadband customer growth in the second quarter and is now facing real competition from telecoms focused on fiber-to-the-home and fixed wireless schemes. 

Bigger picture, the largest cable operator in the U.S. has already pledged to reach more than 50 million customers by 2025 with “10G” symmetrical services — that is, multi-gigabit broadband powered by its next-generation DOCSIS 4.0 network. 

“The number of devices connected in Xfinity households has skyrocketed 12 times since 2018, and the need for fast, reliable, and secure Internet will continue to grow,” said Bill Connors, president of Comcast Cable, in a statement. “That’s why today, Xfinity is increasing speeds for most of our customers across the country.” 

Comcast said it has successfully tested the final component need to begin trials of its next-generation cable network. 

The No. 1 U.S. cable operator will now begin formal trials of its “10G” Full Duplex DOCSIS 4.0 network tech, with the aim of starting deployment late next year. Comcast hopes to have the technology distributed into 50 million customer homes and businesses by the end of 2025.

The announcement was made coinciding with the cable industry’s SCTE Cable-Tec Expo trade show, which resumed a live format this week in Comcast's hometown of Philadelphia. (Our own Mike Farrell is on the ground covering the event for Multichannel News.)

With Full Duplex (FDX) DOCSIS 4.0, Comcast said it can now deliver symmetrical speeds of 4 gigabits per second, vastly improving the performance of latency-sensitive applications including gaming, videoconferencing and telehealth.

The tech falls into a catchall marketing umbrella that the cable industry has been calling “10G” — a kind of Nigel Tufnel-esque response to the wireless business' 5G push.  

Also: SCTE Cable-Tec Expo: Home Networks Are the New Industry Battleground, Panel Says

For the final test, Comcast said it used FDX amplifiers built on a reference design developed by Broadcom. The test successfully demonstrated the ability to conduct download speeds of 6 Gbps and upload speeds of 4 Gbps across a configuration that places six amps between the home and the node, otherwise known as a “N+6” setup.

This is quite improvement over FDX iterations a few years back that required N+0 configurations to work effectively. Cable operators largely balked at the feasibility of dense node configurations extending so far out into the network. 

“With this test, we’ve gone beyond proof of concept. We know we can use this technology to deliver multi-gigabit symmetrical services throughout our network and, in fact, we’re confident we have the potential to go even faster,” said Elad Nafshi, executive VP and chief network officer at Comcast Cable. “With the key components of 10G tested and proven — and our digital, virtualized network architecture ready to support them — we turn our attention to extending the full benefit of 10G directly to our customers, including lower latency, greater reliability, and enhanced security.”

At Cable-Tec Expo this week, Comcast has also been touting advanced progress with virtual “Distributed Access Architecture” (DAA) network tech, as it builds its FDX DOCSIS 4.0 apparatus over a largely software-driven infrastructure. 

Comcast said it has recently accelerated deployment of configurations that turn its network’s bulky CMTS backbone appliances into software running on generic x86 servers. ■

Comcast launched an ambitious broadband initiative Thursday, promising to pass 50 million homes and businesses with a combination of 10G-enabled broadband and WiFi by 2025.

The cable company plans to begin offering 10G-enabled multi-gig symmetrical services by the end of 2023. Comcast will roll out download speeds of up to 2 Gigabits per second (and 200 Megabits per second upload) to 34 cities and towns before the end of this year, and deployments are already underway in Colorado Springs, Colorado; Augusta, Georgia; and Panama City, Florida.

“We’re making our network even smarter and faster, which allows us to quickly deliver true multi-gig WiFi to tens of millions of businesses and residential consumers at an unprecedented pace,” Comcast Cable president of the technology, product, experience organization Charlie Herrin said in a statement. “Whatever the application, whatever the future holds, our network and world-class, whole-home WiFi experience will be there and ready to power all of our customers’ connected experiences.”

Comcast began preparations for the multi-gig rollout earlier this year when it introduced its WiFi 6E Gateway, one of the first in the world to support multi-gigabit symmetrical WiFi. For business customers, Comcast Business also launched a new multi-gigabit gateway earlier this year. 

According to the company, the multi-gig initiative accelerates the transition to DOCSIS 4.0 and 10G. Powered by DOCSIS 4.0, 10G will deliver multi-gig symmetrical speeds to tens of millions of people over the connections already installed in their homes and businesses, without the need to dig up yards and neighborhoods, or pick and choose who gets faster speeds and who doesn’t. The technical updates included in the initiative announced today are a necessary precursor to Comcast’s 10G deployment.

Comcast plans to start launching 10G-enabled multi-gig symmetrical speeds to customers in the second half of 2023, work that will occur in concert with the current launch of the faster speeds.

“10G will deliver so much more than just speed,” Comcast Cable executive VP and chief network officer Elad Nafshi said in a press release. “The digitization and virtualization work we are doing today is already enhancing our customers’ connected experiences and delivering better performance.” ▪️

Comcast isn‘t moving ones and zeroes at speeds approaching 10 gigabits per second yet, but it just announced achievement of the latest benchmark in the broader cable industry's so-called ”10G“ effort — and it‘s pretty fast. 

In what the biggest U.S. cable company calls a “first-ever lab test,” Comcast successfully delivered both download and upload speeds in excess of 4Gbps to a Broadcom modem, using a system-on-a-chip configuration of Full Duplex DOCSIS 4.0 technology. 

The benchmark follows Comcast‘s successful demo in October at the SCTE‘s virtual Cable-Tec Expo of a virtualized cable-modem termination system (vCMTS) powered by Full Duplex DOCSIS 4.0.

Since FDX-based DOCSIS 4.0 uses traditional hybrid fiber-coax cable, the cable industry is touting the next-gen network technology as a way to not have to dig up roads, sidewalks and back yards to install fiber. 

“With each new milestone, we get a clearer picture of how 10G technologies will unlock the next generation of speed and performance for millions of people worldwide,” said Elad Nafshi, senior VP of next generation access networks for Comcast Cable.

Comcast has established a successful 10 Gbps network-to-modem connection using virtualized CMTS and the Full Duplex version of the new DOCSIS 4.0 standard, the cable company announced Thursday from the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers‘ once-again-virtualized Cable-Tec Expo conference. 

"Our team implemented Full Duplex (FDX) DOCSIS 4.0 capabilities into a CMTS, or 'virtualized' vCMTS, which is an essential component of our network and will be a critical link to delivering 10G," said Elad Nafshi, senior VP of next generation access network technology at Comcast. 

Also read: Comcast Touts Symmetrical 1.25 Gbps Speeds in Utah

Nafshi said that In order to complete the full connection, DOCSIS 3.1 modems were configured to operate in the FDX band. 

"What makes this accomplishment truly groundbreaking is that it proves our ability to upgrade our existing vCMTS platform via a software upgrade to DOCSIS 4.0 Full Duplex and gives us the ability to deliver multi-gig upload and download speeds," he added. "We are continuing to work on our next breakthrough which will be the development of a full 10G cable modem. 

At last October‘s Cable-Tec Expo, Comcast announced successful 1.25 Gbps symmetrical transmission using a virtualized cable modem termination system and Full Duplex.

Comcast said it has successfully trialed the DOCSIS-powered network of the future in Jacksonville, Fla.

The cable operator said it delivered symmetrical 1.25 gigabit-per-second speeds to a local-area home using Network Function Virtualization (NFV) and Distributed Access Architecture (DAA) with Remote PHY over DOCSIS-powered hybrid fiber-coaxial network.

Comcast is touting the successful trial as a “milestone” in the cable industry’s journey to what it markets as its “10G” future—one in which operators will deliver super-fast multi-gigabit downstream and upstream speeds with ultra-low latency, surpassing the potential of the wireless industry’s 5G push.

Comcast is engaged in the 10G initiative along with NCTA, CableLabs and SCTE, as well as operators from around the world.

“The great strength of our network technology is that we will have the ability to scale these next-generation speeds to tens of millions of homes in the future without digging up yards, or starting massive construction projects,” said Tony Werner, president of technology, product and Experience at Comcast Cable. “This technology provides a path to meeting the needs of the future and making multi-gigabit symmetrical speeds a reality for everyone, not just a select few.” 

Added Elad Nafshi, senior VP of next-generation access technologies at Comcast Cable: “We’ve been inspired by the work our global technical community has done to advance the technologies that made this performance possible and are proud to begin the process of delivering those benefits to customers.” 

The essential role of broadband networks in the current Covid-19 crisis is well established. A recent article in Multichannel Newsvery well described how cable operators are stepping up to meet demand despite enormous challenges. But what are the short-term and long-term implications of the pandemic on the evolution of the cable infrastructure? We see this play out in three phases on a broad level but with notable differences among operators and in different geographies:

Mitigation

In the near term, operators will resort to short-term measures to meet growing demand. They are freeing up capacity in the downstream spectrum by reallocating QAMs to DOCSIS, increasing compression, continuing node splits and other moves. In the upstream, operators who have deployed DOCSIS 3.1 can leverage the Profile Management Applications and add subcarriers. At the same time, content providers are playing a role by downgrading their content, for example, Netflix and YouTube, or staggering the release of their games, such as Sony and Microsoft.

Cautious investment

The health crisis will inevitably lead to some economic contraction despite the massive recent stimulus package. This crisis will impact small and medium businesses as well as consumers, the sweet market spot for cable operators. At the same time, the recent online spike will not completely go away once the crisis is over. Virtual engagement is here for the long term, and cable operators need to add capacity, particularly in the upstream, to meet new demand characteristics. At the same time, MSOs will not lose track of their 10G vision and will continue to plan for massive capacity expansion, including trialing DAA and virtualization.

Recovery

Over the longer term, this crisis has highlighted the importance of broadband networks, and the utilization patterns will even exceed current projections. Cable operators will need to update their playbooks to ramp up capacity expansion. Such scaling will need a new architecture, and the distributed access architecture and virtualization will be at the heart of these playbooks, along with emerging plans to deploy the recently ratified DOCSIS 4.0 specification for much expanded upstream capacity and low latency.

Top CableLabs officials, including CEO Phil McKinney, sat alongside NCTA chief Michael Powell a year ago at CES in Las Vegas, as the former FCC chairman introduced the world to the concept of “10G.”

At the time, the initiative seemed like a mere marketing buzzword, a counter-play to the wireless industry’s massive 5G push, intended to re-direct attention to all the new network technologies being developed by cable operators, along with their research and development consortium, CableLabs.

A year later, with CableLabs announcing a number of key technology benchmarks, the consortium’s newly appointed chief research and development officer, Mariam Sorond, told MCN that—at least to CableLabs—“10G” is about much more than a mere counter-marketing slogan.

Related: CableLabs Names Former Dish Wireless Exec Chief R&D Officer

“I think the marketing will come when we’re actually able to show [10 gigabit-per-second] speed,” Sorond said. “The cable industry tends to wait for tangible results,” she added, before touting them.

Posting an update on the CableLabs website, Sorond outlined CableLabs’ futuristic vision for 10G, which involves not only new DOCSIS network technologies on the access end, but also fiber-to-the-home, mobile backhaul and front-haul, fixed wireless and enterprise MDU/SMB schemes, all connecting to a hub via super-fast coherent optical connection. (See diagram below.)

The days of building massive, sprawling nationwide networks are in the past, Sorond believes, with cable operators’ robust infrastructures playing a crucial role in next-generation networks built on MVNO-based building blocks.

“We don’t necessarily need nationwide macro wireless networks anymore,” she said.

Meanwhile, highlighting CableLabs’ recent progress, Sorond—formerly Dish Network's chief wireless architect—noted numerous benchmarks. Among them:

• The specification for DOCSIS 4.0 will be completed in early 2020. CableLabs began developing D: 4.0 last year, marrying Full Duplex DOCSIS and Extended Spectrum DOCSIS. (Full Duplex is favored by Comcast, delivering super-fast, symmetrical network speeds and ultra-low latency. But its very restrictive node requirements—N+0—had other cable operators looking at the softer restrictions of Extended Spectrum.)

• Sorond said modems using the current DOCSIS 3.1 standard, built with integrated 2.5-gig ports, and capable of 5 Gbps, are about to hit the market.

• CableLabs released a new 200 Gbps point-to-point coherent optics specification, which is intended to support the aggregation of distributed access architecture.

• As an update to DOCSIS 3.1, CableLabs and its partners completed specification for Low Latency DOCSIS, a technique allowing traffic that requires low latency to travel across the hybrid fiber coaxial network in just 1-2 milliseconds. 

The cable industry is billing its big 10G initiative as the next big technology star. But given the current state of the cable access technology business, is it even ready for primetime?

Cable’s counter to the wireless business’s all-encompassing 5G hype bonanza, 10G actually incorporates many different technologies, all aiming to extend hybrid fiber coaxial (HFC) networks beyond speeds of 10 Gigabits per second and into lifespans stretching out another two or three decades.

But within that big 10 Gbps bucket is a lot of new, disruptive technology for cable operator engineers to digest, some of it competing with each other.

For starters, the shift to Distributed Access Architecture, in which headend and network functions are virtualized, has been described as the biggest technological change the cable industry has made since it migrated to HFC back in the early 1990s. Indeed, transitioning from a centralized Converged Cable Access Platform (CCAP) architecture to DAA is proving to be a highly complex process, affecting everything from core plant operation to the skill sets required from workers. “The migration from centralized access architecture to DAA has certainly proven to be more complex when compared to prior upgrade cycles,” said Sean Welch, vice president and general manager of Cisco’s Cable Access Business.

Related: Cisco Access Chief Welch: 'Don't Wait' to Transform Network Infrastructure

The shift to DAA is but one — admittedly huge — piece of the engineering puzzle. As chief technology officers and their teams reimagine their HFC networks for the futuristic era of autonomous cars, they’re also mulling pressure to move away from large proprietary hardware appliances, such as the cable modem termination system (CMTS), and move the work these devices do to off-the-shelf servers that will virtualize these processes.

As if that weren’t enough disruption, cable technologists are split as to which next iteration of DOCSIS (the standard that enables high-bandwidth data transfer over HFC) will best deliver 10G’s bandwidth promise. Led by Comcast, the industry had seemed to be lined up nice and neatly to adopt CableLabs’s Full Duplex DOCSIS standard (FDX). But due to a variety of issues, some operators are pushing FDX aside in favor of alternatives such as Extended Spectrum DOCSIS and Low Latency DOCSIS.

The level of complexity and disruption operators face is certainly “not trivial,” Todd Kessler, senior vice president of product at CommScope, conceded. Kessler’s company acquired Arris, cable’s biggest technology vendor, for $7.4 billion this year. At the SCTE/ISBE Cable-Tec Expo in New Orleans this week (Sept. 30-Oct. 3), Kessler said, CommScope will seek to position itself as a “strategic adviser” to its operator customers, “giving them all the facts they need to make good decisions.”

A No Good, Very Bad Year for Vendors

Certainly, for cable access vendors, some decisions would be nice.

Sales were down 38% sector-wide in the first quarter, according to research company Dell’Oro Group, which attributed much of the stalling to cable operators weighing DAA-related decision-making. And Dell’Oro on Sept. 25 published a report which found cable access equipment sales were down 40% in Q2. The demand just isn’t there right now, the firm said.

”I think we all have to keep in mind that many of the largest operators have been on a consistent, six-year cycle of purchasing and deploying capacity as they moved from DOCSIS 2.0 to 3.0 and 3.0 to 3.1,” Dell’Oro senior analyst Jeff Heynen said. “At some point, that cycle had to stop, even for a little bit, for the operators to deploy all that capacity.”

And stop the cycle has.

CommScope has let go most of Arris’s top-level management, including ex-CEO Bruce McClelland, with its network and cloud division reporting a 37% revenue slide to $344 million in the second quarter.

Cisco Systems, the second biggest cable-access supplier behind CommScope, doesn’t break out numbers for that sector. But it recently put a halt to the development of Full Duplex DOCSIS, and key executives, including former cable-access strategy chief John Holobinko, have left the company.

Revenue at Casa Systems did rebound 47% from a really tough Q1. But its $52 million in second-quarter sales were still off around 28% year-over-year.

Harmonic, which is disrupting the hegemony enjoyed by CommScope, Cisco and Casa with its virtual CCAP product, CableOS, saw revenue fall 14% in the second quarter. This was despite customer wins for CableOS that included a $175 million multiyear deal with Comcast, and another $55 million contract with an unnamed European operator widely believed to be Liberty Global. In the latest news, Harmonic said Comporium Communications in Rock Hill, South Carolina, had signed on to use CableOS in a new DAA configuration supporting DOCSIS 3.1 services.

Still, Kessler doesn’t see the overall cable access business perking up until next year. “We thought more operators would be past the evaluation phase by now,” he said.

Notes from rival cable access vendors jibe with this prediction.

“While we do expect MSOs to increasingly redirect investment into Distributed Access Architecture, we continue to believe that we haven’t yet reached an inflection point away from the industry-wide pause in cable spending,” Casa Systems CEO Jerry Guo said during a second-quarter earnings call in late July. Observing the industry from a more detached perch as CEO of Pineville, North Carolina’s Chamber of Commerce, Holobinko said he believes key issues regarding HFC aren’t being addressed by the new 10G tech.

“I agree there are too many technologies and all seem to be lacking the one thing that a mature industry needs — a solution to high operating costs,” the former Cisco technologist told Multichannel News. “The biggest challenge with cable access networks is, when compared to fiber and wireless networks, the day-to-day cost of operating and maintaining the cable plant is an order of magnitude higher than competitive access technologies.”

With this in mind, might cable operators start to seriously look at ditching HFC and going with fiber-to-the-home? There would certainly be operational efficiencies. The transition doesn’t come cheaply, though, as shown by Altice USA’s $5 billion FTTH initiative in its Optimum footprint.

While 2018’s Cable-Tec Expo in Atlanta was full of tour de force white-paper presentations and demonstrations of FDX, Extended Spectrum DOCSIS and Low Latency DOCSIS, vendors seem to be approaching this year’s New Orleans event with compromise solutions aimed at taking some of the pain points away.

For several years, the FDX standard from industry consortium CableLabs was widely viewed as the next iteration of DOCSIS, a standard that would someday delivery symmetrical 10 Gbps speeds over HFC networks.

But FDX presents certain inflexibilities. Notably, it requires an expensive “fiber deep” strategy, with no amplification permitted between the node and customer. Despite the support of Comcast, FDX has lost the customer volume needed for wide-scale vendor support, as evidenced by Cisco’s pullback over the summer.

CommScope will be demoing what it calls “Extended Soft Frequency Division Duplex,” which combines elements of both FDX and ESD. Rather than dictating symmetrical bandwidth, the technology allows operators to move bandwidth from downstream to upstream and vice versa, as desired.

Extended Soft FDD is more “amplifier friendly” than FDX, said Chris Busch, CommScope engineering fellow in the office of the CTO. “That’s a big boon to the operator,” he said, describing a technology being put into another new bucket of cable industry jargon, “DOCSIS 4.0.”

What is DOCSIS 4.0 to Busch? Like 10G, the term seems to be broad.

“I think it’s the next generation of DOCSIS performance,” he said.

Beyond easing pain points for emerging DOCSIS technologies, CommScope will also try to light the path for faster uptake of DAA.

Remote PHY refers to the technique of moving the physical layer of electronic circuitry (the “PHY”) out of Converged Cable Access Platform at the headend and putting that PHY circuit at the end of the network. Remote MAC-PHY means also moving the Media Access Control layer to the edge, as well.

Converting to this scheme represents a massive shakeup.

“Many operators are still in the evaluation phase, looking at ways to deploy Remote PHY or Remote MAC-PHY,” Kessler said. “Only a handful are in deployment. And that will likely stay consistent into next year.”

Rather than showing off some splashy new performance-driven DAA gear, CommScope’s product demos at Cable-Tec Expo seem to be focused on tools that drive down costs. DAA Aggregator, for example, lets operators connect up to eight HFC nodes to one Remote PHY device (RPD). This significantly increases the number of homes passed per RPD serving group — from a range of 20-40 to 150-300.

“It’s more capital-efficient,” Busch said. “It allows operators to gain the benefits of Distributed Access Architecture without as much investment.”

We’re Just Not There Yet

While the cable technology business’s recessionary trend certainly has a lot to do with the complexity associated with new standards and their adoption, Dell’Oro analyst Heynen believes that, despite all the hype, 5G isn’t — at least not yet — putting on the kind of pressure needed to make leading operators forget how much they just spent on upgrading to DOCSIS 3.1, while enabling 1 Gbps speeds that few consumers are using.

Is it too early to make 10G the star of the show?

“I don’t think spending improves significantly until [operators] feel there is a viable competitive threat to their 1-Gig DOCSIS 3.1 services, or an application or service [emerges] that challenges the capacity they have in their access networks now,” Heynen said. “That, plus slowing bandwidth consumption rates, are the reasons for the current trough in spending. I do see spending improving in the second half of the year, but certainly nowhere near the levels seen in 2018.”

NEW ORLEANS - Nine months after the cable industry introduced its big catch phrase, “10G,” at CES in January, the man who coined that term himself, NCTA President and CEO Michael Powell, declared it to be a successful piece of marketing.

“It really is our new battle flag,” Powell said on stage of the opening session of this year’s Cable-Tec Expo event this morning. “It has restored in the minds of policy makers and the American public the importance of fixed networks, in addition to wireless networks.”

In short, Powell explained, the term has succeeded in its objective—whenever the wireless industry’s ubiquitous 5G calling card gets placed somewhere, there is an increasing awareness that the cable industry is also working on fixed networks that will deliver 10 gigabit-per-second symmetrical speeds.

However, during the opening session of the Society of Cable Telecommunications’ big annual trade event, itself titled "Raising the Bar," the question often came to mind, “When will we actually need 10 Gbps services?

After all, cable technologists entered this year’s expo having successfully festooned around 90% of the U.S. with DOCSIS 3.1-enabled 1 Gbps services. But none of the big cable companies are as of yet disclosing how many customers are actually using their pricy 1-gig services.

Certainly, the usual cadre of top-level cable technology engineers—which included Liberty Global’s Bill Warga, Comcast’s Tony Werner, CableLabs’ Phil McKinney and Charter’s Tom Adams—worked hard to sell the main convention hall ball room that there will soon come a day when applications like holographic display, virtual reality and autonomous cars will drive demand for much, much faster internet.

Adams, who serves as executive VP of field operations for Charter and will chair next year’s Cable-Tec Expo event, recalled that when he joined Charter seven years ago, the average internet speed threshold was around 15-30 Mbps. The growth of video streaming has increased that threshold to 200 Mbps - 1 Gbps, he noted.

Comcast’s top technologists, Werner, noted that 4K/HDR displays take up around 25 Mbps of bandwidth to play. “And in the next 24 to 36 months, i think will see another change in display technology, at least in one room of the house, that will consume a lot of bandwidth.”

Werner specifically highlighted the work of Light Field Lab, a start-up specializing in holograms that recently secured $28 million in funding from investors including Comcast.

Werner also noted that Comcast is well on its way to virtualizing its HFC networks, and has already converted some of its infrastructure to Remote PHY. However, at this point, the network infrastructure Comcast has upgraded to virtualization and Distributed Access Architecture is only capable of symmetrical 1-gig service

Later, noted inventor Dean Kamen took the stage to discuss with CableLabs chief McKinney all the aging-in-place and other bandwidth-intensive healthcare applications that will also soon require very high speeds and very low latency.

The two-and-a-half-hour session was wrapped by Preetha Vijayakumar, VP of enterprise network and communications services for FedEx. Citing all the bandwidth-intensive needs of the shipping industry, she noted, “It's my hope that we will get to the point where communications is cheap and ubiquitous, all across America.”

Vijayakumar left the stage declaring, “That’s the promise of 5G!”

The cable industry is billing its big 10G initiative as the next big technology star. But given the current state of the cable access technology business, is it even ready for primetime?

Cable’s counter to the wireless business’s all-encompassing 5G hype bonanza, 10G actually incorporates many different technologies, all aiming to extend hybrid fiber coaxial (HFC) networks beyond speeds of 10 Gigabits per second and into lifespans stretching out another two or three decades.

But within that big 10 Gbps bucket is a lot of new, disruptive technology for cable operator engineers to digest, some of it competing with each other.

For starters, the shift to Distributed Access Architecture, in which headend and network functions are virtualized, has been described as the biggest technological change the cable industry has made since it migrated to HFC back in the early 1990s. Indeed, transitioning from a centralized Converged Cable Access Platform (CCAP) architecture to DAA is proving to be a highly complex process, affecting everything from core plant operation to the skill sets required from workers. “The migration from centralized access architecture to DAA has certainly proven to be more complex when compared to prior upgrade cycles,” said Sean Welch, vice president and general manager of Cisco’s Cable Access Business.

Related: Cisco Access Chief Welch: 'Don't Wait' to Transform Network Infrastructure

The shift to DAA is but one — admittedly huge — piece of the engineering puzzle. As chief technology officers and their teams reimagine their HFC networks for the futuristic era of autonomous cars, they’re also mulling pressure to move away from large proprietary hardware appliances, such as the cable modem termination system (CMTS), and move the work these devices do to off-the-shelf servers that will virtualize these processes.

As if that weren’t enough disruption, cable technologists are split as to which next iteration of DOCSIS (the standard that enables high-bandwidth data transfer over HFC) will best deliver 10G’s bandwidth promise. Led by Comcast, the industry had seemed to be lined up nice and neatly to adopt CableLabs’s Full Duplex DOCSIS standard (FDX). But due to a variety of issues, some operators are pushing FDX aside in favor of alternatives such as Extended Spectrum DOCSIS and Low Latency DOCSIS.

The level of complexity and disruption operators face is certainly “not trivial,” Todd Kessler, senior vice president of product at CommScope, conceded. Kessler’s company acquired Arris, cable’s biggest technology vendor, for $7.4 billion this year. At the SCTE/ISBE Cable-Tec Expo in New Orleans this week (Sept. 30-Oct. 3), Kessler said, CommScope will seek to position itself as a “strategic adviser” to its operator customers, “giving them all the facts they need to make good decisions.”

A No Good, Very Bad Year for Vendors

Certainly, for cable access vendors, some decisions would be nice.

Sales were down 38% sector-wide in the first quarter, according to research company Dell’Oro Group, which attributed much of the stalling to cable operators weighing DAA-related decision-making. And Dell’Oro on Sept. 25 published a report which found cable access equipment sales were down 40% in Q2. The demand just isn’t there right now, the firm said.

”I think we all have to keep in mind that many of the largest operators have been on a consistent, six-year cycle of purchasing and deploying capacity as they moved from DOCSIS 2.0 to 3.0 and 3.0 to 3.1,” Dell’Oro senior analyst Jeff Heynen said. “At some point, that cycle had to stop, even for a little bit, for the operators to deploy all that capacity.”

And stop the cycle has.

CommScope has let go most of Arris’s top-level management, including ex-CEO Bruce McClelland, with its network and cloud division reporting a 37% revenue slide to $344 million in the second quarter.

Cisco Systems, the second biggest cable-access supplier behind CommScope, doesn’t break out numbers for that sector. But it recently put a halt to the development of Full Duplex DOCSIS, and key executives, including former cable-access strategy chief John Holobinko, have left the company.

Revenue at Casa Systems did rebound 47% from a really tough Q1. But its $52 million in second-quarter sales were still off around 28% year-over-year.

Harmonic, which is disrupting the hegemony enjoyed by CommScope, Cisco and Casa with its virtual CCAP product, CableOS, saw revenue fall 14% in the second quarter. This was despite customer wins for CableOS that included a $175 million multiyear deal with Comcast, and another $55 million contract with an unnamed European operator widely believed to be Liberty Global. In the latest news, Harmonic said Comporium Communications in Rock Hill, South Carolina, had signed on to use CableOS in a new DAA configuration supporting DOCSIS 3.1 services.

Still, Kessler doesn’t see the overall cable access business perking up until next year. “We thought more operators would be past the evaluation phase by now,” he said.

Notes from rival cable access vendors jibe with this prediction.

“While we do expect MSOs to increasingly redirect investment into Distributed Access Architecture, we continue to believe that we haven’t yet reached an inflection point away from the industry-wide pause in cable spending,” Casa Systems CEO Jerry Guo said during a second-quarter earnings call in late July. Observing the industry from a more detached perch as CEO of Pineville, North Carolina’s Chamber of Commerce, Holobinko said he believes key issues regarding HFC aren’t being addressed by the new 10G tech.

“I agree there are too many technologies and all seem to be lacking the one thing that a mature industry needs — a solution to high operating costs,” the former Cisco technologist told Multichannel News. “The biggest challenge with cable access networks is, when compared to fiber and wireless networks, the day-to-day cost of operating and maintaining the cable plant is an order of magnitude higher than competitive access technologies.”

With this in mind, might cable operators start to seriously look at ditching HFC and going with fiber-to-the-home? There would certainly be operational efficiencies. The transition doesn’t come cheaply, though, as shown by Altice USA’s $5 billion FTTH initiative in its Optimum footprint.

While 2018’s Cable-Tec Expo in Atlanta was full of tour de force white-paper presentations and demonstrations of FDX, Extended Spectrum DOCSIS and Low Latency DOCSIS, vendors seem to be approaching this year’s New Orleans event with compromise solutions aimed at taking some of the pain points away.

For several years, the FDX standard from industry consortium CableLabs was widely viewed as the next iteration of DOCSIS, a standard that would someday delivery symmetrical 10 Gbps speeds over HFC networks.

But FDX presents certain inflexibilities. Notably, it requires an expensive “fiber deep” strategy, with no amplification permitted between the node and customer. Despite the support of Comcast, FDX has lost the customer volume needed for wide-scale vendor support, as evidenced by Cisco’s pullback over the summer.

CommScope will be demoing what it calls “Extended Soft Frequency Division Duplex,” which combines elements of both FDX and ESD. Rather than dictating symmetrical bandwidth, the technology allows operators to move bandwidth from downstream to upstream and vice versa, as desired.

Extended Soft FDD is more “amplifier friendly” than FDX, said Chris Busch, CommScope engineering fellow in the office of the CTO. “That’s a big boon to the operator,” he said, describing a technology being put into another new bucket of cable industry jargon, “DOCSIS 4.0.”

What is DOCSIS 4.0 to Busch? Like 10G, the term seems to be broad.

“I think it’s the next generation of DOCSIS performance,” he said.

Beyond easing pain points for emerging DOCSIS technologies, CommScope will also try to light the path for faster uptake of DAA.

Remote PHY refers to the technique of moving the physical layer of electronic circuitry (the “PHY”) out of Converged Cable Access Platform at the headend and putting that PHY circuit at the end of the network. Remote MAC-PHY means also moving the Media Access Control layer to the edge, as well.

Converting to this scheme represents a massive shakeup.

“Many operators are still in the evaluation phase, looking at ways to deploy Remote PHY or Remote MAC-PHY,” Kessler said. “Only a handful are in deployment. And that will likely stay consistent into next year.”

Rather than showing off some splashy new performance-driven DAA gear, CommScope’s product demos at Cable-Tec Expo seem to be focused on tools that drive down costs. DAA Aggregator, for example, lets operators connect up to eight HFC nodes to one Remote PHY device (RPD). This significantly increases the number of homes passed per RPD serving group — from a range of 20-40 to 150-300.

“It’s more capital-efficient,” Busch said. “It allows operators to gain the benefits of Distributed Access Architecture without as much investment.”

We’re Just Not There Yet

While the cable technology business’s recessionary trend certainly has a lot to do with the complexity associated with new standards and their adoption, Dell’Oro analyst Heynen believes that, despite all the hype, 5G isn’t — at least not yet — putting on the kind of pressure needed to make leading operators forget how much they just spent on upgrading to DOCSIS 3.1, while enabling 1 Gbps speeds that few consumers are using.

Is it too early to make 10G the star of the show?

“I don’t think spending improves significantly until [operators] feel there is a viable competitive threat to their 1-Gig DOCSIS 3.1 services, or an application or service [emerges] that challenges the capacity they have in their access networks now,” Heynen said. “That, plus slowing bandwidth consumption rates, are the reasons for the current trough in spending. I do see spending improving in the second half of the year, but certainly nowhere near the levels seen in 2018.”

When the cable industry launched its “10G” counter-marketing campaign at CES in January, the common interpretation was that the initiative revolved around Full Duplex DOCSIS (FDX), a CableLabs technology that is expected to eventually deliver 10 Gbps symmetrical broadband speeds.

As it turns out, the branding exercise—intended to counter the wireless industry’s aggressive promotion of next-generation 5G network technologies—is a bit broader than that.

Related: CES: Cable Declares It Won’t Be ‘Second to the Door’ to 5G With ‘10G’ Branding Launch

Speaking at an event produced and covered by Light Reading in Denver last week, CableLabs President and CEO Phil McKinney described 10G as a “collection of technologies,” including Full Duplex.

In a report issued last week, investment research company Cowen said 10G "is essentially a common platform that will involve a variety of technologies that CableLabs members can pick and choose from, in incremental steps, and that will begin trialing in 2020.

“Specifically, the 10G initiative involves various tools and features including low latency, improved security, a distributed access architecture (DAA, decentralizing the network, virtualizing the headend, and extending the digital/IP aspects of the network for speed/function enhancements), Full Duplex transmission (FDX, high speed in both directions), fiber deep, the N+0 architecture (no amplifiers needed between nodes and HHs), and subsequent meaningful opex/capex benefits,” Cowen added.

Notably, 10G’s collection fo broadband technologies will ultimately allow for speeds as high as 14.2 Gbps, with the “10G” sounding better for marketing. Cisco has noted that there will eventually be a pathway for 25 Gbps down and and 10 Gbps 10 up in the next 5 to 10 years.

Cowen believes that should be enough to ensure that the cable industry enjoys a broadband speed advantage over the next decade.

The research company concedes there is concern in the investment community that cable’s speed advance might be become “overkill,” with 5G stepping in over the next few years, sating a demand for some “killer app” in the home with modest speeds of 100 Gbps - 500 Gbps.

Tier 3 operator Midco, Cowen noted, recently conceded that only 3% of its broadband customers pay for 1-gig services. The research firm estimates that only around 8-10% of customers for Comcast and Charter have 1 Gbps.

Cowen cited Niesen’s Law, which states that consumer broadband demand will continue to increase at a rate of 50% a year. Some operators are being a compound annual growth rate of 35-45% for download speeds. Cowen predicted adoption of 4 Gbps speeds by the mid-2020s, and 10 Gbps speeds thereafter, which it believes will outpace what 5G can deliver.

The “killer apps” of this longer term future could be things like 3D holographic messaging, which would require speeds greater than 800 Gbps, and 360-immersive VR gaming and entertainment.

“We continue to believe the <6 GHz fixed wireless threat will be relegated to niche low-income/rural plays,” Cowen said. 

The increasingly mobile wired broadband industry continues to one-up wireless 5G, at least in the numbers game. On the heels of the announcement of work on 10G--as in gigabit, not "generation"--fixed service, the WiFi Alliance has unveiled the certification program for WiFi 6. That's the designation for next generation of WiFi announced in October.

Related: Arris Introduces New WiFi 6 System for Gigabit-Speed Homes

WiFi remains cable's chief way of getting broadband to their "wired" customers wherever they roam.

The new program is to insure that WiFi devices using the latest IEEE 802.11ax technology comply with interoperability and security standards and provide the capacity, coverage and performance of next-gen. 

The program is expected to launch in the third quarter. 

WiFi 6 products, including high-performance access points (no decaf-speeds at the local coffee shop) and laptops are being shown off at CES2019 in Las Vegas this week. WiFi 6 will accommodate HD streaming, virtual reality, interactive HD and more.

“WiFi 6 delivers features to satisfy users’ evolving connectivity needs and to enable more efficiency in the expanding places where users rely on WiFi,” said Edgar Figueroa, president and CEO, WiFi Alliance. “The sixth generation of WiFi is here today," said Vijay Nagarajan VP of the Mobile Connectivity Division at Broadcom. "Market-leading WiFi 6 routers, powered by Broadcom's chips, are already available at retail outlets including Amazon and Best Buy. 2019 will be the year of WiFi 6 as it rapidly proliferates with smart phones. The wireless experience on our mobile phones will now be ever so swift, secure, and steady as we seamlessly stream or share our digital memories."

The NCTA is partnering with CableLabs and Cable Europe to try to steal some of the marketing thunder from 5G wireless chest-thumpers at CES this week.

The orgs will convene a 9 a.m. Wednesday morning event at the Four Seasons in Las Vegas, aiming to hype what they’re calling “10G.”

“Industry leaders from NCTA, CableLabs and member companies will participate,” the announcement said.

The event, titled “The Future of the Broadband Network,” will showcase emerging multi-gigabit-capable HFC technologies including Full Duplex DOCSIS and Extended Spectrum DOCSIS—technologies, the cable industry believes, that are being overlooked amid what it sees as the wireless industry’s latest marketing gizmo, 5G. 

As for the "10G," it's a reference to the 10 Gbps speeds that Full Duplex's backers believe will be widely delivered by the technology in a few years.

“With groundbreaking, scalable capacity and speeds, the 10G platform is the wired network of the future that will power the digital experiences and imaginations of consumers for years to come,” said NCTA president and CEO Michael Powell, in a statement. “As an industry, we are dedicated to delivering an exceptional national infrastructure that will power digital advancement and propel our innovation economy into the future.”

Related: NCTA’s Powell: 5G is 25% Technology, 75% Marketing

It was Powell who, at the SCTE’s Cable-Tec Expo Show in Atlanta in October, who lamented the fact that cable wasn’t doing enough to market “10G.”

Notably, in its announcement today, NCTA indicated that it has even trademarked the term "10G."

In fact, it's an industry-wide initiative, with Arris among the companies today rendering blog posts tub-thumping 10G.

“CableLabs creates the technology that supports the deployment of high-capacity broadband networks and gigabit services at scale for the industry,” added CableLabs president and CEO Phil McKinney. “With the 10G platform, CableLabs will help ensure the broadband infrastructure will be in place globally with the capacity and performance needed in the future to fuel new innovations and emerging technologies that will transform and enhance the way we live.”