Business dynamics remain healthy

Despite headwinds from so-called cord cutting because of the increasing consumption of online video content and attrition from myriad and growing SVOD and other online video competitors, cable operators had a good year in 2019 as growth in the broadband business continues unabated, and business services become a major contributor to revenue. In fact, the stocks of the two largest MSOs Comcast and Charter, posted sequentially 60% and 25% growth through December 2019 (albeit in a buoyant stock market).

According to a recent report by analyst firm MoffettNathanson, cable operators are projected to continue to grow their broadband business for the foreseeable future, grabbing more share from the telcos. At the same time, business services remain a healthy and growing revenue contributor, and the more innovative MSOs have created vibrant business offerings with services such as SD-WAN to the SMB market. Comcast’s revenue from business services was 13.4% of cable revenue for the nine months ending September 30, 2019.

It is true that there are rumblings in the industry about the potential competitive threat from 5G in the form of fixed wireless access; although 5G might over the long term become competitive with cable both in the forms of wireless broadband substitution and fixed wireless access, the state of the technology and cost parameters do not make such solutions economically viable in the near term, and furthermore, cable may indeed reap economic value from 5G (more on this later).

Software-based solutions will gain field traction

Although it is true that 2019 through end of September was not a good year for CCAP vendors in aggregate, with the nine months revenue declining about 30% over the same period in 2018, a closer examination of the revenue make-up tells a different story. The revenue of vendors whose solutions are primarily hardware-based declined about 33% in that period; vendors with software-based solutions saw about 11% in revenue growth, with 41% revenue increasing in the third quarter. Although it is true that some operators slowed down capital investments as their DOCSIS 3.1 rollouts tapered off and as they deployed already purchased equipment, but as they look ahead, many operators are also assessing whether their traditional playbook will continue to sustain their future growth and competitiveness or if they should explore more forward looking alternatives. 2020 will see more meaningful growth in deployments of software-based solutions, particularly as more solutions come in the market. Looking back, 2019 may have been a transition year.

Remote-PHY, Remote-MACPHY or Remote-X

It is unquestionable that the distributed access architecture (DAA) has been getting some traction, led by Comcast’s public commitment to Remote-PHY. This technology, based on the CableLabs specifications issued in 2015, has gained a beachhead over its cousin, Remote-MACPHY, whose spec is under development at CableLabs. Although some operators and vendors have settled on an architecture, there is a growing trend toward flexibility with vendors offering the option to locate the MAC either centrally or on a remove device. DAA will get more traction in 2020, as deployments are now real, and the new technologies are field proven and showing clear benefits.

DOCSIS 4.0 will inch closer to reality

CableLabs is expected to issue the DOCSIS 4.0 specifications, which include Full Duplex DOCSIS (FDX) and Extended Spectrum DOCSIS (ESD), for spectrum up to 1.8GHz to enable symmetrical upstream and downstream bandwidth. This will help the vendor community chart its way forward on meeting the need for significantly increased upstream bandwidth. Deployments of this technology are well beyond 2020.

Business services

Cable operators will continue to generate an increasing share of their revenue from lucrative business services. Having established a beachhead in the SMB market where they have a natural affinity, they are putting more emphasis on the middle market and the enterprise market. SD-WAN is a particular area of promise for cable operator. Comcast, which entered this market early and aggressively, will continue to grow its momentum. Other operators have started their deployments and will grow from there. Other promising services include WIFI and security.

5G will progressively materialize as an opportunity for MSOs

It is undeniable that cable operators have become a force to be reckoned with in wireless, largely through their MVNO based service offering. However, it is also well understood that a business largely built on reselling a competitor’s service is not the best way to create long-term value, and indeed MSOs have been exploring a number of alternative business models. Charter has made no secret of its plans to use CBRS to supplement its HFC reach in some areas and may well introduce this solution in 2020. An even more intriguing opportunity is the use the extensive HFC network to backhaul 5G traffic. 5G will require a dense infrastructure of small cells; the cable HFC network, with assets and power in the local access network, may prove to have the right infrastructure for the 5G small cells backhaul. This said, 5G will require very low latency, which today’s DOCSIS technology cannot provide but a new industry effort, Low Latency X-Haul (LLX), is striving to resolve this limitation. Much progress will be made on this front in 2020, potentially setting the stage for an exciting opportunity for MSOs for years to come as 5G becomes a market reality.

Liliane Offredo-Zreik (@offredo) is principal analyst atACG Research.

Broadening its aim at the whole-home WiFi arena, Netgear has introduced an Orbi-branded retail device that combines a DOCSIS 3.0 modem with a Tri-Band Mesh WiFi router.

The Orbi Tri-Band WiFi Cable Modem Router System, or CBK40, can provide wireless coverage in homes up to 4,000 square feet, or cover an additional 2,000 square feet areas when used in tandem with an Orbi Satellite device, Netgear said.

Netgear said the new retail device is compatible with major MSOs, including Comcast and Charter Communications, with Cox Communications to be added to that list in the “coming months.”

RELATED: Whole-Home WiFi Heats Up (subscription required)

The baseline CBR40 carries an MSRP of $299.99, while the system, which adds 1 Orbi satellite, fetches $399.99.

The primary device integrates a D3.0 modem capable of bonding 32 downstream channels (for up to 1.4 Gbps if all are used) and WiFi that can support up to 2.2 Gbps, the company said, noting that its Orbi platform is also compatible with Amazon Alexa and the Google Assistant.

RELATED: Cox Crosses Whole-Home WiFi Milestone

Though Netgear’s new wares targets retail distribution, several cable operators have also developed their own premium whole-home WiFi services. 

RELATED: Comcast Starts Rollout of ‘xFi Pods’ to Boost Whole-Home WiFi

Cable One said its GigaONE service is now available to residential customers across more than 95% of its legacy footprint, a move that extends the offering to more than 200 communities.

Cable One has been leaning on DOCSIS 3.0 technology (including D3.0 modems that can bond up to 32 downstream channels) to deliver up to 1 Gbps down and up to 50 Mbps in the upstream direction, and has been selling GigaONE for $175 per month.

Cable One currently applies a 1.5 terabyte data plan to its GigaONE offering. Per that Acceptable Use Policy, customers who exceed that limit three times may be required to upgrade to a different plan. For businesses, Cable One also offers fiber-based services that can deliver up to 10 Gbps of symmetrical data.

At the end of Q3, Cable One had 471,537 data subs on its legacy footprint, which reaches 1.68 million homes passed. Cable One added networks passing an additional 450,000 homes in parts of Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri and Texas via its acquisition of NewWave Communications.

Cable One said it has invested more than $700 million over the past five years on network upgrades and enhancements. 

“In an effort to eliminate the digital divide in the communities we serve, we envisioned providing every customer in our footprint with access to Gigabit service, no matter where they live,” Julie Laulis, Cable One’s president and CEO said in a statement. “We are proud to say we are very close to reaching that goal in our legacy markets and we are thrilled to support the technology needs of the communities we serve – now and in the future.”

A lawsuit seeking class action status that targeted Netgear’s CM700 DOCSIS 3.0 modem has been dismissed.

The plaintiffs – Stewart Williams, Jeffrey Torres and Allan Hamilton, dismissed action with prejudice as to their individual claims, and without prejudice as the to claims of the putative classes, according to the closing document filed in the U.S. District Court, Northern District of California  on August 9.

The dismissal with prejudice means that the court has made a final determination on the merits of the case and that the plaintiffs are now forbidden from filing another suit on the same grounds.

The original action, filed on April 14 by the firm of Schubert Jonckheer & Kolbe, alleged that the CM700, a D3.0 powered by an Intel Corp. Puma 6 chip, suffered from a “serious defect” that results in high spikes in network latency and degraded Internet connections.

RELATED:Netgear Hit With Class Action Lawsuit

At the time, Netgear said it had “full confidence in the CM700 cable modem.”

RELATED: Arris Faces Lawsuit Targeting DOCSIS 3.0 Modem

The law firm said then that it was also investigating whether other cable modems containing the Puma 6 chipset, including modems from Linksys, Cisco, Hitron, and Arris, also suffers from the same alleged network latency defect.

Linksys has debuted its first retail product to combine a DOCSIS 3.0 modem with a WiFi router.

The product, called the AC1900 Dual-Band Cable Modem Router (CG7500), combines a D3.0 modem capable of bonding 24 downstream channels and eight upstream channels, with 802.11ac WiFi and six antennas, and also includes four Gigabit ports and one USB 2.0 port. The device’s “Tri-Band” technology supports three dedicated WiFi bands that, the company said, can support combined speeds up to 4 Gbps.

The company confirmed that the device uses the Intel Puma 6 DOCSIS 3.0 chip, but notes that it includes a new set of firmware.

Taking aim at consumers who are looking to sidestep monthly rental/leasing fees, the new model is already approved for use on Comcast and Charter Communications networks, with more to be added to the list in the coming weeks. The CG7500 carries an estimated street price of $199.97, and is available now for pre-order , and will be available for in-store purchase this weekend, the company said.

In addition to sales at its own site, Linksys.com, the CG7500 will also be available through a mix of online and brick-and-mortar retailers, including Amazon, Best Buy.com, B&H, Micro Center, New Egg, Office Depot, Target and Walmart, Fry’s, and Meijer.

Linksys, acquired by Belkin from Cisco Systems in 2013, reentered the retail cable modem market last year, and competes with players that include Arris, Netgear, TP-Link and Zoom Telephonics, which now licenses the Motorola brand.

Jeff Heynen, consulting director and senior research analyst in SNL Kagan’s Media & Communications unit, has estimated that retail sales make up 10% to 15% of the total DOCSIS CPE market.

RELATED: Retail Modem Market Small, but Active (subscription required)

Per recent NPD data, Arris holds about 52.3% of the retail market for DOCSIS modems, followed by about 32% for Netgear, 5.8% for Linksys/Belkin, and 4.6% for Motorola/Zoom, and 3.2% for TP-Link.

At the CES confab in January, Linksys also showed off its first DOCSIS 3.1-based modem, which is expected to hit retail later this year.

RELATED: CES 2017: Linksys Tees Up DOCSIS 3.1 Modem

“Combining the Wi-Fi router with a cable modem as a single solution helps consumers declutter their home environments while eliminating extra hardware rental costs charged by most cable companies” Brian Nickell, product manager at Linksys, said in a statement. “Our entrance into the gateway market shows our commitment in providing consumers with high performance cable products combined with the latest wireless technology to deliver the ultimate Wi-Fi experience throughout the home.”

Arris said it is working with Intel on a firmware fix for the SURFboard SB6190, a DOCSIS 3.0 cable modem with Intel’s Puma 6 chip, that has been the subject of complaints about jitter and latency.

DSL Reports shed light on the issue on Tuesday, as a Cox Communications customer reported that the model was experiencing connectivity issues and latency spikes.

"ARRIS has been working actively with Intel to address the issue, which resulted in some SURFboard® SB6190 users reporting latency concerns. We plan to quickly issue Intel’s firmware updates to resolve any latency. We remain committed to providing the best broadband experience for all users of ARRIS devices and regret any inconvenience this issue caused," Arris said in a statement. 

UPDATE: A person posting to the DSL Reports message board said a beta of the firmware update, a version called 9.1.X,  is starting to be distributed. CableLabs also stressed to DSL Reports that its role is to test for interoperability, as performance of the devcies falls outside its jurisdiction. 

The SB6190 is a model on the higher end of the DOCSIS 3.0 product spectrum, as it can bond up to 32 downstream channels (enough to support bursts up to 1.4 Gbps), and eight upstream channels.

It’s not clear if the issue is isolated to this one Arris model with the Puma 6, or if others with the chip are running into the same issue. However, DSL Reports said consumers on its forum have lodged similar complaints about other makes and models that use the Intel chip.

Intel, which pairs its DOCSIS chips with silicon from MaxLinear, competes in the sector with Broadcom.

Earlier this week, Hitron announced that its Coda-45 modem is first with Intel’s Puma 7’s chip to obtain CableLabs certification for DOCSIS 3.1  D3.1 models from several other vendors, including Humax, Arris, Askey, CastleNet, Netgear, Sagemcom, Technicolor, and Ubee Interactive have also achieved that distinction on products powered by Broadcom silicon.

Cable One recently launched its 1-Gig (downstream) residential service in Twin Falls, Idaho, as the MSO moves ahead on a plan to deploy gigabit residential service across most of its footprint by the end of 2016.

The launch of the operator’s “GigaONE” service follows recent debuts in Globe and Miami, Ariz.

To deliver GigaONE, Cable One is currently using DOCSIS 3.0 technology and modems that can bond up to 32 6-MHz-wide downstream channels. The service pairs a 1-Gig downstream with an upstream path that maxes out at 50 Mbps.

CableOne’s been selling the 1-Gig plan for $175 per month along with a 500 Gigabyte data plan. Cable One’s FAQ for GigaONE notes that additional data plans up to 2 terabytes are available. In 2013, Cable ONE eliminated a policy that charged extra when customers exceeded their monthly data usage caps. In its place is an “excessive use” policy that encourages customers to switch to a higher level of service if they exceed their data plan three or more times in a rolling 12-month period

"GigaONE will support the technology needs of the communities we serve, now and in the future," Joe Felbab, VP of marketing for Cable One, said in a statement. "We are excited to be able to offer Gigabit service to nearly 1.5 million homes in the markets we serve."

Cable One, which estimates it has invested more than $500 million over the past five years on network upgrades, serves about 700,000 customers in parts of 19 states. 

Cable One has launched 1-Gig broadband in Globe and Miami, Ariz., as the MSO pushes ahead with a plan to offer gigabit residential service across most of its markets by the end of 2016.

The offering, called GigaONE, currently relies on DOCSIS 3.0 technology and modems that can bond up to 32 6-MHz-wide downstream channels.

GigaONE, which pairs a 1 Gbps downstream with an upstream that maxes out at 50 Mbps, sells for $175 per month and includes the MSO’s 500 Gigabyte data plan. Cable One’s FAQ for GigaONE notes that additional data plans up to 2 terabytes are available.

In 2013, Cable ONE eliminated a policy that charged extra when customers exceeded their monthly data usage caps. In its place is an “excessive use” policy that encourages customers to switch to a higher level of service if they exceed their data plan three or more times in a rolling 12-month period.

"GigaONE will support the technology needs of the communities we serve, now and in the future," Joe Felbab, VP of marketing for Cable One, said in a statement. "We are excited to be able to offer Gigabit service to nearly 1.5 million homes in the markets we serve."

Cable One noted that it has invested more than $500 million over the past five years on network upgrades and enhancements.

Other recent GigaONE launched include Anniston, Ala.; and Boise and Western Idaho. 

Altice USA-owned Suddenlink has launched 1 Gbps (downstream) residential service in three more markets -- Clovis and Texico, N.M., and Farwell, Texas.

The addition of the 1-Gig tier is being accompanied by some free speed upgrades, with customers on 75-Meg and 100-Meg service being bumped up to 100-Meg and 200-Meg, respectively.

The standard Suddenlink residential download speeds in Clovis, Texico and Farwell are now 50 Mbps, 100 Mbps, and 200 Mbps, along with the new 1 Gbps service.

Suddenlink started to offer a DOCSIS 3.0-based 1-Gig service in July 2015 as part of a broader “Project GigaSpeed” initiative that envisioned offering gigabit speeds to 90% of Suddenlink's footprint by 2017. That initiative is continuing under Altice. Suddenlink has been pricing stand-alone 1-Gig at $99 per month.

“Today’s announcement is the next step in Operation GigaSpeed, the company-wide plan we announced in August of 2014,” Brian Borthwick, Altice USA’s VP of Suddenlink operations, said in a statement. “In sharp contrast to other large providers, which are offering a Gigabit service primarily to a few neighborhoods in large urban markets, we’re pleased to be making our Suddenlink Gigabit service available in all of the neighborhoods and to all of the households and businesses we serve throughout Clovis, Texico and Farwell.”

In April, Suddenlink added an unlimited data option for its two fastest tiers in a given market. Those complement the MSO's usage-based plans that charge extra ($10 for an additional bucket of 50 Gigabytes) when customers exceed their monthly limit a third time. 

Altice USA said it has launched 1-Gbps broadband service in two more Suddenlink territories – Alexandra and Pineville, La., while also boosting the speeds of certain other tiers for no additional cost.

In addition to the 1-Gig (downstream) residential offering in two areas, the operator has also bumped its 75 Mbps and 100 Mbps tiers to 100 Mbps and 200 Mbps, respectively. Suddenlink also offers a 50 Mbps service in those markets.

In Louisiana, Suddenlink also offers 1-Gig in areas such as Lake Charles and Sulphur, Bossier City. Suddenlink started to offer a DOCSIS 3.0-based 1-Gig service in July 2015 as part of a broader “Project GigaSpeed” initiative that envisioned offering gigabit speeds to 90% of Suddenlink's footprint by 2017. That initiative is continuing under Altice.

Suddenlink has been asked for pricing details in the new 1-Gig markets. In other areas, it’s been selling standalone 1-Gig (paired with a 50 Mbps upstream) for about $109 per month, and for less when bundled with other services. In April, Suddenlink added an unlimited data option for its two fastest tiers in a given market. Those complement the MSO's usage-based plans that charge extra ($10 for an additional bucket of 50 Gigabytes) when customers exceed their monthly limit a third time. 

Update: Suddenlink confirmed that 1-Gig pricing is uniform across markets, and that the price on stand-alone 1-Gig is now $99 per month. 

“Today’s announcement is the next step in Operation GigaSpeed, the company-wide plan we announced in August of 2014,” Altice USA Vice President of Suddenlink Operations Robbie Lee said, in a statement. “In sharp contrast to other large providers, which are offering a Gigabit service primarily to a few neighborhoods in large urban markets, we’re pleased to be making our Suddenlink Gigabit service available in all of the neighborhoods and to all of the households and businesses we serve throughout Alexandria and Pineville.” 

WideOpenWest (WOW) will be joining the gigabit club when it lights up those speeds in five U.S. markets by the end of 2016 – Huntsville and Auburn, Ala.; Evansville, Ind.; Knoxville, Tenn.; and Grosse Pointe Shores, Mich.

Those markets represent about 10% of WOW’s footprint, said Steven Cochran, WOW’s CEO, noting that the plan is to expand access to 1-Gig speeds to additional markets in 2017.

“We have a plan over the next couple of years to continue to increase speeds,” he said. WOW is also rolling out a new 600 Mbps service next week (more details on that further below).

WOW will announce pricing on the new 1-Gig service in those markets closer to launch (the MSO will be offering it as a standalone service and as a service bundle). WOW is using the “Gigtopia” brand for its new, speedier offering, and has launched a website where customers can register to be alerted when 1-Gig becomes available to them.

WOW will be using DOCSIS 3.1 technology to deliver 1 Gbps down by 50 Mbps up on its HFC networks in those initial markets. The operator’s primary network platform for D3.1 will be the Arris E6000 Converged Cable Access Platform (CCAP), and is currently evaluating modem vendors.  Six modem vendors have achieved DOCSIS 3.1 certification – Arris (for a retail model), Askey, CastleNet, Netgear, Sagemcom, Technicolor and Ubee Interactive.

In Grosse Point Shores, WOW is expanding its footprint using GPON-based fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) technology, and will be offering symmetrical 1-Gig capabilities on that portion of its network. WOW said Grosse Point Shores represents its largest investing to date in FTTH.

Notably, WOW is not implementing usage-based pricing for broadband on any of its speed tiers, including the coming 1-Gig offerings.

“For the time being, we don’t see a lot of value in it,” Cochran said. “Somewhere down the road it may make sense, but, from where we stand right now, we've been able to have a pretty compelling offering to our customers without having to put that in.”

Cochran said WOW’s HFC plant in markets such as Evansville, Knoxville and Auburn were already built out to 860 MHz or 1 GHz, so they already had capacity required to accommodate a 1-Gig service. WOW’s launch of 1-Gig in Huntsville is more of a competitive response – there, AT&T is expanding its fiber-based GigaPower platform, and Google Fiber is preparing to offer gigabit broadband and TV services that will ride a new muni-owned network. Comcast also serves Huntsville. 

WOW said it will be the first provider in Evansville and Auburn to bring 1-Gig to residential and small business customers.

Because most consumers don’t need 1-Gig yet, Cochran doesn’t expect it to generate a big take rate early on.

“To us, at least initially, it's a signal of the quality of offering we're able to provide…We're not going down a path of trying to force everyone into a gig if that's not what they need at this time,” he said, noting that home automation and other IP-based apps and services will continue to drive up speed requirements.

WOW also has plans to replace its current high-end DOCSIS 3.0-based 300 Mbps service with a 600 Mbps offering starting next Tuesday (August 16) across about 90% of its footprint. That will complement WOW’s existing tiers that deliver downstream speeds of 30 Mbps, 60 Mbps and 110 Mbps.

Cochran said 60 Mbps is currently the speed tier with the highest sell-in. 

Following up on plans announced at CES in January, Linksys has launched two DOCSIS 3.0-powered cable modem products for sale at retail, with a third model that will become available this summer.

Here’s Linksys’s initial lineup:

-CM3008, an 8x4 modem for $59.99 (for plans under 100 Mbps)

-CM3016, a 16x4 modem, set for release this summer (for plans up to 250 Mbps; pricing to be announced).

-CM3024, a 24x8 modem for $129.99 (for plans over 250 Mbps).

Linksys’s new models are built on Intel’s Puma 6 chipsets.

Linksys said its new retail products have been deemed compatible with Charter Communications, Comcast, and Cox Communications.

In January, Linksys also announced plans for the CG7500, a gateway device that combines a 24x3 D3 modem with dual-band 802.11ac WiFi, four Gigabit Ethernet ports and a USB 2.0 port.  At the time, Linksys slated the CG7500, set for a summer release, and a price of $249.99.

The company’s renewed focus on retail comes after Belkin acquired Linksys from Cisco Systems in 2013 and added it to Belkin’s home networking business (Cisco acquired Linksys in 2003 for $500 million).

Linksys’s reentry will put some retail pressure on suppliers such as Arris, Netgear and Zoom Telephonics, which launched a new line of Motorola-branded modems earlier this year.

Linksys is selling the its new products at Linksys.com and via retailers such as Amazon, Frys, MicroCenter, Newegg and Staples. Among other retailers, the CM3008 is only available at HH Gregg and Walmart, while the CM3024 only will be available at OD Max and Fred Meyer.

Linksys will target broadband subscribers who want to avoid monthly product lease fees. It cited an IDC study it sponsored that found that two-third of consumers who get their modems from a cable operator are paying rental fees of about $10 per month. Just one in five purchased their modems from a retailer, and 75% did so in order to avoid the fee, the study found.

“Consumers can save up to $120 a year if they purchase their own cable modem instead of paying monthly rental fees,” Brian Nickell, cable modem product manager at Linksys, said in a statement. “With rental fees being on average $10 a month, consumers can have our CM3008 paid off in as little as six months and have the latest high performance modem that matches the broadband plan they have subscribed to.” 

Chipmaker MaxLinear saw cable data gateway revenues climb more than 10% in Q1 on a sequential basis, thanks in part to a “surge” in 8-channel DOCSIS 3.0 modems tagged for Latin America and a pick-up of 24-channel D3.0 equipment, company CEO Kishore Seendripu said on Monday’s earnings call.

“The DOCSIS data gateway market continues to be an exciting and strategic growth platform for us, which enables us to address the expanding over-the-top video and data markets,” he said. “Our customer design wins and operator engagements around the new multi-gigabit cable DOCSIS 3.1 standard-based data services are gathering strong momentum ahead of the initial product roll-outs expected in the second-half.”

As for silicon for D3.1 modems and gateways, MaxLinear expects to be shipping in volume quantities by Q3 or Q4 of this year, with a more rapid acceleration in 2017, according to company CFO Adam Spice.

Among MSOs, Comcast has been the most aggressive with DOCSIS 3.1 early on. It has an “advanced consumer trial” of a DOCSIS 3.1-based 1-Gig (downstream) offering underway in Atlanta, and has identified Nashville, Chicago, Detroit and Miami as markets that will join the D3.1 mix in later this year. 

MaxLinear is also looking to support multi-gigabit speeds on the home network by supporting MoCA 2.5, a next-gen Multimedia over Coax Alliance platform that will support up to 2.5 Gbps.

MaxLinear is also continues to bank on wireless, announcing yesterday that it is buying certain assets and IP tied to Broadcom’s wireless infrastructure backhaul business for $80 million in cash. That complements MaxLinear’s recent $21 million acquisition of Microsemi’s Broadband Wireless Division.

Seendripu said the Broadcom deal will add microwave and millimeter-wave backhaul modem capabilities, which will be combined with its microwave RF transceiver technologies.

For the quarter, MaxLinear posted net revenue of $102.7 million, up 4% from the previous quarter, and up 190% from the year-ago period. Q1 net income was $19.1 million, or 29 cents per share, versus a net loss of $4.7 million, or 12 cents per share, in Q1 2015.

Comcast said it has introduced two new broadband tiers in California that will raise speeds without raising costs.

Its new Performance Pro tier pumps out 100 Mbps (downstream), while Blast Pro hits 200 Mbps, for both new and existing customers, the MSO said.

Comcast said subs on most of the MSO's bundles will be automatically be upgraded to either Performance Pro, increasing their download speeds from 75 Mbps to 100 Mbps, or to Blast Pro, increasing their speeds from 150 Mbps to 200 Mbps.

The new speeds and tiers will be available to the “vast majority” of its new and existing broadband subs starting tomorrow (March 22). To get the new speeds, customers will need to restart their modems. Customers who purchased their own modems and need to upgrade their modems to receive the increased speeds will need to buy a new device (Comcast’s list of approved modems are listed here).

Comcast has been asked if these speed increases in California are available to other markets yet, or if the MSO intends to extend the speed upgrade to other systems around the nation.

Update: Comcast confirmed that California is the first market to introduce Performance Pro at 100 Mbps, and Blast Pro at 200 Mbps. The operator also noted that it increases speeds regularly every year and that the California announcement marks its first speed increase for 2016. 

Comcast ended 2015 with 23.32 million high-speed Internet subs. About 77% of Comcast’s broadband subs received speeds of 50 Mbps (downstream) or more at the end of last year, company SVP and CFO Michael Cavanagh said last month on the company’s Q4 2015 earnings call.

"As customer demands and technology evolve, we continue to increase our broadband speeds to deliver the best, fastest and most reliable Internet experience possible," said Hank Fore, regional SVP of Comcast’s California region. "We're always looking for new ways to deliver on our promises to customers including providing the fastest speeds and a wide range of options that meet customer needs."

Comcast also offers a symmetrical 2 Gbps FTTP-based residential service called Gigabit Pro, in several parts of California, including Chico, Fresno, Marysville/Yuba City, Merced, Modesto, Monterey, Mountain View, Oakland, Palo Alto, Sacramento, Salinas, San Francisco Bay Area, San Jose, Santa Barbara County, Santa Clara, Stockton and Visalia.

Last week, Comcast introduced a 1 Gbps broadband service in Atlanta that uses DOCSIS 3.1 that is initially offered for $70 per month when customers agree to a 36-month contract. It’s selling for $139.95 per month without a contract. Comcast also plans to launch D3.1-based services later this year in Nashville, Chicago, Detroit and Miami, but has not yet said when it expects to deploy the new technology in its California systems. 

Cable broadband infrastructure spending dipped by 3% in 2015, compared to 2014 levels, thanks in part to dropping DOCSIS downstream channel prices and record shipments of super-dense converged cable access platform (CCAP) products, SNL Kagan found.

Shipments of total DOCSIS downstream channels rose 41% during 2015, topping 6 million, as cable operators continued to build out capacity amid growing deployments of FTTP networks by Google Fiber, municipal providers and other ISPs, SNL Kagan said.

But revenues did not keep pace with shipments as the rise in software licenses helped to push down the average price per downstream channel. Despite that boost in channel shipments, revenues in the category dropped 3%, to $1.74 billion, SNL Kagan found.

Among vendors, Arris ended 2015 as the market leader, holding 53% of total revenue among suppliers of cable broadband infrastructure, aided by key customers such as Comcast and Time Warner Cable.

Update: Jeff Heynen, senior research analyst for SNL Kagan, said Cisco Systems followed with 26% share of the market by year-end, while Casa Systems collected 15%. He said Cisco has been picking up momentum in recent quarters as its new flagship CCAP, the  cBR-8, gets into the field, and the company continues to line up customers for the product.

All three will benefit from cable’s transition to DOCSIS 3.1, Heynen said, reiterating that he does expect spending to remain relatively strong as MSOs add capacity amid competition with other providers. 

“The imminent availability of DOCSIS 3.1 linecards and full-spectrum channels won't slow the continued purchase and deployment of current DOCSIS 3.0 channels as cable operators must continue to increase throughput to reduce the likelihood of churn among their broadband subscribers,” Heynen said, in a statement. 

Comcast, Arris’s largest customer, is among those being most aggressive with DOCSIS 3.1. Last week, Comcast announced an “advanced consumer trial” of a DOCSIS 3.1-powered offering in Atlanta that pairs a downstream that maxes out at 1 Gbps with a 35 Mbps upstream.

Comcast has also announced that it plans to offer residential and business-class gigabit broadband using DOCSIS 3.1 in Nashville in “early 2016,” and follow with launches in Chicago, Detroit and Miami in the second half of 2016. Arris announced last month that its flagship CCAP, the E6000, is supporting the rollout in four of the initial five DOCSIS 3.1 deployment markets identified by Comcast.

Nbn Co, a government-owned entity that’s tasked with bringing next-gen broadband to millions of homes and businesses in Australia, said it has completed an HFC trial with a set of retail service partners (RSPs) using DOCSIS 3.0 technology that produced Layer 3 peak speeds of about 100 Mbps downstream and 40 Mbps in the upstream direction.

That trial, conducted on the Optus HFC network in Redcliffe, Queensland, involved about 20 end users, and tested elements such as improvements to network capacity, speed performance monitoring and the “on-boarding” of RSPs.

Those trials help to set the table for an anticipated commercial launch in Redcliffe in June 2016.

Three RSPs (retail service providers) – Telstra, iiNet and Exetel participated in the HFC pilot.

The HFC pilot, which used Arris-made DOCSIS 3.0 modems and the vendor’s E6000 CMTS/CCAP, averaged speeds of 84 Mbps/33 Mbps from December 1, 2015, through January 20, 2016. Those results were verified by Ovum (PDF), an independent U.K.-based analyst and consulting firm.

Nbn has already committed to using DOCSIS 3.1, a new platform for HFC networks that can deliver multi-gigabit speeds, but put a finer point on it this week, announcing that it intends to launch D3.1-based services in the second half of 2017. Nbn has also praised an emerging “full duplex” technology being developed at CableLabs that will enable MSOs to deliver symmetrical data services on DOCSIS 3.1-powered HFC networks.

“We launched our HFC Pilot on the former Optus HFC network back in November – with our pilot being one of the few times that a HFC network had been used to offer wholesale open access broadband services either in Australia or in the global broadband market,” Tony Brown, nbn’s public affairs manager, explained in this blog post.

“Whilst we are delighted with the speeds we have achieved on the pilot, we should note that this is really only just the beginning of what we are able to achieve on our nbn HFC network,” Brown added. “On our HFC pilot, we were using the current generation DOCSIS 3.0 technology, but from mid-2017 we plan to deploy next-generation DOCSIS 3.1 technology which is capable of wholesale downstream speeds of 10Gbps and wholesale upload speeds of 1Gbps.”

Last year, nbn selected Arris to play a primary role with the HFC portion of its network upgrades, which will rely on the supplier’s E600, CORWave transmitters and OM4100 optical receivers. Though Arris modems were used for the trials, it’s expected that cable modems from multiple suppliers will be distributed by RSPs that offer services on the network.

Nbn, established in 2009 to design, build and operate Australia’s new broadband network, is using a multi-technology approach. In addition to HFC, it will also use a mix of fiber-to-the-premises, fiber-to-the-node/basement (42%), and satellite and fixed wireless technologies to deliver broadband services.

According to nbn’s results for the second half of 2015, it ended the year with nearly 1.7 million premises that can order an nbn service, having added 450,000 homes and businesses to the footprint during that period. Nbn also posted total revenue of $164 million, up 152%, during the second half of 2015, with an average revenue per user of $43 per month. 

Zoom Telephonics inked a deal last year to use the Motorola brand in cable modems, routers and set-tops sold at retail, and the company has since followed through with the launch of a set of products that are being sold at outlets such as Best Buy and Amazon.

Zoom launched three Motorola-branded DOCSIS 3.0 modems late last month:

-MB7220, a model that supports eight downstream channels and four upstream channels.

-MB7420, a D3 modem with a 16x4 configuration.

-MG7310, an 8x4 D3 modem/router with integrated WiFi (802.11ac)  and four Gigabit Ethernet LAN ports.

According to the spec sheets for those products, all three use silicon from Broadcom. Through a quick search at Amazon, the MB7220 lists for $109.99 ($79.99 for Prime members); the MB7420 fetches $129.99 ($89.99 for Prime members); and the MG7310 can be had starting at $166.31.

“We anticipate introducing three additional Motorola products and dramatically expanding the number of retail outlets at which the Motorola products are available during the second quarter of this year,” Zoom president and CEO Frank Manning said in a statement.

With the Motorola brand in hand, Zoom will be looking to create more competition at retail with rivals such as Arris and Netgear. And they'll all have company in the form of Linksys, which last month announced plans to re-enter the retail cable modem game with a set of DOCSIS 3.0-based products that will debut this spring and be powered by Intel Corp.’s Puma 6 silicon. Belkin bought Linksys from Cisco Systems in 2013.

Zoom announced its five-year licensing deal last May, locking in a deal that allowed it to be the exclusive user of the Motorola brand in cable modems/routers and set-tops (as well as cable modems inside set-tops) sold at retail in the U.S. and Canada starting in January 2016. Zoom is essentially taking over Moto branding rights that had previously been with Arris (which bought Motorola Home in April 2013), which is now pushing ahead at retail using its own SURFboard brand. Arris announced last October that it achieved record retail shipments of cable modems and gateways in the third quarter of 2015 (Arris posts Q4 2015 results tomorrow). 

According to Zoom, its initial lineup of Motorola products are available at select Best Buy stores, BestBuy.com, all Micro Center stores, Amazon, as well as through retailers supplied by existing Zoom distributors.

Zoom, which has set up a web site for its new Motorola cable products, said its initial three models have been certified by CableLabs, a requirement for retail distribution, as well as by Comcast, Time Warner Cable, the FCC, and Bureau Veritas.

Speaking on an earnings in November, Zoom president and CEO Frank Manning said the company intended to establish Motorola as its “premium brand,” to use Zoom as its “value brand” for cable modem products.

Zoom envisions plenty of financial upside from the Moto branding deal. Manning said then that Zoom could grow its revenues by “at least $50 million in 2016 with the Motorola brand.” Zoom has not yet posted Q4 2015 results, but it reported Q3 net sales of $3.37 million, with cable modems and gateways accounting for 89% of total revenues in the quarter.

Zoom, by the way, is part of a coalition that is fighting the proposed Charter-Time Warner Cable merger.

Though cable data revenue was flat in Q4, chipmaker MaxLinear expects the picture to improve later this year as several major MSOs begin to accelerate the purchase and deployment of gateways outfitted with DOCSIS 3.1, the emerging multi-gigabit platform for HFC networks.

“We expect major cable operators to ramp shipments of DOCSIS 3.1 data gateways in the second half of 2016,” MaxLinear CEO Kishore Seendripu said Monday on the company’s Q4 earnings call.

MaxLinear, which demoed a D3.1 platform with Intel at last month’s CES, believes “this upgrade cycle will generate solid revenue growth over the next several years.”

MaxLinear and Intel will be fighting for share as operators start to march on DOCSIS 3.1. According to sources, the first batch of DOCSIS 3.1 modems recently certified by CableLabs were powered by silicon from rival Broadcom.

“I think our cable data business is pretty healthy,” Seendripu said, noting that the company is still seeing growth with DOCSIS 3.0 modems that can bond 24 or 32 downstream channels amid the anticipated run-up to D3.1. “We did not see the growth we had expected…in the past quarter, but we have good strong backlog in Q1, so we feel pretty good.”

As for D3.1, “there is a very good chance, in the second half, of DOCSIS 3.1 to ramp,” he added, noting that MaxLinear is “very well positioned” in that area with a major, but yet unnamed, MSO in North America.

Among U.S.-based operators, Comcast is already being aggressive, having named five markets where it plans to initially rollout D3.1 during 2016.

On the financial front, MaxLinear posted a Q4 net loss of $8.5 million (14 cents per share), on revenues of $98.9 million, up 4% from the year-ago quarter. The loss included $21.6 million in intangible asset impairment charges and $2.3 million in restructuring charges.

Operator revenues grew 10% in Q4, versus the Q3 2015, and accounted for 76% of total revenue in the period, MaxLinear said.

Full year 2015 revenues increased 126%, thanks in part to its acquisition of Entropic, a maker of Multimedia over Coax Alliance technology, last April.

Seendripu said MaxLinear had “particularly strong” MoCA shipments into both satellite and cable platforms in Q4. Last month, it introduced a third-generation MoCA 2.0 system (the MxL3705) that supports 1.2 Gbps of aggregate MAC throughput for up to 16 “nodes” on the home network. MaxLinear is expected to be in the mix when MoCA moves ahead on next-gen 3.0 platform that will target in-home data networking capacities of 2.5 Gbps. 

Seendripu also offered an update on MaxLinear’s legacy SoC products, noting that the company is seeing “softness” in demand for HD Digital Terminal Adapters, which are simple one-way digital-to-analog boxes that MSOs are using for their digital transitions. However, he said current backlog levels point to sequential revenue growth in that area in Q1 2016.

Primary revenues from HD DTAs are coming way of Time Warner Cable and Cox Communications.

Unitymedia, the Liberty Global-owned German MSO, said it has moved ahead with a network upgrade that will double its max downstream speeds to 400 Mbps starting February 1.

The upgrade, based on DOCSIS 3.0 technology, will initially target 3.2 million cable homes in Unitymedia systems serving the North Rhine-Westphalia area, or about 40% of the 12.7 cable homes in the MSO’s footprint, which also spans Hesse and Baden-Württemberg.

Unitymedia is pairing its 400-Meg downstream with an upstream that tops out at 20 Mbps.

Additionally, Unitymedia, which is preparing to deploy DOCSIS 3.1, said it has deployed more than 1,000 public WiFi hotspots in 100 cities in North Rhine-Westphalia, Hesse and Baden-Württemberg.

 “We have set ourselves ambitious targets and will be driving the network upgrade forward quickly in the coming months and years by making the necessary investments,  Unitymedia CEO Lutz Schüler, said in a statement. “Hybrid fibre coaxial technology is ideal for future requirements and a reliable infrastructure for enabling consumers and businesses to participate in the information and knowledge society. In offering 400 Mbps, we are sending a clear signal to the market and further extending our lead.” 

More light is being shed on the technical underpinnings of a residential 1-Gig offering that Mediacom Communications launched last year.

Casa Systems said the MSO is using its C100G converge cable access platform (CCAP) to power the network-side of the offering in its Columbia and Jefferson, Mo., markets.

Mediacom is also using a DOCSIS 3.0-powered modem from Hitron Technologies Americas to support the service, which teams a 1-Gig downstream with an upstream that maxes out at 50 Mbps for about $150 per months.

The deployment is another key win for Casa Systems, which is battling for CCAP share with market leaders, Arris and Cisco Systems, as well with suppliers such as Harmonic and Huawei Technologies.

“We are excited to bring our long experience providing commercial-grade gigabit services to our residential customers beginning with these communities in Mid-Missouri,” said JR Walden, Mediacom’s SVP of technology, in a statement. “Casa’s C100G was the right CMTS solution given our timing, facilities requirements, performance needs and desire to support the future evolution of our network and services.”

The Casa C100G is also capable of supporting DOCSIS 3.1, the emerging multi-gigabit platform for HFC networks. 

Suddenlink Communications announced last week on its official blog that the MSO has rolled out its residential 1-Gig service to three more areas: Georgetown, Texas; Lake Charles, La.; and St. Joseph, Mo..

Suddenlink, which is being acquired by Altice Group,introduced its 1-Gig (downstream) offering, paired with a 50 Mbps upstream, in July using DOCSIS 3.0 technology. The standalone offering runs about $109 per month, but comes at a reduced price when paired with other Suddenlink services.

All of Suddenlink’s residential broadband services come with usage-based policies that charge extra for additional buckets of data if customers exceed their monthly allotments.  The top data plan posted online is fitted with a monthly soft cap of 550 gigabytes.

With the latest trio of markets included, here’s an updated list of areas where Suddenlink has rolled out its residential gigabit offering:

-Arkansas: Jonesboro, Russellville.

-Arizona: Flagstaff.

-Louisiana: Bossier City and Lake Charles.

-Missouri: Nixa, Ozark, and St. Joseph.

-North Carolina: Greenville and Rocky Mount

-Oklahoma: Enid and Stillwater

-Texas: Abilene, Andrews, Big Spring, Bryan, College Station, Huntsville, Georgetown, Kingwood, Lubbock, Lufkin, Midland, Terrell, Tyler and Victoria.

Suddenlink, which added 21,600 high-speed Intenet subs in Q3 2015, unveiled Operation GigaSpeed in August 2014, announcing that it intended to raise its top downstream high-speed Internet speed to 1 Gbps in 90% of its footprint by 2017. 

Casa Systems said Wave Broadband will use its C100G converge cable access platform to deliver gigabit speeds to residential and business customers in the Pacific Northwest.

Wave Broadband is rolling out the C100G, Casa’s CCAP that combines the functions of the cable modem termination system and the edge QAM. The C100G uses DOCSIS 3.0 today, but Casa has developed downstream and upstream modules that put the platform in position to support DOCSIS 3.1, an emerging multi-gigabit spec for HFC networks.

Wave has about 450,000 Internet, TV and phone customers in Northern California and parts of Oregon and Washington, and said it’s swapping out its legacy CMTSs for the gigabit plan, which will help the MSO deliver new bandwidth-intensive apps, including IP video.

Notably, Wave recently raised about $130 million in debt to help fund an aggressive buildout of its fiber optic communications network and aimed at bringing higher-speed connectivity to business customers.

"Driven by the incredible growth of streaming video, social media and other rich content, the gigabit era can't wait. To reinforce our investment in expanding gigabit services across our region, it was imperative we have the right infrastructure in place," said Harold Zeitz, president and COO at Wave, in a statement. "The C100G CCAP from Casa Systems is the solution that paves a seamless path to scale and supports next-gen technologies such as DOCSIS 3.1, wireless, PON architecture and virtualization that are poised to become competitive differentiators."

The win with Wave comes as Casa grapples for markets share against access network rivals such as Arris, Cisco Systems, Harmonic, and Huawei. 

Liberty Global has introduced a next-gen data/voice gateway equipped to handle 1 Gbps broadband services and integrated WiFi.

The device, which will be locally branded by Liberty Global, will enable broadband download speeds of up to 1 Gbps using EuroDOCSIS 3.0 (Liberty Global is also preparing to trial DOCSIS 3.1, cable’s multi-gigabit platform for HFC networks, next year). 

Liberty Global said it developed the device in partnership with Arris and Compal, uses software from Celeno to optimize its WiFi performance, and supports a  “wizard” to assist with customer self-installs.

Liberty Global said the new WiFi and telephony gateway (an image of it is shown here)  is now available to Telenet customers in Belgium and UPC customers in Romania and will be introduced by the rest of the MSO’s footprint in  Europe “in the coming months.”

“Our next-generation WiFi and telephony gateway enables us to maximise the impact of our high-speed fiber networks across Europe by giving our customers a better, faster and even more reliable internet experience,” Doron Hacmon, managing director, products and online media group, at Liberty Global  said in a statement. “ Our customers rightly demand seamless WiFi connectivity both in and out of the home, and we will continue to focus relentlessly on providing them with a best-in-class experience, wherever they happen to be.”

The MSO  noted that it has rolled out a WiFi network of 6 million hotspots throughout its footprint , and expects to grow that to 10 million WiFi access points in 2016. Comcast, which has deployed 11.7 million hotspots, and Liberty Global struck a WiFi roaming deal last fall.

Update: Liberty Global supplied a statement with more details about its new gateway while also hinting at what's on the horizon with respect to DOCSIS 3.1: 

“Our new Wifi and voice gateway will enable broadband download speeds of up to 1 Gbp, based on the successful Docsis 3.0 technology and the powerful WIFI AC standard that allows concurrent use of both 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz spectrum. With the new device we are deploying technology that is fit for the future so that we can deliver higher performance and reliability to our customers. This includes the possibility for higher speeds and a considerably better wifi performance, such as a larger wifi range in the home, better Internet throughput and a new customer-friendly user interface – all in a cost-effective way. With a proven track record of customer focused innovation, we stay committed to continually developing new and better solutions for our customers. This means that once enhanced technologies that allow new features and functionality such as Docsis 3.1 mature and become cost-effectively available, we will deploy them.”

Cable One is joining the gigabit club.

The MSO announced Thursday that it will offer a 1-Gig (downstream) residential broadband service in more than 200 cities next year.

That offering, branded as GigaONE, will initially be powered by DOCSIS 3.0, the platform that fellow mid-sized MSOs, Suddenlink Communications and Mediacom Communications, are using for their respective 1-Gig residential services. On the horizon is DOCSIS 3.1, a platform that will bring multi-gigabit capabilities to HFC networks. 

According to the FAQ for GigaONE, the service will provide max downstream speeds of 1 Gbps paired with a 50 Mbps upstream path. To receive that service, customers will need an approved DOCSIS 3.0 modem that can bond 32 downstream channels.

Pricing and the data plan for GigaONE will be announced in early January. Cable One’s current top residential broadband tier offers 200 Mbps down and 10 Mbps up, paired with a monthly consumption ceiling of 500 gigabytes.

Cable One will offer GigaONE across its network, and has set up a web site that will keep track of deployments. Customers can also register to be alerted when GigaONE is available to them.

The following Cable One markets will get GigaONE in Q1 2016: Altus and Duncan, Okla.; Borger, Texas; Emporia, Kan.; Bisbee and Cottonwood, Ariz.; and McCall, Idaho.    

“GigaONE will support the technology needs of the communities we serve, now and in the future,” said Joe Felbab, vice president of marketing for Cable One, said in a statement. “We are excited to be able to offer Gigabit service to nearly 1.5 million homes in the markets we serve.”

Cable One said it has invested more than $500 million over the past five years on network upgrades and enhancements.

"Unlike many of our competitors, Gigabit service will be available to all of our customers – not just a select few in certain areas,” Felbab noted in an apparent reference to the buildout model of  providers such as Google Fiber and AT&T (for GigaPower).

But even as Cable One puts more emphasis on broadband than video, the results haven’t shown it yet.

While larger MSOs had blowout Q3s with respect to broadband sub growth, Cable One’s year-over-year growth, at about 2.1% , was comparatively weak. The MSO added 9,259 residential data subs in Q3, extending its total to 457,973.

“The evidence for a stronger-than-expected link between broadband and video certainly isn’t conclusive, but it’s enough to raise legitimate questions about Cable One’s video-lite strategy,” MoffettNathanson analyst Craig Moffett, who sees Cable One as an M&A candidate, said in a research note issued today. However, ARPU in the broadband category is growing (up 7.7%) thanks to  aggressive pricing paired with faster speed tiers.

Suddenlink Communications announced on its official blog on October 28 that the MSO has deployed its residential 1-Gig offering in three more markets – Bossier City, La.; and Tyler and Victoria, Texas.

A developer for Santa Rita Ranch, an area near the Georgetown, Texas, area, announced separately that Suddenlink is now offering 1-Gig to residential subscribers there. 

Update: Suddenlink announced on November 2 that it has also rolled out 1-gig in its entire Georgetown, Texas, systems, as well as Jonesboro and Pocahontas, Ark. With all of them factored in, Suddenlink said it has expanded 1-Gig to six new markets. 

As has been the case in prior 1 Gig launches, Suddenlink also increased certain other residential Internet speeds at no additional cost to customers.  With each 1 Gigabit launch, residential high-speed Internet customers with current download speeds up to 75 and 100 Megabits per second (Mbps) have been moved to services with download speeds up to 100 and 200 Mbps, respectively, at no added charge. Suddenlink’s standard residential Internet download speeds in these communities are now up to 50, 100, and 200 Mbps, along with the now available up to 1 Gig service.

Local business owners also have access to Suddenlink’s 1 Gig service, along with customized services that Suddenlink has offered for many years that are capable of multi-Gigabit speeds.

To date, Suddenlink has launched an up to 1 Gigabit service in the following 24 areas and a number of nearby communities.

July 2015 

• Missouri: Nixa
• North Carolina: Greenville, Rocky Mount
• Texas: Bryan, College Station

September 2015

• Arkansas: Russellville
• Oklahoma: Stillwater
• Texas: Andrews, Big Spring, Huntsville, Kingwood, Lubbock, Midland

October 2015

• Arizona: Flagstaff
• Arkansas: Jonesboro, Pocahontas
• Louisiana: Bossier City
• Oklahoma: Enid
• Texas: Abilene, Georgetown, Lufkin, Terrell, Tyler, Victoria

Suddenlink, which is being acquired by Altice Group, introduced its 1-Gig (downstream) offering, paired with a 50 Mbps upstream, in July using DOCSIS 3.0 technology.

The standalone offering runs about $109 per month, but comes at a reduced price when paired with other Suddenlink services. All of Suddenlink’s residential broadband services come with usage-based policies that charge extra for additional buckets of data if customers exceed their monthly allotments.  The top data plan posted online is fitted with a monthly soft cap of 550 gigabytes.

Here’s a list of other Suddenlink markets that offer the 1-Gig residential service:

-Arkansas: Jonesboro and Russellville.

-Arizona: Flagstaff.

-Missouri: Nixa and Ozark.

-North Carolina: Greenville and Rocky Mount.

-Oklahoma: Enid and Stillwater.

-Texas: Abilene, Andrews, Big Spring, Bryan, College Station, Huntsville, Kingwood, Lubbock, Lufkin, Midland, and Terrell.

Arris shares were down more than 10% in after-hours trading Wednesday after the tech giant said Q3 revenues dropped 13.1% due in part to sluggish set-top and gateway sales to Verizon Communications and AT&T, which just combined with  DirecTV.

Arris chairman and CEO Bob Stanzione cited “shifting” strategies at those telcos. AT&T, for example, saw a decline in U-verse TV subs in Q3 as it applied more focus on selling DirecTV service.

That shift in focus “hurt our business pretty dramatically,” Stanzione said.

Arris, which is also dealing with declines outside the U.S., posted Q3 revenues of $1.22 billion, off from the $1.24 billion expected by analysts, and posted earnings of 56 cents per share, down from 81 cents in the prior year- period. Looking ahead, Arris anticipates revenues to decline to $1.1 billion to $1.15 billion, alongside adjusted net income per diluted share of 40 cents to 45 cents, citing lower expected U.S. revenue, near-term M&A uncertainty and international growth tempered by the strong U.S. dollar.

Driven by the aforementioned telco issues, CPE segment sales dropped 14% versus the year-ago quarter, despite improved cable CPE sales and a record sales of broadband gateways and modems via retail channels.

Arris also talked up its role in supplying an advanced DOCSIS gateway to Comcast – the DOCSIS 3.0-powred XB3 will bond up to 24 downstream channels and integrate MoCA 2.0 and 802.11ac WiFi.

On the video CPE end, unit volumes dropped 11% year-on-year. A bright spot was the launch of a next-gen video gateway (the DCX3635) for Canada’s Shaw Communications that supports both Arris’s own Moxi platform and Comcast’s X1 platform. Shaw is trialing X1 after ditching its original IPTV migration strategy. 

On its fiscal Q4 call earlier this month, Shaw CEO Bradley Shaw said the MSO had launched the whole-home DVR platform with the Moxi UI, noting that it’s “forward compatible with the X1 service.” He said Shaw’s anticipates that the commercial launch of X1, which will be powered directly by Comcast infrastructure, will occur during Shaw’s 2016 fiscal year.

On the network side of the business, Arris saw sales of its flagship E6000  CCAP drop from the first half of the year (Shaw is a new customer for it), but remains on track for Q4 customer field trials of DOCSIS 3.1, according to Bruce McClelland, president of the company’s’ network and cloud unit. Arris also expects formal CableLabs D3.1 testing to start during the current quarter.

Regarding Arris’s pending $2.1 billion acquisition of U.K.-based Pace, Stanzione said he’s still enthusiastic about the benefits of the merger, and remains committed to getting the deal done. Amid additional requests from the U.S. Department of Justice and other regulatory entities, Arris now believes it will wrap up the merger by late December or the first quarter of 2016. Arris has also indicated that regulators might apply a condition to the deal that Arris divest part of its optical transmission business.

Arris and Pace shareholders have approved the deal.

Complementing its work on the network, Arris has launched two cable modem models – one for direct distribution to cable operators and one for retail sale -- based on DOCSIS 3.1, the cable industry’s multi-gigabit platform for HFC networks.

Arris said the MSO-focused model, the Touchstone CM8200, can support up to 5 Gbps downstream and up to 2 Gbps upstream, enabled through switchable filters supporting a widened upstream of up to 204 MHz, and 1.2 GHz in the downstream. Today, most North American DOCSIS plant uses an upstream of 5 MHz to 42 MHz, but D3.1 envisions a wider upstream path by supporting "mid-splits" that would raise the ceiling to 85 MHz, and a "high-split" that would push it to 204 MHz.

The SURFboard SB8200 has the same technical capabilities of the CM8200, but is tagged for retail distribution.

Arris declined to comment on which silicon provider is powering its new line of D3.1 CPE gear. Broadcom, Intel and STMicroelectronics are among those that are developing D3.1 modem chipsets. Several other modem makers showed off D3.1-based models at a recent interop at CableLabs, including Askey, Castlenet, Cisco Systems, Humax, Netgear, Pace (which is merging with Arris), Sagemcom,Technicolor (which is buying Cisco's set-top and CPE business), and Ubee Interactive. 

The first wave of DOCSIS 3.1 modems will be hybrids that can support both DOCSIS 3.0- and new DOCSIS 3.1 traffic, which will use blocks of OFDM-based subcarriers. On the DOCSIS 3.0 side, Arris’s new line will support the bonding of up to 32 downstream QAM channels and 8 upstream channels.

Arris (booth 551) said both models will be on display at this week’s SCTE Cable-Tec Expo in New Orleans, and will become available in 2016. Arris is also working on expanded line of D3.1 CPE that will include telephony modems and voice and data gateways.

Arris did not announce pricing on the first two models, but initial DOCSIS 3.1 deployments are expected to get underway next year and ramp up in 2017. CableLabs recently opened the door to D3.1 certification and qualification testing. D3.1 modems are expected to cost between 30% to 50% more than D3.0 modems in the early going, and then drop from there as volumes increase, according to industry sources.

Arris’s is also starting to bake D3.1 capabilities into the E6000, its flagship converged cable access platform (CCAP), a high-density chassis that combines the functions of the cable modem termination system and edge QAM.

In a recent interview, Arris director of product management Steve Krapp said the E6000 is software-upgradable to D3.1 in the downstream direction, adding that the vendor plans to introduce a new line card in 2016 that will support a D3.1-based upstream.

At the show, Arris said it plans to show both D3.1 and D3.1 traffic running on the E6000 on a single Downstream Cable Access Module (DCAM) via multiple D3.1 modems, including the new SURFboard SB8200 as well as D3.0 gateways, including the SURFboard SB6800.

At Expo, Arris said it will support Intel, VeEX and Viavi with their respective D3.1 demos, which will all run on the E6000.

Comcast said it is boosting Internet speeds with the debut of a new Performance Pro tier of 75 Mbps (downstream) and Blast! Pro, with max speeds of 150 Mbps downstream, in systems serving a dozen states in its West region.

Customers on many "popular" bundles are in line to receive either Performance Pro, increasing their download speeds from 50 Mbps to 75 Mbps, or Blast! Pro, increasing their speeds from 105 Mbps to 150 Mbps, the company said. 

Comcast said the speed upgrades are being extended at no additional cost to customers in Arizona, Colorado, Houston, Idaho, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wisconsin.

For most customers in those states, they'll get the new Performance Pro speed or Blast! Pro speed tiers by the end of October. They are available to customers in Houston and Washington effective October 9. 

To get the new speeds, subs will need to restart their modems, and Comcast will notify those that require new modems for the faster speeds. 

Looking ahead to the DOCSIS 3.1 era, Midcontinent Communications said the Fargo-Morehead West area in North Dakota will be its first market to offer residential gigabit broadband services.

The announcement comes soon after Midco said it would deliver gigabit Internet speeds to its entire footprint by the end of 2017. Sioux Falls, Rapid City, Bismarck and Grand Forks have been identified as Midco markets that would be among the first to get gigabit service.

MidCo noted in July that it would shift to DOCSIS 3.1, an emerging multi-gigabit platform for HFC networks, using the cBR-8, a new Converged Cable Access Platform (CCAP) from Cisco Systems that combines the functions of the cable modem termination system and edge QAM. 

The MSO has not set a precise launch date for gigabit service in the Fargo metro area, noting that it must first deploy DOCSIS 3.1 modems, which will be hybrids that support both DOCSIS 3.0 and DOCSIS 3.1-based transport. As was shown at an interop at CableLabs earlier this week, CMTS, modem and chip vendors are making speedy progress with D3.1 as operators prepare to test the platform ahead of initial deployments that are expected to get underway in 2016.

In this week’s announcement, MidCo VP of technology Jon Pederson said in the release that the operator is “collaborating” with Cisco on the new modems (Cisco, by the way, is in the process of selling its CPE division, which includes set-tops and modems, to Technicolor).

Midco has been using fiber to deliver gig speeds, but said DOCSIS 3.1 will enable it to offer those speeds to a wider range of customers. The operator is going all-digital to free up spectrum for DOCSIS 3.1.

“We chose the Fargo metro area as the first area for Midco Gig because of the state-of-the-art technology we’ve been installing in the metro area during our Fargo build-out that started in 2014 and will continue through 2016,” says Pat McAdaragh, president and CEO of Midcontinent.

Midcontinent has more than 300,000 customers and serves parts of Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin.

The global broadband CPE (consumer premises equipment) market rose 5% in Q2 2015 versus the previous quarter, to $2.9 billion, as unit shipments climbed 11%, to 61 million, IHS found in a new report.

FTTH optical network terminals in China moved the needle, as unit shipments there more than doubled year-over-year --  from 9.8 million to more than 20 million.

Global broadband CPE revenues rose 7% from the year-ago quarter.

Among other categories, DSL CPE unit shipments dropped 1%, to 23 million, while cable CPE  units inched up 1%, to 11.6 million. DOCSIS 3.0 modems, at 13%, posted the highest growth in the cable CPE category, per IHS.

Fixed LTE CPE shipments jumped 4%.

Based on big investments underway in China, IHS also upped its 2019 global broadband CPE forecast by 8%, to $12.4 billion (see chart).

“The primary source for raising our global broadband CPE forecast is the massive investment currently ongoing in China,” Jeff Heynen, research director for broadband access and pay TV at IHS, said in a statement. “Despite reported economic headwinds, the Chinese government continues to subsidize telco investments in fiber infrastructure to expand accessibility and throughput. The result is heavy spending on GPON and EPON ONTs.”

Hitron Technologies Americas said its supplying the DOCSIS 3.0 model that is powering Videotron’s gigabit pilot in Montreal.

That model, the CDA3-35, can bond up to 32 D3.0 downstream channels (up to 1.2 Gbps bursts in North American DOCSIS systems that use 6MHz-wide channels), and up to eight upstream channels. The model is equipped with Intel’s Puma 6-MG DOCSIS processor and MaxLinear’s 32-channel MxL268 tuner, and is characterized to be a “drop-in and software compatible upgrades” to Hitron’s prior 16- and 24-channel D3.0 devices.

Suddenlink Communications, GCI of Alaska and Mediacom Communications are also using the Hitron model for their recently launched 1-Gig residential services. 

“The ever-increasing demand for bandwidth to support Internet-based applications and services, on-demand programming and other bandwidth-intensive services, requires us to deploy CPE that is on the cutting edge of technology,” said Videotron CTO Daniel Proulx, in a statement. “The Hitron CDA3-35 delivers the performance that enables us to provide our customers with the services they desire and the reliability they demand.”

Videotron serves about 1.77 million cable TV subs, and 1.54 million high-speed Internet customers. Its primary competitor is Bell Canada.

GCI has booted up a residential 1-Gig broadband service in parts of  Anchorage that will run on DOCSIS 3.0 and require a Hitron-made modem that’s capable of bonding 32 downstream channels.

GCI’s new service called 1 GIG red, pumps out a max downstream of 1 Gbps. Pricing for the service and the capabilities of the tier’s upstream were not immediately known.

Update: GCI, an official said via email, is selling 1 GIG red for $174.99 per month, the same price as the MSO’s prior 250 Mbps service. The 1-Gig downstream is paired with an upstream that maxes at 50 Mbps, up from 10 Mbps with the prior red service ("red" is the brand assigned to GCI’s top Internet service tier. It also offers 100 Mbps, 50 Mbps and 10 Mbps services). 

The operator said it will make the new service available to “virtually all” of its cable subs in Anchorage by year-end. GCI serves about 100,000 homes in the city. 

It has not provided specific plans to offer 1-Gig to other markets other than to say that Juneau, Fairbanks and Mat-Su are among the markets in line, expecting to expand on rollouts in early 2016 . In the meantime, GCI said upgrades Mat-Su, Juneau, Fairbanks, Kenai/Soldotna, Sitka will enable downstream upgrades for the operator’s fastest tiers there – rising from 250 Mbps to 500 Mbps.

From a modem standpoint, GCI is following a similar game plan that’s being run by Suddenlink and Mediacomm Communications, which are also using the new Hitron D3.0 model (the CDA3-35) for their respective 1-Gig residential tiers. The GCI official noted that DOCSIS 3.1, an emerging multi-gigabit platform for HFC networks, "is the next step in meeting technology needs of the future and GCI is getting ready for it."

According to an FAQ, GCI’s 1 GIG red service will be subject to the MSO’s new “No  Worries” data usage policy, setting a monthly ceiling of 750 GB (up from 600 GB for the prior "red" tier.  Once customers on the 1-Gig plan exceed that limit, they can purchase addition buckets of data (30 GB) for $10 each, upgrade to a different plan, or be set at a “basic level of service” (less than 1 Mbps) with no overages.

“Today we’re proud to begin the launch of 1 GIG red in Anchorage while many major Lower 48 cities like Los Angeles, Boston, and Washington D.C. wait for comparable 1-gigabit service,” said GCI president and CEO Ron Duncan, in a statement. ““With 1 GIG red, we’re quadrupling Internet speeds for our red customers and propelling Alaska to the forefront of technology, all without any increase in our red customers’ bills.”

GCI is also delivering 1-Gig service (branded as “fiber re:D”)  in select areas of cities such as Anchorage and Juneau using fiber-to-the-premises technology.

Softness in the cable broadband access market continued into the second quarter of 2015, as global revenues dropped 2% versus the previous quarter, IHS said in a new report that keeps track of spending for cable modem termination systems (CMTSs), edge QAMs, the Converged Cable Access Platform (CCAP), and coaxial media converters (CMCs).

IHS said revenues for that product group totaled $465 million in Q2 2015, while DOCSIS channel shipments in North America dropped 25% after rising 13% in the previous quarter. “[R]evenue was also down 19 percent due to a slowdown among a handful of larger operators,” IHS said

On the brighter side, global revenues in the second quarter actually rose 12% on a year-over-year basis. Additionally, spending on CCAPs, high-density, lower power consumption chassis that combine the functions of the CMTS and edge QAM, grew 34% in the first half of 2015 versus the prior year period (see chart). 

Operators spent heavily in the second half of 2014 and are now in the process of getting those products and that additional channel capacity deployed, Jeff Heynen, IHS’s research director for broadband access and pay TV, explained.

He noted that the effect of potential mergers (Charter Communications’ pending acquisitions of Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks, for example) “did have some impact on purchasing, especially in North America.”

IHS also expects spending to pick up in the second half of 2015. Heynen added that the market is still waiting for the cBR-9, Cisco Systems’ new CCAP, and expects volume to pick up once that product becomes more widely deployed.

Heynen said slowness in the first half of the year will cause pent up demand and see shipments pick up in the fourth quarter as operators “go gangbusters on buying new cards and new licenses.”

He is also seeing some steady growth in the coax media converter market, which is picking up some steam in China and other emerging cable markets in the Asia Pacific region. That product category, now part of the overall Cable DOCSIS specifications, is opening up a total addressable market that will primarily benefit China-based suppliers such as Huawei and Sumavision. CMC product revenues represents 6% of the market in Q2 2015, up from less than 3% of the market a year ago, according to Heynen.

On the vendor front, Arris led the cable broadband access market in Q2 with 54% share of revenues, followed by Cisco (21%) and Casa Systems (15%), according to IHS.

Mediacom Communications has joined a growing list of MSOs that are deploying a DOCSIS 3.0-powered cable modem from Hitron Technologies Americas that can provide downstream speed bursts of more than 1 Gbps. 

That model, the Hitron Gigabit Cable Modem (CDA-3-35), can bond 32 downstream channels and eight upstream channels, meaning it can handle up to 1.2 Gbps in North American systems that use 6MHz-wide channels, and up to 1.6 Gbps on EuroDOCSIS systems that utilize 8MHz-wide channels.

Mediacom’s deployment of the Hitron modem comes soon after the MSO announced it would introduce a 1-Gig residential broadband service in several areas of Missouri, including Jefferson City and Hots Summit and the counties of Boone, Cole and Callaway. That 1-Gig (downstream) offering that’s being paired with an upstream that maxes out at 50 Mbps, is set to become available Tuesday (Sept. 15), and initially retail for $149.99 per month. 

Suddenlink Communications and GCI are among other operators that are rolling out Hitron’s CDA3-35 model, which is equipped with Intel’s Puma 6-MG DOCSIS processor and MaxLinear’s 32-channel MxL268 tuner.   Hitron says it ships more than 3 million DOCSIS devices worldwide each year. 

“Deploying Hitron’s new Gigabit DOCSIS 3.0 cable modem provides us with the performance and bandwidth required to successfully deliver our advanced service offerings to maximize customer satisfaction and further set us apart from the competition,” JR Walden, CTO for Mediacom, said in a statement “The delivery of the state-of-the-art, differentiated services that Mediacom offers requires CPE that delivers fast speeds and reliable performance.”

“Cable operators are under increasing competitive pressure to deliver faster Internet speeds and differentiated multimedia and on-demand services to grow their customer bases and increase their revenues,” added Todd Babic, chief sales and marketing officer for Hitron Technologies Americas. “Mediacom is an ideal candidate for our new Gigabit cable modem as they are launching advanced integrated solutions that push the performance envelopes of most cable modems.”

Mediacom Communications is joining the residential gigabit club with a new 1-Gig service that will initially be offered to all homes passed in several areas of Missouri, including Jefferson City and Holts Summit and the counties of Boone, Cole, and Callaway.

The 1 Gbps (downstream) offering, which will be paired with an upstream that maxes out at 50 Mbps, will become available to customers in those markets on September 15. The new tier will initially retail for $149.99 per month, though Mediacom plans to offer it with bundled discounts if combined with other MSO services, according to company spokesman Thomas Larsen.

The monthly data allowance for the new 1-Gig service is 6 terabytes. Customers who exceed that threshold can buy additional data buckets of 50 Gigabytes for $10 each. Mediacom unified its usage-based Internet policy back in September 2013.

Mediacom also confirmed that it will be using DOCSIS 3.0 to deliver the new 1-Gig service, an approach that Suddenlink Communications is also utilizing for its new residential gigabit service. Top-end DOCSIS 3.0 modem chips from suppliers such as Intel and Broadcom can bond up to 32 downstream channels – enough to support downstream bursts of 1.2 Gbps in North American systems. DOCSIS 3.1, cable’s next-gen IP platform for HFC networks, is targeting multi-gigabit speeds.

Mediacom has not announced a rollout schedule for residential 1-Gig services, but Larsen noted that the MSO has plans to support DOCSIS 3.1 technology (the consumer-facing brand for it is “Gigasphere”) when it’s ready to go. D3.1 deployments are expected to start to ramp up in 2016.

“While we won’t rule out doing other 1-Gig launches using DOCSIS 3.0, I expect most of our future 1-Gig launches to utilize the Gigasphere technology when it becomes available,”  Larsen said.

“Our robust fiber network was designed with flexibility and scalability in mind, allowing us to cost-effectively turn Columbia, Jefferson City and Holts Summit into true gigabit communities,” said Ed Pardini, Mediacom’s SVP of field operations, in a statement, adding that Mediacom has invested more than $4 billion in infrastructure upgrades. “Unlike some other 1-Gig providers whose services are limited to selected neighborhoods, our gigabit speeds are available throughout the community to 100% of the homes and residences along our network.”

“High-speed Internet is critical to the economic well-being of Mid-Missouri as well as our entire state,” added Missouri State Senator Kurt Schaefer. “One-gigabit service will keep us competitive in attracting new employers as well as facilitating innovation in education and healthcare for our communities.”

Suddenlink Communicatins has expanded its 1 Gbps residential broadband service to four more areas of Texas --  Lubbock, Shallowater, Wolfforth and Post – while also juicing up the speeds of two existing tiers for no added cost.

As part of the upgrade, customers on the existing 75 Mbps (downstream) tier will jump to 100 Mbps, and those on the 100 Mbps offering will get 200 Mbps, Suddenlink said. 

The 1-Gig launches, part of the MSO’s Operation GigaSpeed initiative, follow initial debuts in systems serving Bryan-College Station, Texas; Nixa, Mo.; and Greenville and Rocky Mount, N.C.  

Suddenlink, which is being acquired by Altice Group for $9.1 billion, has been selling the standalone 1-Gig service, paired with an upstream that maxes out at 50 Mbps, for $109 per month in some markets, and rent a WiFi-enabled modem for $10 per month or a stand-alone modem for $5 per month.

Suddenlink is powering its 1-Gig residential service with DOCSIS 3.0, and also happens to be an early taker for the Hitron CDA3-35, a model that can bond up to 32 downstream channels and up to eight upstream channels. On the downstream end, that’s enough to pump out max speeds of 1.2 Gbps in North American systems that use 6MHz-sized DOCSIS channels.

“Today’s announcement is the next step in Operation GigaSpeed, the company-wide plan we announced last August,” said Suddenlink regional SVP of operations Dave Gilles, in a statement. “In sharp contrast to companies like Google and AT&T, which are offering a Gigabit service only to a few neighborhoods in primarily urban markets, we’re making our service available in all of the neighborhoods and households we are able to serve throughout the Lubbock area.”

 “This faster, high-speed Internet offering is a tremendous tool for our businesses, residents and education communities,” added Lubbock Chamber of Commerce president and CEO Eddie McBride. “The enhanced ability to connect and communicate with the world will help local businesses grow and will be attractive to new businesses. We're fortunate to have a partner like Suddenlink for many reasons, and the company’s commitment to offer this service here in the Hub City and the South Plains is just the latest.”

Cable ONE said it’s performing capacity upgrades that will double the downstream speeds for new and existing residential High Speed Internet customers in more than 90% markets starting this October.

By tier, here’s how the downstream speed bumps stack up:  

- 50 Mbps jumps to 100 Mbps;

-75 Mbps rises to 150 Mbps; and

-100 Mbps “Ultra” plan hits 200 Mbps.

Among those plans, Cable ONE is offering the 100-Meg tier for $35 per month to new subs for the first three months starting in October.

The MSO said it will invest $67 million this year on network upgrades and enhancements, a “first step” toward providing a 1-Gig residential broadband service that will be announced in more detail sometime next month.  Another mid-sized MSO, Suddenlink, recently launched a 1-Gig (downstream) service using a DOCSIS 3.0-powered Hitron modem that can bond 32 6MHz-wide downstream channels.

Cable ONE ended the second quarter with 457,401 residential data subs, up 2.4% from the year-ago quarter.

"As customers continue to stream, download, and connect across multiple devices, we know that speed is key in satisfying this growing demand," said Joe Felbab, the MSO’s VP of marketing, in a statement. "Doubling our speeds will create more customer value and provide a superior High Speed Internet experience for our customers."

Hitron Technologies has taken the wraps off a new DOCSIS 3.0-powered modem that can deliver downstream speed bursts in excess of 1 Gbps.

Hitron’s “Gigabit Cable Modem,” a model also known as the CDA3-35, can bond up to 32 downstream channels and up to eight upstream channels, representing an advance over 24x8 DOCSIS 3.0 modems. The new model can handle up to 1.2 Gbps in North American systems that use 6MHz-wide channels, and up to 1.6 Gbps on EuroDOCSIS systems that utilize 8MHz-wide channels.

The CDA3-35 is equipped with Intel’s Puma 6-MG DOCSIS processor and MaxLinear’s 32-channel MxL268 tuner, which, Hitron noted, are “drop-in and software compatible upgrades to prior 16- and 24-channel solutions.” Broadcom has also announced a 32x8 DOCSIS 3.0 solution.

All of those options are appearing ahead of DOCSIS 3.1, an emerging multi-gigabit platform for HFC networks. The first D3.1 modems will be hybrids that support both DOCSIS 3.0 and DOCSIS 3.1-based  traffic.

Hitron, which ships more than 3 million DOCSIS units worldwide per year, also announced that GCI of Alaska and Suddenlink Communications are the first MSOs to deploy the CDA3-35 for residential and business customers.

Last month, Suddenlink launched a 1 Gbps (downstream) residential broadband service to an initial set of markets -- Bryan-College Station, Texas; Nixa, Mo.; and Greenville and Rocky Mount, N.C. That service, which uses DOCSIS 3.0, is paired with a 50 Mbps upstream, and sells for about $109 per month as a stand-alone service, and for less when bundled with other Suddenlink services.

Hitron claimed that the CDA3-35 is the industry’s first 32x8 D3 modem product to deploy commercially in North America.

“The rollout of gigabit cable modems into the home will enable the adoption of advanced applications such as high-definition streaming content, interactive services, home security and other next-generation connected home technologies that rely on fast, reliable broadband connectivity to the Internet,” explained Jeff Heynen, Research Director, Broadband Access and Pay TV at IHS.

“For cable operators, the availability of gigabit technology over their existing cable plant will enable them to quickly compete with fiber-based services at an affordable price point,” Jeff Heynen, research director, broadband access and pay TV at IHS, said in a statement.

“The CDA3-35 provides the fast Internet connectivity speeds that will allow MSOs to deploy next-generation interactive services to their subscribers and support the increasingly advanced applications and devices in the Connected Home,” added Todd Babic, chief sales and marketing officer for Hitron Technologies Americas. 

Canadian MSO Videotron is joining the Gigabit club.

The company announced this week that it is piloting a 1-Gig service in Montreal using DOCSIS 3.0, with plans underway to follow-up with a commercial launch.

State-of-the-art D3.0 modems can bond up to 32 downstream channels, enough to produce bursts up to 1.2 Gbps in North American DOCSIS networks that use 6MHz-wide channels, and up to 1.6 Gbps using EuroDOCSIS 8MHz-wide channels.

Videotron, which already offers a 200 Mbps downstream by 50 Mbps residential broadband tier using DOCSIS 3.0, noted that the pilot, which offers speeds of 1 Gbps ore more “under certain conditions” has been underway for several months with Montreal-area  homes and businesses. It’s delivering it with new modems and an “optimized network architecture.” 

Videotron also referenced its interest in DOCSIS 3.1, an emerging multi-gigabit platform for HFC networks that should be ready for deployment next year.

“Reaching the gigabit per second threshold in this technological test makes the potential of our state-of-the-art network that much more palpable,” said Manon Brouillette, Videotron’s president and CEO, in a statement. “In light of the pilot project’s results, we plan to go ahead with commercial roll-out of the new service. Details will be announced at a later date.”

Videotron serves about 1.77 million cable TV subs, and 1.54 million high-speed Internet customers. Its primary competitor is Bell Canada. 

We already knew that Comcast was going to be a champion of DOCSIS 3.1, the industry’s new multi-gigabit platform for HFC.

Thursday’s second quarter earnings call amplified that point, when Comcast Cable president and CEO Neil Smit mentioned that the operator would roll with a market trial of DOCSIS 3.1 sometime in the fourth quarter…but didn’t say where (for what it’s worth, the Twin Cities was the site of Comcast’s initial DOCSIS 3.1 deployment, though Boston was  the launch point for X1 and will be the kick-off market for the new “Stream” service). So feel free to place your bets.

And time will tell how Comcast will use DOCSIS 3.1, though it will likely tap into it to offer advertised speeds of at least 1-Gig. While DOCSIS 3.1 has been designed to support capacities of up to 10 Gbps down and at least 1 Gbps upstream, the initial wave of D3.1 modems won’t be capable of supporting anything near that, never mind the fact that  cable’s plant won’t be ready to support the full capabilities and potential of D3.1 for quite some time. 

But the first modems will represent a step in the 10-Gig direction, as they’ll be hybrids that support DOCSIS 3.0 traffic and the new DOCSIS 3.1-based spectrum. The D3.0 end will handle  at least 24 bonded downstream channels and eight upstream single-carrier QAM channels (the latest D3.0 modems can do 32x8), while the D3.1 end calls for a minimum configuration of two 192-MHzwide OFDM blocks in the downstream, and two 96 MHz-wide OFDM blocks in the upstream.

In terms of raw capacity, those first-gen 3.1 modems, when fully-loaded, could support about 5 Gbps down by 1 Gbps.

But it’s also highly unlikely that Comcast or anyone else will load the modems to the gills early on. However, should position operators to deploy DOCSIS-powered services that outpace the current crop of top-end D3.0-based tiers.

Positioning itself for gigabit speeds, Midcontinent Communications is deploying the cBR-8, a new Converged Cable Access Platform (CCAP) from Cisco Systems that’s being made to support DOCSIS 3.1.

DOCSIS 3.1, a platform specified by CableLabs, is designed to support multi-gigabit speeds – up to 10 Gbps downstream and at least 1 Gbps in the upstream.

Cisco introduced the cBR-8 (pictured) in May at the INTX show in Chicago. As a multi-service CCAP, it will house the functions of the cable modem termination system and the edge QAM. Altice Group, which is acquiring Suddenlink Communications, has been testing the cBR-8, which had carried the “Battlestar” code-name.

Midcontinent has more than 300,000 customers and serves parts of Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin. Last June, it doubled speeds for customers, and launched a new 200 Mbps (downstream) tier. The operator has set a goal to make gigabit speeds available to about 600,000 homes and 55,000 businesses by the end of 2017.

Midcontinent will use the CBR-8 for DOCSIS 3.0 initially, but is expected to use it for D3.1-based services as well. The initial wave of D3.1 modems will be hybrids that can utilize both DOCSIS  3.0 and 3.1-based spectrum.

“Cisco’s cBR-8 aligns with our strategy and vision to deliver Gigabit-speed Internet experiences that will change the quality of life and spur business innovation in the communities we serve,” Midcontinent VP of technology Jon Pederson said, in a statement. “With our customers’ bandwidth consumption doubling every 15 months, we need the right technology in place to support our network demands now and in the future. The unique DOCSIS and Remote PHY capabilities of the cBR-8 will help us meet our commitments for the Midcontinent Gigabit Initiative.”

“Advancing its cable access architecture with cBR-8’s advanced multi-Gigabit DOCSIS 3.0 and 3.1 technologies and converged video capabilities is a key step in their well-planned network evolution strategy,” added Brett Wingo, VP and GM of Cisco’s Service Provider Infrastructure Group. 

ZCorum, a supplier of managed diagnostics tools and software for broadband providers, said its return path analysis tool now supports Arris’s DOCSIS 3.0-based Arris C4 cable modem termination system (CMTS).

ZCorum said the extended support for Upstream Analyzer follows an initial release that was optimized for Cisco Systems CMTSs.

“Providers with an Arris C4 and our Upstream Analyzer software can now clearly see ingress in the return-path spectrum without special equipment, and without the need to be at the headend,” Scott Helms, ZCorum’s VP of technology, said in a statement. “This makes it easier and faster for technicians in the field who are tasked with tracking down noise in the plant.”

ZCorum said its Upstream Analyzer uses technology from Nimble This and CableLabs to collect and display upstream spectrum data directly from the CMTS, as opposed to requiring cable operators to use proprietary equipment to take those measurements.

"Using the CMTS as a return-path spectrum analyzer has several advantages,” added Brady Volpe, president and founder of Nimble This, a developer of DOCSIS Proactive Network Maintenance (PNM) tools. "There's no additional equipment or cabling needed, so it's simple to deploy, it’s cost effective, and the data is 100% accurate.  Also, because the CMTS knows when cable modems are transmitting, you can easily isolate any noise that's under the DOCSIS carrier."

ZCorum said it’s showcasing Upstream Analyzer and other DOCSIS network management tools at The Independent Show, which kicked off Sunday in Boston. 

Moving forward with its previously announced Operation GigaSpeed initiative, Suddenlink Communications said Thursday that it has lit up a 1 Gbps (downstream) residential broadband service in an initial batch of markets – Bryan-College Station, Texas; Nixa, Mo.; and Greenville and Rocky Mount, N.C.

Tied in, residential high-speed Internet customers in those markets who are on two other speed tiers will get a free speed boost – those on the 75 Mbps (downstream) service will now get 100 Mbps, and subs who take the 100-Meg tier will be upped to 200 Mbps. The MSOs standard residential downstream speeds in this initial batch of markets will be up to 50 Mbps, 100 Mbps, 200 Mbps and the new 1-Gig offering.

Suddenlink did not announce pricing on the new 1-Gig service, but an official noted that it would be “competitively priced.” With discounts available through new customer promotional offers service bundles, residential Internet services from Suddenlink now range from $35 to around $100 per month.

According to pricing data for Suddenlink’s system in Bryan, Texas, obtained by Multichannel News, the standalone 1-Gig service, which is paired with an upstream that maxes out at 50 Mbps, sells for about $109 per month (customers can rent a WiFi-enabled modem for $10 per month or a stand-alone modem for $5 per month). A source familiar with the service indicated that 1-Gig would sell for a lower monthly price when bundled with other Suddenlink services.

Like other Suddenlink residential broadband services, the new 1-Gig tier will have a monthly data plan whereby customers can purchase buckets of additional data if they exceed their monthly allotment. Information about it is posted here, noting that the MSO’s  “monthly data plans have proven to be more than sufficient for substantially all customers.” 

Suddenlink confirmed that it is currently using DOCSIS 3.0 technology to deliver the new offering. “With equipment upgrades and channel bonding, we are able to deliver more than 1 Gig to the modem,” a Suddenlink official said via email.

State-of-the-art DOCSIS 3.0 modem chips from suppliers such as Intel and Broadcom can bond up to 32 downstream channels – enough to support downstream bursts of 1.2 Gbps in North American systems that use 6MHz-wide channels, and up to 1.6 Gbps on EuroDOCSIS systems that utilize 8MHz-wide channels. DOCSIS 3.1, an emerging platform specified by CableLabs, is gunning for multi-gigabit speeds. Some cable operators are expected to start some small, initial DOCSIS 3.1 deployments by late this year.

Suddenlink’s technical approach will enable it to offer 1-Gig service on a broad basis.

“In contrast to companies like Google and AT&T, which are generally offering a Gigabit service only to a few neighborhoods in primarily urban markets, Suddenlink is making its service available to all households passed by the Suddenlink network in the listed communities and will do the same in other markets where the company plans to launch the service,” the MSO said.

Suddenlink unveiled Operation GigaSpeed in August 2014, announcing that it intended to raise its top downstream high-speed Internet speed to 1 Gbps in 90% of its footprint by 2017. The initiative encompasses network upgrades, including all-digital migrations that free up valuable bandwidth for things like DOCSIS channel bonding, and the replacing of remaining deployed DOCSIS 2.0 modems with D3.0 CPE.

Cox Communications is rolling out a speed upgrade in Arizona that will double the max downstream speed of its “Ultimate” Internet tier from 150 Mbps to 300 Mbps, while also raising the paired upstream from 20 Mbps to 30 Mbps.

The free upgrade (Ultimate costs $99.99 per month) will be implemented in September, and will be introduced in other Cox markets later this year. Cox is delivering it on its DOCSIS 3.0 network.

Cox has also been busy rolling out G1GABLAST, its 1 Gbps residential service that is initially being offered via FTTP, but will eventually be offered on the MSO’s HFC network via DOCSIS 3.1, an emerging platform that will support multi-gigabit speeds.

Cox first rolled out G1GABLAST first in Phoenix in 2014, and has since introduced it in Orange County, Calif.; Omaha, Neb.; Las Vegas; Hampton Roads, Va.; and New Orleans, Baton Rouge and Lafayette, La. Cox is also in the network-deployment phase for it in parts of Arkansas, Rhode Island and Oklahoma, with service to launch in those areas by the end of this year.  Cox has plans underway to offer 1-Gig in all its markets by the end of 2016.

Cox is also rolling out a WiFi network that includes 1,200 hotspots in metro Phoenix and Tucson. Cox is part of a Cable WiFi roaming group (Comcast, Cablevision Systems, Time Warner Cable and Bright House Network are the other current members; Charter Communications will be joining them) that has deployed more than 400,000 hotspots that are accessible to their respective cable modem subs.

Suddenlink Communications has begun to roll out the E6000, Arris’s flagship, high-density converged cable access platform (CCAP) that supports DOCSIS 3.0 today, and will be  upgradable to DOCSIS 3.1, cable’s emerging multi-gigabit IP platform.

With the E6000 (pictured), Suddenlink can provide customers with high-speed data services of 1Gbps and beyond, Arris noted.

Suddenlink’s deployment of the E6000 comes about nine months after the cable operator  announced “Operation Gigaspeed,” an initiative that will position Suddenlink to deliver 1-Gig speeds. At the time, Suddenlink said it will raise its top high-speed Internet speeds to 1 Gbps in 90% of its footprint by 2017.

"We're committed to providing consumers with the connected experiences they want, and as a result, our customer base is growing rapidly," Ivan Lamoureux, Suddenlink’s vice president of network engineering, said in a statement. "The E6000 CER is a key part of this commitment and our technology infrastructure."

The E6000’s “density saves valuable space and power while delivering remarkable downstream and upstream capacity,” Bruce McClelland, president of network and cloud and global services at Arris, added. “Most importantly, it protects customer investments, offering a clear path to the future transition to DOCSIS 3.1 and the ability to support data services of 1Gbps and beyond.”

MaxLinear said it has completed its acquisition of Entropic Communications, a company that specializes in set-top chipsets and Multimedia over Coax Alliance (MoCA) silicon.

The deal, whose original implied value was $287 million when it was announced in February, has existing holders of MaxLinear capital stock with approximately 65% and former Entropic stockholders will hold approximately 35% of MaxLinear's outstanding capital stock.

In addition to broadening MaxLinear's presence in its existing markets, MaxLinear said the acquisition will also add scale and deepen customer relationships in areas such as the satellite pay TV market.

"We are very excited about the opportunity to bring together two talented and largely complementary teams, as we increase our capabilities to solve the most difficult analog and mixed-signal RF challenges in Broadband markets," said Dr. Kishore Seendripu, CEO of MaxLinear, in a statement.

MaxLinear also announced first quarter results Thursday, posting revenues of $35.4 million, up 9% year-over-year, citing demand across its cable and satellite platform solutions, more than offsetting expected seasonal softness in its terrestrial set-top box business. That was paired with a net loss of $4.7 million (12 cents per share), a number that included $2.5 million in fees and expenses tied to the Entropic acquisition, and $600,000 in severance costs related to eliminating engineering ops in Shanghai.

“We are particularly encouraged that the demand for our DOCSIS 3.0 data modem and gateway front end solutions, one of our primary cable growth drivers, experienced a strong shift towards higher-channel-count DOCSIS 3.0 modems and gateways,” the company noted. 

Comcast said it will roll out Gigabit Pro, its new residential, fiber-based 2 Gbps service, in California in June, and also introduced a new DOCSIS 3.0-based tier, called Extreme 250, that will pump out downstream speeds of up to 250 Mbps and be delivered via the HFC network.

Also in California, Comcast said it is raising the downstream speeds of the following tiers at no additional cost:

-Performance: From 50 Mbps to 75 Mbps

-Blast: From 105 Mbps to 150 Mbps

Those speed bumps will go into effect starting in May and continue throughout the year, the MSO said.

California is the second area identified by Comcast for Gigabit Pro. The operator will launch that symmetrical 2-Gig service in Atlanta sometime next month.

Gigabit Pro, which Comcast expects to make available to 18 million homes this year, will be deployed on a targeted basis using fiber-to-the-premises technology (fiber and the other requisite premises-facing gear will only be deployed to homes that decide to subscribe to the service). On that note, Comcast has said it will make the symmetrical 2 Gbps service available to residential customers who are within “close proximity” (about one-third of a mile) of Comcast’s fiber network.

In California, Comcast will offer Gigabit Pro in Chico, Fresno, Marysville/Yuba City, Merced, Modesto, Monterey, Sacramento, Salinas, San Francisco Bay Area, Santa Barbara County, Stockton and Visalia metro areas. Comcast has been offering up to 10-Gig fiber-based Ethernet service to businesses in the state since 2011.

Comcast, which is in the process of acquiring Time Warner Cable, also intends to offer residential gigabit speeds on its more widely deployed HFC network using DOCSIS 3.1.

Comcast has not announced pricing on Gigabit Pro. It was not immediately known how the new 250 Mbps D3 service will be priced.

“This is Comcast’s 15th speed increase in 13 years. We are proud to boost our existing speeds and most importantly introduce new Internet tiers like the Extreme 250 and Gigabit Pro that will allow our California customers to do more online, across multiple devices,” said Hank Fore, regional SVP of Comcast Cable’s California Region, in a statement. “We will continue to look for opportunities to increase speeds to not only stay ahead of customer demands, but also to provide a wide range of options that meet customer needs.”

The MSO noted that the new speeds announced today for California won’t launch in the following areas: Arbuckle, Coalinga, Cool, Gustine, Huron, Isleton, Le Grand, Lodi, Maxwell, Planada, Rio Vista, Santa Cruz, Santa Nella, Scotts Valley and Williams.

NBN Co, a government-owned entity tasked with bringing next-gen broadband to millions of homes and businesses in Australia, announced Thursday that it will deliver gigabit speeds using DOCSIS 3.1, an emerging HFC platform that will support capacities of up to 10 Gbps down and at least 1 Gbps in the upstream, starting in 2017.

NBN Co announced the commitment at the Cable Congress event in Brussels, joining Comcast and Liberty Global among the early champions of DOCSIS 3.1. Cox Communications is also expected to lean on D3.1 as part of an ambitious project that will start market-wide deployment of gigabit speeds by the end of 2016.

The hybrid fiber/coax (HFC) portion of NBN Co’s plan will span about 3.4 million homes and businesses in Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth, Adelaide, Sydney and the Gold Coast. NBN Co’s plan is to create an open access network for “retail service partners” that will deliver services over the upgraded HFC plant following a proposal struck late last year under which NBN Co would take ownership of those cables from Optus and Telstra and incorporate them into NBN Co's National Broadband Network.

Last month, NBN Co selected Arris to play a primary role with the HFC portion of the network upgrades, which will rely on the supplier’s E6000 Converged Edge Router and CORWave transmitters and OM4100 optical receivers. At the time, they said the roadmap included a “possible migration to DOCSIS 3.1.”

Dennis Steiger, NBN Co’s chief technology officer, confirmed in an interview that the cable modems will be supplied by the retail service providers that use the HFC network. 

He is hopeful that an initial wave of DOCSIS 3.1 modems will start to appear in 2015. Those devices will be hybrids in that they can support DOCSIS 3.0 traffic as well as more efficient DOCSIS 3.1-based traffic, which will rely on blocks of Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) subcarriers. That technical mix will help operators with the migration, enabling them to seed the market with 3.0/3.1 hybrid devices as they continue to operate DOCSIS 3.0-based services and start to light up OFDM spectrum for DOCSIS 3.1.

Steiger said timing is critical for NBN Co, as the desire is to launch in mid-to-early 2016, so it will have to decide later if it will allow 3.0-only modems on the network. He said interoperability tests at CableLabs involving 3.1-based CMTS equipment and cable modems “are looking quite promising.”

“NBN will utilise a network that is already deployed across millions of homes and businesses in Australia,” Steiger said, in a statement. “By re-architecting the ratio of homes to a node and the use of the latest technology underpinning DOCSIS 3.1, Australia’s HFC network will become one of the most state-of-the-art technologies used to deploy broadband services.”

According to NBN, its strategic goals include connecting 8 million premises to “fast broadband” and achieve annual revenues of $4 billion by 2020, and to use less than the capped $29.5 billion government equity funding to achieve them.

Under NBN Co’s multi-technology approach, 28% of all premises will be over HFC, compared to fiber-to-the-premises (24%), fiber-to-the-node/basement (42%), and satellite and fixed wireless (6%). The design of that mix aims to provide download speeds of at least 25 Mbps to all premises, and at least 50 Mbps to 90% of fixed-line premises as soon as possible. 

While there’s been some controversy surrounding what’s the right strategy for NBN Co due to a bit of an historical bias toward FTTP, hybrid fiber/coax (HFC) will be a “cornerstone” technology as Australia’s government-sponsored agency for next-gen broadband pushes ahead, Bruce McClelland, president of Network & Cloud and Global Services, said the day after vendor announced its chief role in the project.

Fiber-to-the-premises, DSL, satellite and fixed wireless will also play a part in NBN Co’s plan, which will ultimately create an open access network for  a number of “retail service providers” that will ultimately ride on top of that common mixed-technology network. It’s expected that the upgraded HFC network will cover about 3.4 million premises, nearly half of the 8 million envisioned by the NBN project.

While Telstra’s HFC networks are in decent shape, Optus’s was relatively under-invested, McClelland said, noting that the broadband technology underpinning those networks spans everything from DOCSIS 1.0 to DOCSIS 3.0.

While the plan is to move to a Converged Cable Access Platform, the HFC-facing tech roadmap also includes a possible future migration to DOCSIS 3.1.

As for timing, McClelland said NBN would like to reach commercial trials with the new technology platform toward the end of 2015, with widescale commercial deployments underway by the first part of 2016.

Arris’s deal with NBN doesn’t include modems and other consumer premises equipment, as NBN will specify the minimum requirements but leave distribution of that equipment to its retail service partners. Arris, though, is “highly motivated to participate in that piece of the solution as well,” McClelland said.

Arris and NBN didn’t reveal financial terms, though one report placed the value at about $400 million. In a research note issued Monday (February 23), Simon Leopold, analyst with Raymond James, hesitated to put precise value on the deal, but said it could be “worth double digit millions.”

Although Arris sees international markets as a growth driver, “recent dollar strength might present a headwind for this opportunity,” Leopold added.