Wired

All too often, people equate the word “cable” with “coax” (aka coaxial cable), the insulated copper cable that cable companies have historically used to connect devices around the world and deliver information and entertainment. “Cable,” however, isn’t just made of metal but also of glass: fiber-optic cable (aka fiber). The use of fiber in cable […]

In the broadband industry, network operators and vendors are continually working together to advance interoperability and streamline operations — but the puzzle pieces don’t always fall into place easily. Passive optical networks (PONs), for example, face the ongoing challenge of achieving interoperability without stifling innovation. PON standards are intentionally written to be flexible and to […]

In the world of passive optical networks (PON), achieving seamless interoperability has been a long-standing challenge, leaving operators trying to fit square pegs into round holes. This legacy is largely due to the intentional flexibility in PON standards, designed to foster innovation by avoiding overly prescriptive implementations. However, this flexibility often leaves too much room […]

Imagine you’re a network engineer trying to manage the capacity of your DOCSIS networks — and suddenly you’re tasked with learning a whole new set of additional tools, techniques and terminologies to manage a new type of access network: a passive optical network (PON). Now apply that complexity to the entire operations, the many involved […]

Optical communication — transmitting light waves through fiber optic cables — continues to be the foundation for providing high-speed broadband services to consumers. Whether the network solution is 100 percent fiber to the home or fiber is just an overwhelming majority, you’ll find fiber optics at the root of the solution. To acknowledge the foundational […]

Anyone remember the jingle for Jolt® Cola? All the sugar and twice the caffeine! Perhaps the phrase dates me, but I still hear it in my head—although I now have new words to set to it: All the distance and twice the capacity! OK, maybe it doesn’t have quite the same ring to it. But […]

We are pleased to announce today’s issuance of new versions of the Flexible MAC Architecture (FMA) System and MAC Manager Interface (MMI) specifications. This release denotes the completion of phase one for the FMA specifications and opens the doors for beginning FMA interoperability events. Speaking of such events, we are also pleased to inform you […]

This past June, CableLabs publicly released the first issued version of the Coherent Termination Device (CTD) Requirements Specification. The same month, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Standards Association (SA) approved amendment 802.3ct-2021, which defines 100G Ethernet using coherent optics. Combined with previous point-to-point (P2P) coherent optics specifications released by CableLabs, these two […]

The cable industry has been well served by its extensive fiber deployment that took place during the initial hybrid fiber-coax (HFC) buildout. Even though cable operators have answered capacity demand through fiber node-splits in specific high demand scenarios, only recently have operators embarked on deeper-fiber roll-out strategies as part of a comprehensive long-term evolution plan. […]

Cable network reliability has many important dimensions, but operators are all too familiar with the significant cost of maintenance and repair, and some with the advantages of Proactive Network Maintenance (PNM). But not everyone has taken full advantage of PNM. Let’s have a look at some of the reasons for that, and what CableLabs is […]