US Cable Support > Comcast HSI > DOCSIS question. When the neighborhood kids get home.

DOCSIS question. When the neighborhood kids get home.

Docsis 3 helps keep congestion at a minimum during peak usage hours, when everyone is home in the evenings watching things such as youtube video's, netflix, and etc. Even with D3, congestion can become an issue depending on how many channels are available, and the usage in your area. But at least with D3 it gives the ISP's an option to add more channel's as needed.

reply to Madtown
The technologies such as DOCSIS 3.0, 3G and 4G are designed to reduce congestion during peak hours and to increase the speed of data transmission and to handle multiple connections. However they can reduce congestions only up to a certain point. If you have issues with congestion or speeds slowing down during peak hours, a DOCSIS 3.0 modem can help alleviate that. But you cannot totally avoid congestion as your internet connection is shared by others in your area.

reply to Madtown
The best answer I have for you is that, it depends. Do you already have a congested node? Do your speeds drop in the evening during peak hours already? If so, then your connection is going to suffer, DOCSIS 3.0 modem or not.

As you pointed out though, your speeds are fine for now, so I wouldn't worry about it.
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reply to Madtown

reply to Madtown
Before I switched to Comcast in March, 2011 I had two load balanced 3mbps/384kbps AT&T DSL circuits. During the last year I had that DSL service the downstream speed would typically drop to less than 1mbps (for both circuits combined) starting around ~5PM and lasting until ~1AM. That slowdown was due to a decision by AT&T to move many high usage customers to the same overloaded ATM concentrator (prior to that action, I had no problems with prime time slowdowns on the same DSL circuits).

Several years prior to that I had (pre DOCSIS 3) Comcast 4mbps service and it would also frequently drop down to ~1mbps downstream during the same prime time period.

Now that I am on a Comcast DOCSIS 3 system, I have not noticed any prime time slowdown at all, and the neighborhood kids in my neighborhood are bandwidth hungry university students. OTOH, I only have 12/2mbps service, so I suppose that it is possible that 50/10 or higher speed tier folks might see some impact during prime time in a really busy area where the local infrastructure was not yet in sync with local usage patterns.
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We can never have enough of nature.
We need to witness our own limits transgressed, and some life pasturing freely where we never wander.

reply to Madtown
I have had no slowdowns at any time of day or night to date, but again, that is based on individual location.

Performance tier is not very demanding, and Docsis 3.0 helps but of course is not a guarantee that a given area won't become congested.
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Deeds, not words

The existence of multiple channels within DOCSIS 3.0 is helpful for reducing the likelihood of slowdowns. Over time Comcast has moved towards 4 and now 8 channel bonding in many areas so the users on a node are spread out quite a bit more than in the past. In the past decade, nodes were split to further help the slowdowns. The only times I have had slow internet speed in the past year were due a few routing problems when IPv6 was being rolled out, and during a heatwave where probably some amplifiers or other equipment was having problems. DSL is much more likely to become congested, especially if the central office is fed by T1s rather than fiber.

reply to Madtown
Yes, it still holds true. And it sucks!