Comcast says the company should begin deploying symmetrical (equal upstream, downstream throughput) broadband speeds in the next year or two. One of the key disadvantages of cable has long been its top-heavy nature, or the fact users' upstream speeds are notably slower than their downstream speeds. Initially offering 5 Gbps down and 1 Gbps up, and with plans to nudge that to 10 Gbps down, 1 Gbps up -- the DOCSIS 3.1 standard goes a long way in pushing cable broadband into fiber to the home territory.
After that though, CableLabs will be pushing operators toward "full duplex" technology that should upgrade the existing DOCSIS 3.1 standard to support symmetrical speeds.
Speaking at the Deutsche Bank 2017 Media & Telecom Conference this week, Comcast Cable boss Neil Smit reiterated that the focus right now is delivering gigabit-capable cable broadband connections using the DOCSIS 3.1 upgrade. Comcast currently is offering gigabit speeds using this technology in Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit, Nashville. After that, Smit said DOCSIS duplex will be the company's primary focus.
"We’ll get gigabit speed out of DOCSIS 3.1 rollout and then over the next 24 months, we’re going to do DOCSIS symmetrical -- DOCSIS duplex," Smit said. "(Customers) will get symmetrical speeds, multi gigabit speeds out into the network, leveraging our core network or HFC plant and we continue to roll fiber deeper into the network both with business services as well as with resi and so we feel very confident that our network is extendable and flexible and we can continue to deliver higher speed."
It's obviously too early to determine what consumers will have to pay for the honor of symmetrical bandwidth -- or whether this will necessitate Comcast making changes to its steadily expanding broadband usage caps.
Cable’s upstream has long been relegated to a limited slice of bandwidth (5 MHz to 42 MHz) referred to as a "low split." To dramatically increase upstream cable speeds, cable operators have been exploring a "mid-split" that would bump the ceiling to 85 MHz, or a "high-split" that would push it to 200 MHz. Full duplex technology would eliminate the need for these splits entirely.