Vecima Networks Inc. and Charter Communications, Inc., in partnership, announced that they have demonstrated greater than 8.5 Gbps downstream and 6 Gbps upstream on hybrid fiber-coaxial (HFC) cable plant. The demonstration was built using next-generation DOCSIS 4.0 System-on-a-Chip (SoC) for Remote MACPHY Device (RMD) and cable modem solutions, which conforms to CableLabs DOCSIS 4.0 FDD specifications. This lab demonstration of DOCSIS 4.0 frequency division duplexing (FDD) end-to-end performance using just a single reference cable modem shows the massive capacity available through incremental upgrades to existing HFC plant.

The system utilizes the existing FDD mode of operation which has been used for over 20 years of DOCSIS deployment. It delivers a natural and evolutionary network upgrade leveraging existing skillsets. By building on the existing FDD approach and simply extending downstream and upstream to higher frequencies, the capacity of the network can be increased through the existing amplifier cascade.