Comcast has hit another milestone on the road to 10G, after the telecommunications company successfully transmitted 4 gigabits-per-second upload and download speeds simultaneously in a live lab test conducted right here in downtown Denver.
The technological achievement, reached during a trial in April 2021, marks the first successful test of the Full Duplex DOCSIS system-on-chip (SOC) device. Built by Broadcom, the device is expected to become the world’s first production silicon to be developed using the DOCSIS 4.0 Full Duplex standard, which paves the way for Comcast to build the next generation of ultra-fast speeds over its existing hybrid-fiber network.
“The big benefit [of this technology] is that we’re able to increase the speeds and capacity being consumed on the internet,” says Dan Rice, vice president of Access Architecture and Technology at Comcast, who spearheaded the live production in Denver. “It’s important for consumers not only for downloading files or streaming movies or games, but when you’re doing really important things like working from home and schooling. You need a network to be reliable.”
Rice says the key advantage of DOCSIS 4.0 Full Duplex is that it could allow cable operators to deliver multigigabit speeds over existing networks to connections already in millions of homes and businesses. That removes the costs of rebuilding Comcast’s network or the need for massive construction or digging.
“Soon, we’re going to have a chip that goes into consumers’ homes,” said Rice, adding that the chip would be included in upgraded WiFi equipment.
In 2019, Comcast joined other major cable operators in a global industry initiative to deliver 10 gigabit networks, better known as 10G — to accelerate development from the 1 gigabit offerings available today to reach speeds of 10 gigabits per second and beyond. The collaborative, including the NCTA - The Internet & Television Association, Cablelabs, and Cable Europe, announced their plans to create the 10G platform at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) earlier that year.
At Comcast, the vision and preparations for R&D around 10G actually began four years prior, Rice said.
“We sat down and did a lot of computer modeling and did a lot of testing on the Comcast network to characterize the network and see how it performs,” explains Rice. “We entered the stage to design the silicon chips that go into modems … and that was the first DOCSIS.”
In 2015, Comcast became the first internet service provider to deliver gigabit-class service using DOCSIS 3.1, and later became the nation’s largest provider of gigabit speeds using that technology.
Of course, all of that took place before the pandemic. State lockdowns accelerated the nation’s digital transformation and consumers’ demand for super speeds and connectivity became much more than leisurely convenience — it fueled an entire digital economy.
Prior to COVID-19, the foundation for 10G was already being set in motion. According to the NCTA, cable networks offering 1 gigabit service were available across 80 percent of the U.S., up from just five percent in 2016.
“If you look at the past 25 years and you track the growth of demand for data, it has been consistently growing at 40 percent per year,” said Rice, adding that Comcast engineers work to stay roughly five years ahead of demand. “We don’t always know what people are going to do with that (data), whether it’s VR/AR, cloud gaming, or working from home. We could have never predicted COVID, or that every household in America would be streaming, but we know something is coming to drive traffic to our network.”
By doubling its network capacity every 2.5 years and delivering broadband innovations to provide greater speeds and reliability, Comcast not only survived the demand surge — but thrived, Rice says. The company remains the nation’s largest WiFi network, reaching nearly 60 million homes and businesses, including more than 2.2 million in Colorado.
But with families now working and learning from home, Comcast shifted its R&D into high gear. Following a successful trial that demonstrated 1.25 gigabit-per-second upload and download speeds in October 2020, made possible by an advanced architecture that included digital fiber optics, “remote PHY” digital nodes, and a cloud-based, virtualized cable modem termination system platform (vCMTS), the Denver technology team sought to test the technology over its existing network.
By spring, the team had received its first fabrications of the silicon chip to integrate into its test infrastructure.
“It was the first time we’ve had the system in place in Denver,” Rice said. “We went out to build a network that looks like what’s connected to your house,” including hundreds of cables, modems, and computers to simulate the network environment. “It was really exciting.”
Even more exciting was the results the Denver engineers achieved in the test: upstream and downstream throughputs of greater than 4G.
For Rice, there’s no question that 10G technology is on the horizon.
“We’ve developed a lot of the technology ourselves and as an engineer, I love to do that,” he said of his role at Comcast. “We continue to develop the technology for the problems of today and make lives better for a lot of people. The latest innovation is happening on the internet.”
