Kitz Forum

Announcements => News Articles => Topic started by: niemand on February 22, 2018, 11:53:00 PM

Title: Liberty Global holds back on DOCSIS 3.1
Post by: niemand on February 22, 2018, 11:53:00 PM
http://www.broadbandworldnews.com/author.asp?section_id=472&doc_id=740713

Quote
While Liberty Global continues to prep its HFC networks for DOCSIS 3.1 rollouts, it's not moving ahead with actual D3.1 deployments as quickly as it once planned.

Speaking on the company's fourth-quarter 2017 earnings call last week, Liberty Global Inc. (Nasdaq: LBTY) executives said they’re continuing to bring their pan-European plant up to speed for the latest version of the industry’s DOCSIS spec. More than 90% of their networks should be ready for DOCSIS 3.1 deployments this year, up from about 75% to 80% last year, said CEO Mike Fries, on the call.

"We are darn near all the way there in terms of having our entire footprint gigabit ready with 3.1," Fries said.

Only when analysts later questioned Fries did the CEO really address the subject. Emphasizing that Liberty Global already has absorbed most of the capital cost of introducing the new, multi-gig-enabling technology, he basically said the MSO will launch DOCSIS 3.1 when it sees the need and demand from consumers who will pay for higher bandwidth.

"The only cost we'll really incur down the road is for new 3.1 modems," Fries said. "Of course, we'll do that when we're ready and we'll do that in the most economic way possible... We won't just roll out 3.1 indiscriminately; we'll roll it out to customers that pay us more for the higher speeds and the better services."


So an implication it'll go where more people are paying for 300/350. At least, I think that's what that means.

It makes perfect sense for right now. Why release a gigabit service when the competition is going to be mostly crap. 500Mb over DOCSIS 3.0, coming once G.fast is more widespread, takes care of that and all the FTTP services I can find for sale from Openreach CPs

The big bit of the CapEx was the new chassis and line cards, and now getting rid of old STBs to allow a move to MP4, freeing up space.

A 96MHz block would do nicely. Extend to 192 on the 860 plant as required, continue rebuilding crappier areas stuck at 750MHz or lower with 1.2GHz kit and they should be able to handle a 96 block.
Title: Re: Liberty Global holds back on DOCSIS 3.1
Post by: kitz on February 23, 2018, 12:22:37 AM
Quote
So an implication it'll go where more people are paying for 300/350. At least, I think that's what that means.

That's how I interpret it.   They will only roll it out where they have sufficient demand of people willing to pay for the higher bandwidth product.
Title: Re: Liberty Global holds back on DOCSIS 3.1
Post by: Bowdon on February 23, 2018, 10:56:36 AM
I have one question, and not particularly aimed at VM.

How do ISP's gauge demand for higher priced products without actually putting them on sale?

I never see any leaflets advertising higher speeds, and 'would you pay more?'. It seems to be a bit of chicken and egg situation.

I will be surprised if G.fast is a general success. So if hardly anyone buys G.fast will this be taken as "oh people don't want fast speeds then"?

Hmm, ok, its two questions lol
Title: Re: Liberty Global holds back on DOCSIS 3.1
Post by: niemand on February 23, 2018, 12:20:14 PM
When people ask for them.

I'm surprised it's come to this to be honest. I would've thought with Ofcom's stunning incentives and pragmatic forward-thinking with regards to FTTP deployment Liberty Global would be forced to do as US cable companies have and get 3.1 out ASAP to compete with all the gigabit FTTP.
Title: Re: Liberty Global holds back on DOCSIS 3.1
Post by: Ronski on February 23, 2018, 03:45:22 PM
If take up of the higher speed packages is low, then its unlikely there would be much demand for even faster speeds.
Title: Re: Liberty Global holds back on DOCSIS 3.1
Post by: Bowdon on February 24, 2018, 06:58:10 PM
@Ignitionnet

I was reading the other article on this: https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2018/02/update-virgin-medias-uk-ipv6-docsis-3-1-plans.html (https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2018/02/update-virgin-medias-uk-ipv6-docsis-3-1-plans.html)

It talks here about DS-Lite;

Quote
Firstly, we’ll talk about IPv6. Last year ISPreview.co.uk revealed news of a secret IPv6 staff trial and we’ve previously been told that the full rollout could begin during H1 2018, although history tells us to remain sceptical. Nevertheless Liberty Global announced yesterday that they’d purchased Benu Networks’ IPv6 Dual-Stack (DS-Lite) solution in order to “provide a seamless migration to IPv6 in the UK.”

The aim of this is to “transition to IPv6 without impacting existing subscribers’ use of IPv4 Internet or applications” and in keeping with that the two companies have also partnered with ARRIS International plc. for “strategic architectural design expertise, integration, and deployment of the Benu Networks’ DS-Lite solution by the ARRIS Global Services team.” ARRIS supply the Hub 3.0 (TG2492S/CE) router that Virgin Media use.

I was doing some researching for another thread and noticed a lot of people in Germany were Liberty Global owned Unitymedia are using this DS-Lite and it caused a lot of big problems. It was even causing games services, playstation and xbox in particular were mentioned in my searches, to not connect and it cause all kinds of problems.

I found a sony employee had wrote that either demanding an ipv4 ip address or for the isp to use dual-stack (ds) and not dual-stack lite (ds-lite) to solve the problems.

I'm abit concerned that VM customers will run in to the same issues that were in Germany. The videos/writings I saw are at least a year old. So I'm wondering was the ds-lite problem solved since then?

(I'm assuming you might know more about VM than me as you always seem to have some good knowledge about them :) )
Title: Re: Liberty Global holds back on DOCSIS 3.1
Post by: niemand on February 24, 2018, 08:57:55 PM
This doesn't seem to be a question about VM but about the shortcomings of DS-Lite. With that in mind I've nothing interesting to contribute beyond that CGNAT is unwelcome and this strikes me as a way to shovel money unnecessarily to Benu Networks, a company Liberty Global have invested in.

Run full dual stack you don't need any of this stuff, the existing routers will do the job and the Arris CPE should manage it else they aren't DOCSIS 3.0 compliant.