A technology upgrade to make hybrid fibre-coaxial (HFC) services on the National Broadband Network (NBN) capable of gigabit speeds has finally been launched, with DOCSIS 3.1 going live across the network in a staged process.
Almost a year after announcing that it would launch DOCSIS[1] -- Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification -- 3.1 in late 2018, NBN on Wednesday confirmed that the upgrade has gone live as it ramps up its HFC activations following the network cease-sale.
According to NBN, DOCSIS 3.1 increases capacity by allowing the use of higher-range spectrum, rather than needing to increase capacity by adding more nodes to handle more premises.
"Using technology from our HFC technology partner Arris, NBN Co is planning to deploy DOCSIS 3.1 technology across the vast majority of the NBN HFC broadband access network by 2020 in both the downstream and upstream directions," NBN said.
"As DOCSIS 3.1 is brought onto the network on an area-by-area basis, most end users should have immediate access to the technology as their existing NBN Co network termination device (NTD) inside their home is already fitted with DOCSIS 3.1-capable technology."
Connections will also be made more reliable thanks to orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) modulation technology, NBN said.
"Although DOCSIS 3.1 does enable higher speeds on HFC networks, that is not our core focus at this present time," NBN CTO Ray Owen said.
"From an NBN Co point of view, DOCSIS 3.1 will help us increase capacity on the HFC network far more efficiently than conducting new optical node splits which will, in turn, free up construction resources elsewhere to complete the network build by 2020."
The HFC network is being upgraded by Arris --