DOCSIS

Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification is an international telecommunications standard that permits the addition of high-bandwidth data transfer to an existing cable television system. It is used by many cable television operators to provide cable Internet access over their existing hybrid fiber-coaxial infrastructure.
DOCSIS was originally developed by CableLabs and contributing companies, including Broadcom, Comcast, Cox, General Instrument, Motorola, Terayon, and Time Warner Cable.

Versions

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Comparison

Several DOCSIS versions can co exist by using frequency division multiplexing and separating new DOCSIS versions from old ones according to their operation frequencies.

DOCSIS version	Production date	Maximum downstream capacity	Maximum upstream capacity	Features
1.0	1997	40 Mbit/s	10 Mbit/s	Initial release
1.1	2001	40 Mbit/s	10 Mbit/s	Added VOIP capabilities and QoS mechanisms
2.0	2002	40 Mbit/s	30 Mbit/s	Enhanced upstream data rates
3.0	2006	1 Gbit/s	200 Mbit/s	Significantly increased downstream and upstream data rates, introduced support for IPv6, introduced channel bonding
3.1	2013	10 Gbit/s	1–2 Gbit/s	Significantly increased downstream and upstream data rates, restructured channel specifications
4.0	2017	10 Gbit/s	6 Gbit/s	Significantly increased upstream rates from DOCSIS 3.1

European alternative

As frequency allocation bandwidth plans differ between United States and European CATV systems, DOCSIS standards earlier than 3.1 have been modified for use in Europe. These modifications were published under the name EuroDOCSIS. The differences between the bandwidths exist because European cable TV conforms to PAL/DVB-C standards of 8 MHz RF channel bandwidth and North American cable TV conforms to NTSC/ATSC standards which specify 6 MHz per channel. The wider channel bandwidth in EuroDOCSIS architectures permits more bandwidth to be allocated to the downstream data path. EuroDOCSIS certification testing is executed by Belgian company Excentis, while DOCSIS certification testing is executed by CableLabs. Typically, customer premises equipment receives "certification", while CMTS equipment receives "qualification".

International standards

The ITU Telecommunication Standardization Sector has approved the various versions of DOCSIS as international standards. DOCSIS 1.0 was ratified as ITU-T Recommendation J.112 Annex B, but it was superseded by DOCSIS 1.1 which was ratified as ITU-T Recommendation Annex B. Subsequently, DOCSIS 2.0 was ratified as ITU-T Recommendation . Most recently, DOCSIS 3.0 was ratified as ITU-T Recommendation J.222.
Note: While ITU-T Recommendation J.112 Annex B corresponds to DOCSIS/EuroDOCSIS 1.1, Annex A describes an earlier European cable modem system based on ATM transmission standards. Annex C describes a variant of DOCSIS 1.1 that is designed to operate in Japanese cable systems. The ITU-T Recommendation J.122 main body corresponds to DOCSIS 2.0, J.122 Annex F corresponds to EuroDOCSIS 2.0, and J.122 Annex J describes the Japanese variant of DOCSIS 2.0.

Features

DOCSIS provides a variety of options available at Open Systems Interconnection layers 1 and 2—the physical and data link layers.

Physical layer

Channel width:
* Downstream: All versions of DOCSIS earlier than 3.1 use either 6 MHz channels or 8 MHz channels. DOCSIS 3.1 uses channel bandwidths of up to 192 MHz in the downstream.
* Upstream: DOCSIS 1.0/1.1 specifies channel widths between 200 kHz and 3.2 MHz. DOCSIS 2.0 & 3.0 specify 6.4 MHz, but can use the earlier, narrower channel widths for backward compatibility. DOCSIS 3.1 uses channel bandwidths of up to 96 MHz in the upstream.
Modulation:
* Downstream: All versions of DOCSIS prior to 3.1 specify that 64-level or 256-level QAM be used for modulation of downstream data, using the ITU-T J.83-Annex B standard for 6 MHz channel operation, and the DVB-C modulation standard for 8 MHz operation. DOCSIS 3.1 adds 16-QAM, 128-QAM, 512-QAM, 1024-QAM, 2048-QAM and 4096-QAM, with optional support of 8192-QAM/16384-QAM.
* Upstream: Upstream data uses Phase-shift keying#Quadrature [phase-shift keying (QPSK)|QPSK] or 16-level QAM for DOCSIS 1.x, while QPSK, 8-QAM, 16-QAM, 32-QAM, and 64-QAM are used for DOCSIS 2.0 and 3.0. DOCSIS 2.0 and 3.0 also support 128-QAM with trellis coded modulation in S-CDMA mode. DOCSIS 3.1 supports data modulations from QPSK up to 1024-QAM, with optional support for 2048-QAM and 4096-QAM.
Data link layer
DOCSIS employs a mixture of deterministic access methods for upstream transmissions, specifically time-division multiple access for DOCSIS 1.0/1.1 and both TDMA and S-CDMA for DOCSIS 2.0 and 3.0, with a limited use of contention for bandwidth reservation requests. In TDMA, a cable modem requests a time to transmit and the CMTS grants it an available time slot.
For DOCSIS 1.1 and above, the data layer also includes extensive quality-of-service features that help to efficiently support applications that have specific traffic requirements such as low latency, e.g. voice over IP.
DOCSIS 3.0 features channel bonding, which enables multiple downstream and upstream channels to be used together at the same time by a single subscriber.
Throughput

Bandwidth is shared among users of an HFC, within service groups which are groups of customers that share RF channels.
The first three versions of the DOCSIS standard support a downstream throughput with 256-QAM of up to 42.88 Mbit/s per 6 MHz channel, or 55.62 Mbit/s per 8 MHz channel for EuroDOCSIS. The upstream throughput possible is 30.72 Mbit/s per 6.4 MHz channel, or 10.24 Mbit/s per 3.2 MHz channel.
DOCSIS 3.1 supports a downstream throughput with 4096-QAM and 25 kHz subcarrier spacing of up to 1.89 Gbit/s per 192 MHz OFDM channel. The upstream throughput possible is 0.94 Gbit/s per 96 MHz OFDMA channel.

Network layer

DOCSIS modems are managed via an Internet Protocol address.
The 'DOCSIS 2.0 + IPv6' specification allowed support for IPv6 on DOCSIS 2.0 modems via a firmware upgrade.
DOCSIS 3.0 added management over IPv6.
Throughput

Tables assume 256-QAM modulation for downstream and 64-QAM for upstream on DOCSIS 3.0, and 4096-QAM modulation for OFDM/OFDMA on DOCSIS 3.1, although real-world data rates may be lower due to variable modulation depending on SNR. Higher data rates are possible but require higher order QAM schemes which require higher downstream modulation error ratio. DOCSIS 3.1 was designed to support up to 8192-QAM/16,384-QAM, but only support of up through 4096-QAM is mandatory to meet the minimum DOCSIS 3.1 standards.
For DOCSIS 3.0, the theoretical maximum throughput for the number of bonded channels are listed in the table below.
Note that the number of channels a cable system can support is dependent on how the cable system is set up. For example, the amount of available bandwidth in each direction, the width of the channels selected in the upstream direction, and hardware constraints limit the maximum amount of channels in each direction.
Note that the maximum downstream bandwidth on all versions of DOCSIS depends on the version of DOCSIS used and the number of upstream channels used if DOCSIS 3.0 is used, but the upstream channel widths are independent of whether DOCSIS or EuroDOCSIS is used.

Upstream

Traditional DOCSIS upstream in North America uses the 5–42 MHz frequency range. The 5–65 MHz range is used by EuroDOCSIS. This is known as a "low-split" or "sub-split" design, capable of a total shared capacity of ~108 Mbit/s upstream for the service group.
Since DOCSIS 3.0, cable operators have begun to increase the amount of bandwidth dedicated to the upstream. The two most popular options for this include a "mid-split" or "high-split".
A mid-split increases the upstream frequency range to 5–85 MHz, supporting a total shared upstream capacity of ~450 Mbit/s for the service group.
A high-split increases the upstream frequency range to 5–204 MHz, supporting a total shared upstream capacity of ~1.5 Gbit/s for the service group.
DOCSIS 4.0 in both full-duplex and extended spectrum DOCSIS configurations will support upstream speeds surpassing 5 Gbit/s.

Equipment

A DOCSIS architecture includes two primary components: a cable modem located at the customer premises, and a cable modem termination system located at the CATV headend.
The customer PC and associated peripherals are termed customer-premises equipment. The CPE are connected to the cable modem, which is in turn connected through the HFC network to the CMTS. The CMTS then routes traffic between the HFC and the Internet. Using provisioning systems and through the CMTS, the cable operator exercises control over the cable modem's configuration.
DOCSIS 2.0 was also used over microwave frequencies in Ireland by Digiweb, using dedicated wireless links rather than HFC network. At each subscriber premises the ordinary CM is connected to an antenna box which converts to/from microwave frequencies and transmits/receives on 10 GHz. Each customer has a dedicated link but the transmitter mast must be in line of sight.

Security

DOCSIS includes media access control layer security services in its Baseline Privacy Interface specifications. DOCSIS 1.0 used the initial Baseline Privacy Interface specification. BPI was later improved with the release of the Baseline Privacy Interface Plus specification used by DOCSIS 1.1 and 2.0. Most recently, a number of enhancements to the Baseline Privacy Interface were added as part of DOCSIS 3.0, and the specification was renamed "Security".
The intent of the BPI/SEC specifications is to describe MAC layer security services for DOCSIS CMTS to cable modem communications. BPI/SEC security goals are twofold:

Provide cable modem users with data privacy across the cable network
Provide cable service operators with service protection

BPI/SEC is intended to prevent cable users from listening to each other. It does this by encrypting data flows between the CMTS and the cable modem. BPI and BPI+ use 56-bit Data Encryption Standard encryption, while SEC adds support for 128-bit Advanced Encryption Standard. The AES key, however, is protected only by a 1024-bit RSA key.
BPI/SEC is intended to allow cable service operators to refuse service to uncertified cable modems and unauthorized users. BPI+ strengthened service protection by adding digital certificate based authentication to its key exchange protocol, using a public key infrastructure, based on digital certificate authorities of the certification testers, currently Excentis for EuroDOCSIS and CableLabs for DOCSIS. Typically, the cable service operator manually adds the cable modem's MAC address to a customer's account with the cable service operator; and the network allows access only to a cable modem that can attest to that MAC address using a valid certificate issued via the PKI. The earlier BPI specification had limited service protection because the underlying key management protocol did not authenticate the user's cable modem.

Specifications

Category:Cable television technology
Category:Digital cable
Category:ITU-T recommendations
Category:Link protocols
Category:Telecommunications-related introductions in 1997