NBN Co has revealed plans to launch DOCSIS 3.1 technology across its hybrid fibre-coaxial (HFC) cable network by the end of 2018.
The network will initially serve around three million premises across Australia with 1GBps connections – and hopefully eventually offer them speeds of up to 10GBps in both directions.
The HFC network is being upgraded by Arris, which originally partnered with NBN Co back in 2015. NBN is currently preparing to launch field trials using the DOCSIS 3.1 cable broadband standard.
NBN Co’s corporate media executive manager Tony Brown yesterday told media that field trials of the DOCSIS 3.1 technology will probably be launched in February, with a commercial launch planned by the end of the year.
This is expected to offer speeds of 1Gbps both up and down. But Arris’s president of network, cloud, and services Dan Whalen has said Arris will also be trialling full-duplex DOCSIS, which could eventually enable 10Gbps symmetrical speeds.
