Conectronica Revista Maganize industrial de electronica

Kabel Deutschland (KD) successfully achieved a download speed of 1,170 Mbit/s (1,17 Gbit/s) with the television cable network as the first cable operator world-wide.

In conjunction with technological leader Cisco, a field trial conducted in Hamburg demonstrated the performance capability and technological advantage of the cable network. Internet access via TV cable is optimally prepared for all future developments in the broadband market, especially with regard to bandwidthintensive internet applications.

Technological advantage of the modern cable network Kabel Deutschland customers can already surf the internet in the Hamburg cable network with up to 100 Mbit/s, while simultaneously being able to receive more than 100 digital and 32 analogue TV channels if desired. The field trial shows that a cable network equipped with 862 MHz is in addition able to transmit internet speeds of up to 1,000 Mbit/s (1Gbit/s) in addition to these services.

"It will take a few more years until internet applications and content exists that actually allow our customers to fully utilise as much as 1 Gbit/s. But if you recall that the average demand for bandwidth of a household in the KD network
has increased by 500 percent1 from 2006 to 2010 alone, then the question is not if, but when this time will come. In any case, the cable network is already prepared today", says Lorenz Glatz, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Kabel Deutschland. "On the one hand, this bandwidth growth is increasingly driven by the continuously rising number of devices with internet connections in customer households. On the other hand the growing number of video offerings in the internet are also a strong factor in demand for quantity as well as in picture quality, such as for high-resolution HD videos", Glatz adds. 

Speed record with technological leader partner Cisco The 1,000-Mbit/s field test is based on the DOCSIS 3.0 standard. In a part of the Hamburg cable network capacity was created. The Kabel Deutschland head-end uses standard commercial CMTS (Cable Modem Termination System, the counterpart of the cable provider to the cable modem in the customer household) from Cisco. The CMTS of technological leader Cisco enables Kabel Deutschland to flexibly respond to new requirements and hence to fully 1 Source: Internal data by Kabel Deutschland on bandwidth   development in KD’s cable network 2 utilise the potential of a modern cable network. Cisco also provided the Euro-
Docsis 3.0 based broadband equipment for the customer premises.

The field test was carried out at in a multi-dwelling unit in the Hamburg cable  network of KD. The bandwidth tests were conducted both on an individual computer as well as in the course of a multi-room solution on several computers,
corresponding more realistically to actual utilisation in a multi-person household. In the test, large files from German university servers and DVDs were downloaded. Interesting test parameters were the maximum speeds achieved, the size of the files, and the duration of the download – once more a demonstration how the cable technology enriches the German broadband internet supply.
Another recently conducted Kabel Deutschland field test documented that the new signal transfer standard DVB-C2 will be able to provide significantly more TV channels and still faster internet in the same spectrum in the future. “The
field trial presented today with the transfer rate of 1 Gbit/s once again underscores the positioning of the cable network as clear bandwidth and technology leader in the German broadband market”, Glatz summarises.