Cable Industry Preps Broadband Answer to Gigabit FTTH

While still a relatively minor competitive threat, the cable industry recognizes the implications of the growing gigabit fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) movement, championed by the likes of Google.

Google’s entrance of gigabit FTTH has nudged service providers like CenturyLink and AT&T to adopt similar plans and a host of smaller providers are embracing the trend of next generation broadband as well. The Cable industry’s answer is DOCSIS 3.1 -- for which CableLabs announced its formal specifications. The new version addresses one of the key challenges of cable modem service -- upstream bandwidth -- by providing 1 Gbps of capacity for upstream use.