Does this card offer any benefits if you are not planning on going to Docsis3.0 right now. We are currently using 2x8 cards and are beginning to burn 1 downstream port for 1 node due to bandwidth usage. Could this card assist in giving us more DS ports to feed some of these existing nodes on other cards? If so and we are not going to upgrade to a Docsis 3.0 network at this time does that limit the card to only 8 downstream ports in our situation or would we still be able to use 32?
Most of our 2x8 cards are running 1ds to 4us configuration except on our busiest bandwidth consumption nodes 1ds to 1us.
Thanks,
James
The card can be configured so you can have higher speeds for docsis 2.0 modems, more downstreams per upstreams. one of the top three mso's uses it that way. so the current modems have faster speeds without replacing them. your not going to get 50 or 100 Mbps this way, but the average modem is getting around 25 Mbps or so, depending on the service level.
you could try and load balance the cards you have as another option for what you now have. thinking your 2x8 cards are configured as two 1x4's instead of 2x8, where each modem would see both downstreams and the cmts will load balance between both downstreams
Hope this helps
~Carl
Do you have any documentation on configuring the tx32 to work like you specified and also on the 5.x software? Do you have to provide different forward freq. to do this as well or do you create new mac domains for the modems?
Thanks,
James
you can create node groups and bonding groups that would add the additional downstream to the 2x8 downstream. post your email and I'll send what I can
~Carl
btw, domestic, euro or j-docsis?
Domestic
Thanks for the help
dfsmoker at yahoo dot com
The operators I'm familiar set up either 5x4 single node mac domains or 6x8 double node mac domains.
5x4 = 1 port from a 2x8 combined with a single tx32 port (using 4 QAMs for a total of 5 downstreams, mated with 4 return ports to a single node. (Approx 190 Mbps downstream). Needs two TX32 cards per chassis to bind to all 2x8s.
6x8 = 2 ports from a 2x8 combined with a single tx32 port (using 4 QAMs) for a total 6 downstreams, split between two nodes - 4 returns for node 1, the other 4 for node 2. (Approx 228 Mbps per 2 nodes, or 114 Mbps avg per node). Needs 1 TX32 per chassis to bind with all 2x8s.
DOCSIS 3 is just a bonus when you bond the channels. The main focus has been additional 2.0 capacity.
So how exactly does this process work. Do the modems originally sync up to the downstream on the 2x8 and then load balancing takes care of the rest as far as when to move modems to the other downstreams freq. off of the TX32? If it does work like this, what are some of the typical thresholds used? What would be a good utilization percentage to use before load balancing starts?
Thanks,
James
With multiple downstreams load balancing is typically configured. You can balance modems on count per downstream or by utilization. It's typical to have it balance every 15 minutes when utilization is above a certain percentage (40% or whatever you wish).