Comcast’s 100 Gbps Core Network Supports Business

Major telecom carriers have been in the process of upgrading their core networks from 40 Gbps to 100 Gbps over the last year. Comcast is the latest to make the move, fitting Ciena’s Wave Logic 3 interfaces to their current Ciena 6500 packet optical platforms. Why would a cable company do this and how can it benefit your business?

Comcast is best known as a Cable TV company or MSO (Multi-System Operator). They serve over 20 million residential and commercial customers in 40 states and the District of Columbia with video television, high speed Internet and telephone services. You may already know that Comcast broadband service is highly popular for home, home office and small business use. It comes in on a coaxial cable and is highly affordable. But did you also know that Comcast operates one of the largest fiber optic networks in the United States behind the scenes?

Many people think that cable companies still connect everything from their head-end towers and satellite dishes to locations around town using various size coax. That was true in the early days of analog TV cable systems and master antennas for large apartment buildings. The technology has long since moved on. Now everything is digital and the signals ride fiber optic cables most of the distance to your location. It’s that connection from the curb to your building that is still RG-6 coaxial copper wire.

Why? Because it works just fine and the cost of installation has already been paid. DOCSIS 3.0 modems offer broadband Internet in excess of 100 Mbps. That’s is well within the needs of most users. What’s really important to residential, home office and very small business users is low monthly cost combined with adequate performance. The shared asymmetrical bandwidth (higher download than upload speeds) and “best effort” performance is more than adequate for accessing the Internet and downloading documents, pictures and video.

Where HFC (Hybrid Fiber Cable) services run out of gas is when the need for bandwidth is high, dedicated low latency service is needed, symmetrical upload and download speeds are required, and an SLA (Service Level Agreement) is desired. These characteristics are common for traditional telecom services such as T1, DS3 and SONET fiber and the newer Ethernet services such as FastE at 100 Mbps, GigE at 1000 Mbps and 10 GigE at 10 Gbps.

What isn’t as well known is that Comcast operates an enterprise grade fiber optic core network to interconnect their many offices and provide high bandwidth connectivity to businesses. Would you be surprised to learn that Comcast operates a network that covers 147,000 fiber route miles? How about that business class services are available from 1 Mbps on up to 10 Gbps? Their business class services include dedicated Internet access, point to point Ethernet private lines, Ethernet LAN service to interconnect multiple business locations and converged layer 2 centric VPLS to support voice, video and data.

Comcast, like other major fiber optic carriers, recognizes the increasing demand for higher and higher bandwidth services. What’s driving these speed increases is more use of HD video, big data files and a rapid move to cloud computing services. The cloud, especially, present new challenges for businesses used to having all their processing in-house and connected over the corporate LAN. Cloud service providers offer the opportunity to rapidly scale resources up and down, pay only for what you use during the month, and avoid both capital investments and ongoing maintenance costs. The tradeoff is that you now need much higher and very reliable bandwidth to connect your employees to the cloud.

Comcast’s upgrade to 100 Gbps fiber optic bandwidth meets today’s perhaps tomorrow’s needs for their own use and in support of small, medium and large companies. When even this massive capability fills up, the Ciena system they’ve chosen has an upgrade path to 400 Gbps. It’s likely that we’ll see even higher speeds at 1 Tbps and beyond sooner than anyone expects.

Are you running short on bandwidth and wondering how much you can afford as an upgrade? Get multiple competitive fiber optic service quotes for Comcast Business and other high performance fiber optic carriers now. It’s likely that you can turn up your WAN bandwidth at little or no increase over your current monthly least cost.

Why Get Fiber Services From A Cable Company?

When we consider purchasing new or replacement fiber optic services, the first thing that comes to mind is the telecom companies. That is, the telephone companies and the competitive service providers or CLECs. Most bandwidth providers have their own core network facilities but rent lines from the telcos for last mile connections. This is especially true with SONET services that originated in the telephone industry.

There is a type of fiber optic service provider that doesn’t use telco facilities at all. That is the cable companies or MSOs (Multi System Operators.) The reason is that cable systems were all built from the ground up to serve a specialized market for television signal distribution to homes and businesses. In fact, most cable systems have been built from the ground up twice. The first implementation used large diameter coaxial cable to transport the combined TV signals picked up from over the air and satellite downlinks. The second implementation was an upgrade to use fiber optic cable for signal distribution to the neighborhoods, while keeping small diameter coax for the final connection.

This system is known as HFC or Hybrid Fiber Coax. Nearly everyone recognizes the 75 ohm coax and F type connector used for Cable TV work. What most people aren’t aware of is the extensive fiber optic infrastructure in place behind the scenes. The larger cable systems have thousands of miles of fiber optic cabling, some cables with 100 or more fiber strands. These cables run all over town and often between towns as well. Nationwide cable companies have nationwide fiber optic networks.

Television is the primary content transported by the cable fiber, but there is also a lot of telephone, Internet and point to point data traffic. Ever since television went digital, there is little difference with how you transport video and how you transport other services. It’s all bits and bytes.

The cable companies have recognized this and recently started marketing their capabilities to businesses. The low end services are delivered over broadband coaxial cable. Some of the most popular services are the shared bandwidth Internet access tiers up to 100 Mbps download and 10 Mbps upload. This service is priced about the same as a T1 line but can serve many more employees using the Internet. Cable broadband is often used to feed WiFi hotspots for restaurants, hotels and other retail locations.

Many businesses, especially larger ones, don’t want the variability and lack of guarantees associated with shared bandwidth services, even at bargain prices. They need rock solid symmetrical bandwidth and guaranteed parameters for latency, jitter, bandwidth, packet loss and availability. The other thing they need is higher bandwidth levels for connecting multiple business locations and cloud services.

Many cable companies are eager for this premium level of business. They’re now in a position to provide it with some unique benefits as well. One major benefit is complete diversity from the telecom system for redundancy needed for business continuity. If you want to protect your connectivity from outages, you need a redundant connection. If that connection goes right to the same central office as the main connection, you haven’t added much redundancy. A fire or equipment at the CO can take out both your connections. So can a cable break if both your fiber strands are in the same bundle.

You won’t have that problem if one of your fiber services comes from a telecom company and one from a cable company. They have nothing in common to be a single point of failure. If the whole town gets wiped out, you may still have a problem. But that needs to be addressed with geographical diversity from multiple business locations.

What can cable providers offer in the way of fiber optic services? Typically, you can get 10 Mbps to 10 Gbps Ethernet over Fiber that is MEF (Metro Ethernet Forum) compliant. That includes point to point private lines, dedicated Internet access and MPLS networks that interconnect multiple locations. Those locations can be in the same metro area or they can be scattered around the country. Many cable companies have NNI (Network to Network Interface) agreements with other companies so that traffic can be passed from system to system.

What is the interface to these cable systems? You can often get your choice of a copper or fiber handoff at the demarcation point in your building. One standard arrangement is for the cable company to install a Gigabit Ethernet port regardless of the bandwidth level you are contracting. That way, if you decide you want a higher bandwidth level they can turn in up by simply making a few keystrokes into the system. No hardware changes will be necessary until you want to move up to a 10 GigE port.

Do cable system fiber optic services make sense for your business? You may well benefit from these providers. Find out by getting competitive quotes for fiber optic network services that meet your business needs.



Note: Photo of fiber optic conduit spools courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Disruptive Metro Ethernet over Fiber Pricing Arrives

Ethernet over Fiber (EoF) has been gaining popularity with large organizations as a replacement for more expensive SONET fiber optic services. For smaller and medium size companies, the mere mention of the term “fiber” suggests pricing that is way over budget. Today that’s all changed. The era of affordable fiber optic bandwidth has arrived.

What’s responsible for prices per Mbps or Gbps that can be half of what you’d expect to pay or less? It’s a source you would never expect... Cable TV. Cable? Isn’t that for consumers?

Yes it is. But behind the scenes there’s another Cable network you probably didn’t know even existed. It’s a professional fiber optic core network that’s the equal of any carrier and with a service footprint larger than most.

When we think of Cable TV, we think of the coaxial wire that plugs into a set top box or cable modem. At one time, all cable networks were constructed almost completely of copper coax strung on poles around town and trenched through the back yard. That was the era of Analog Cable. What’s happened over the years is that this network architecture has evolved into a combination of fiber optic and copper called HFC or Hybrid Fiber Coax that supports the newer digital services.

HFC uses fiber optics for the long runs that bring service into a business or residential neighborhood. It also runs between cities for large Cable MSOs (Multi-System Operators) like Comcast. Most of the traffic on that fiber is television video, but there is so much bandwidth available that it also easily transports data from 10 Mbps on up to 10 Gbps.

Comcast has recognized that their nationwide network runs past businesses as well as consumers. Many smaller businesses take advantage of the excellent pricing on Cable broadband brought in on coaxial cable to a cable modem. It’s quite possible to get 50 Mbps or even 100 Mbps asymmetrical shared bandwidth for the same pice as a T1 line.

Asymmetrical means that the download speed is much higher than the upload speed. Typically that’s a 10x bandwidth difference. This is common for Internet access, but different from business telecom services that are generally symmetrical or the same speed for both upload and download.

Comcast’s Ethernet over Fiber bandwidth services are symmetrical and intended for Enterprise applications. There are 4 services you’ll be interested in. They are Ethernet Dedicated Internet (EDI), Ethernet Private Line (EPL), Ethernet Virtual Private Line (EVPL) and Ethernet Data Network / Meshed Network (EDN). All of these services are available in bandwidths from 10 Mbps to 10 Gbps.

Ethernet Dedicated Internet gives you the Internet access you need to support large employee user bases and connectivity with customers worldwide. Dedicated means that the bandwidth you order is always available for your use. That differs from shared bandwidth that is common for consumer services and wireline cable modems.

Ethernet Private Line (EPL) is a point to point connection service. You may be using T1 lines for linking two business locations now and wishing you had more bandwidth. EPL using Ethernet over Fiber can give you the higher bandwidth you need immediately with nearly unlimited growth potential for the future.

Ethernet Virtual Private Line (EVPL) is another Ethernet private line service. It is similar to EPL, but allows multiple Ethernet services on the same physical line and UNI (User Network Interface). These come in on EVCs or Ethernet Virtual Connections. What the virtualization does is let you run Ethernet Private Lines out to each of several business locations without having to pay for multiple fiber or wireline terminations at headquarters.

Ethernet Data Network / Meshed Network (EDN) lets you establish a large Metro or Wide Area Network to interconnect LANs for your branch offices or other business locations. As a meshed network, you have any to any connectivity. This is similar to might set up with a Frame Relay or MPLS network.

Are you ready for fiber optic bandwidths but not fiber optic service prices? Depending on locations, you may be in position to benefit from the enormous cost advantage of HFC based Ethernet over Fiber bandwidth services. Get pricing and availability before you sign up for anything else.

DOCSIS 3.0 Fiberizes Cable Broadband

Cable MSOs (Multiple System Operators) have been left grinding their teeth as Verizon's FiOS fiber to the home service blows away the broadband capabilities of coaxial TV cable. Well, perhaps not for long. A new upgrade to the DOCSIS cable broadband standard enhances digital download speeds right into fiber optic download territory - without the FTTH connection.

DOCSIS is the acronym for Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification, the standard for cable modems. In order for cable broadband to work on a systems designed for analog television signals, DOCSIS uses one or more standard TV channels on the download side. The upload channels have to do something different than normal TV reception requires. They have to send information in the reverse direction, from customer premises modem back to the cable head end. To avoid a collision with all those signals coming down, the upstream connection uses frequencies below the TV band.

Cable systems have been running DOCSIS version 1.0, 1.1 or 2.0. They are all based on using a single 6 MHz standard TV channel to carry about 40 Mbps in the downlink direction. Now, 40 Mbps sounds like pretty decent bandwidth if you could get it. But you can't. That 40 Mbps has to be shared between you and all your neighbors. Up to 1,000 of them all getting the same feed on the same channel. Across town, other users are sharing a different channel.

This level of oversubscription explains why your connection speed varies so much. What you experience at any moment in time depends on how many other users are online and whether they are casually surfing the web or downloading videos.

Network performance can be improved by increasing the number of channels available to serve cable modems and assigning fewer users per channel. But to really goose up the bandwidth, you need wider channels. Wider channels don't play with the TV system, but you can bond channels together to combine their bandwidths. It's philosophically similar to bonding channels to increase bandwidth on T1 business lines. That's what the DOCSIS 3.0 specification does. It provides for bonding up to 10 channels of 40 Mbps each for a total of around 400 Mbps. There is a possibility that this could be expanded to 1 Gbps or more in the future.

So, there's no fiber involved? This is done all over standard coax cable? Actually, there is fiber involved behind the scenes. Most cable systems are designed around a combination of fiber optic cable distribution to neighborhood nodes and then copper coaxial cable the premises. This is a HFC or Hybrid Fiber/Coax system. From the customer's point of view it doesn't matter. the customer connection is a F connector on a RG-6/U cable.

The network performance, however is very fiber-like. If your computer says you're connecting at 40 to 50 Mbps it's hard to tell without looking if there is a fiber optic cable plugged into the back of that modem or not. Some Comcast cable customers may have DOCSIS 3.0 by the end of this year.

There are now three competing systems designed to increase broadband Internet access speeds for residential users. FTTP or Fiber to the Premises is the system chosen by Verizon. It's a pure fiber optic network from central office to the user. AT&T is taking a different approach of FTTC or Fiber to the Curb. From there a high speed DSL connection carries the signal into the premises over telephone line. Cable operators use the HFC or Hybrid Fiber/Coax with fiber to neighborhood nodes and then conventional TV cable into the premises.

It seems logical that all-fiber networks are going to have the highest ultimate bandwidths eventually. But for now, the hybrid networks of fiber & telephone wiring or fiber & coaxial cable are doing a good job keeping up with the steady advance of premium service bandwidth.