Author Archives: Brady

Advanced Troubleshooting in a DOCSIS 3.0 Plant

January 26, 2012   Brady   2 Comments
DOCSIS 3.0 Advanced Troubleshooting

If you missed the SCTE Cable-Tec 2011, I am making available my presentation and white paper on Advanced Troubleshooting in a DOCSIS 3.0 Plant. Each speaker had only 20 minutes to cover topics that could easily last hours, so the presentations are understandably brief. Below you will find my presentation in “Slideshare” for online viewing as well as a fully downloadable PowerPoint version. The PowerPoint version also has reader notes attached at the bottom of each slide which you may find useful. In addition, the animations work a little better in the downloadable version.

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We are back! SCTE Piedmont Chapter in NC

January 04, 2012   Brady   No comments
DOCSIS 3.0 Speaking Engagements

Don’t Miss out on the Encore Presentation!
Come see John Downey and I in another day-long DOCSIS 3.0 Troubleshooting, Implementation, and Planning presentation. We will be covering a wide variety of DOCSIS 3.0 topics, answering as many questions as you can ask, and providing you with an entertaining presentation – no one calls us boring!

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DOCSIS 3.0 | Impaired Service

December 21, 2011   Brady   2 Comments
DOCSIS 3.0 Impaired Service

“Impaired Service” in which case one or more bonded upstream channels are impacted by upstream RF impairments while other bonded channels are not. Since subscriber data is striped (that is broken into pieces and spread across each upstream channel and then re-assembled by the CMTS), some of the data will be lost or have errors while other data will not. Subscribers will most likely notice an impaired condition as upstream data rates slow down due to TCP/IP transmissions and/or VoIP, gaming, teleconferencing and other real-time applications will be noticeably impacted.

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DOCSIS 3.0 | Partial Service

December 07, 2011   Brady   1 Comment
DOCSIS 3.0 Partial Service

Partial Service is a new term encountered in the DOCSIS 3.0 MULPI specification and realized in field deployments of DOCSIS 3.0 cable modems using upstream bonding. This was a topic that I touched on in this years SCTE Cable-Tec Expo, but will explore in greater detail in this article. Partial service can be considered a feature because the cable modem will stay online even when one or more upstream transmit channels goes offline.

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Fresh Tech | Intraway Secures DOCSIS

November 23, 2011   Brady   No comments
Intraway DOCSIS Security and Fraud Detection

I first heard of Intraway’s products through a LinkedIn request to talk about DOCSIS security from Intraway’s CEO, Leandro Rzezak. This immediately peaked my interest becuase today our DOCSIS networks are inherently insecure and many are unaware of this. What do I mean by insecure? No, not crying and sniffling in a corner. They are open to theft of service, illegal intercept of the data transmitted, illegal wiretapping of phone calls, etc. Even with Baseline Privacy Interface Specification (BPI+) DOCSIS is quite hackable as evidenced on a number of well known hacking sites. The cool factor in the Fraud & Network Usage Control module offered by Intraway is that they have developed effective algorithms which sit on-top of the most used provisioning systems, Cisco’s CNR and Incognito’s BCC.

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Fresh Tech | DOCSIS Protocol Analyzer – Can’t stop a good idea!

November 22, 2011   Brady   No comments
DOCSIS Xpert Protocol Analyzer

When I first heard rumor that a knew company had a DOCSIS protocol analyzer floating around I had to see it! With full disclosure, many of you know that after 10 years in RF and fiber-optic transport equipment, I spent a few years designing, marketing and selling DOCSIS protocol analyzers. More specifically I focused on making them available to cable operators because I knew they could detect really difficult to isolate problems. Averna know owns the technology from my Sigtek days, so it is nice to see a new competitor in the space. What’s more is that its nice to see this competitor at SCTE Cable-Tec Expo who is interested in cable operator’s issues.

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Fresh Tech | Leakage Detection with Brains!

November 22, 2011   Brady   3 Comments
CPAT Flex Ingress Detection solution

I admit that while I help my clients better understand the sources and negative impacts of RF ingress on DOCSIS in a cable plant, I have never found leakage/ingress detection itself particularly high-tech. That was until Daniel Babeux of VGI Solutions gave me a demo of their CPAT Flex Platform. The live demo was straightforward which made it so convincing and intriguing. It consisted of a truck-mount magnetic antenna that connected into a little green box (the brains behind the operation), and a piece of coax cable seemingly chewed upon by a squirrel. The latter connected back into the CATV plant. The awesome part of the demonstration was seeing the location of the antenna appear on Google maps at the Georgia Convention Center in Atlanta, GA. Next when the damaged coax was replaced, the leakage point on the map disappeared along with magnitude of the leakage entering the plant.

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Fresh Tech | Awesome Spectrum Analyzer at a Cool Price!

November 21, 2011   Brady   No comments
Televe's CATV Spectrum Analyzer

What first caught my eye by Televes H45 Spectrum Analyzer was the HDMI port feeding a flatscreen television. How cool is that? I also noticed the small unit was displaying a QAM “haystack” along with its power, MER, BER, and the demodulated picture just beside the measurements. The picture was on a high resolution display, not the low quality displays I’ve seen in the past, so tiling or macro-blocking would be apparent to the user. See the picture below:

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Fresh Tech from Cable-Tec Expo 2011

November 19, 2011   Brady   No comments
Rohde & Schwarz Cable Load Generator

At this year’s Cable-Tec Expo, Rohde & Schwarz (www.rohde-schwarz.com) introduced a 1U Cable Load Generator (CLG) capable of simulating cable TV networks with full channel loading. This baby is not just limited to North America, but can do channel plans for the World over! Here are the highlights:

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Piedmont Chapter DOCSIS 3.0 Training

November 01, 2011   Brady   No comments

John Downey and I will be speaking on November 2, 2011 at the Piedmont SCTE Chapter about DOCSIS 3.0 Troubleshooting, Implementation,  and Planning.  This is the first speaking engagement under my new consulting company The Volpe Firm, Inc., so I am truly vendor neutral and will be to field questions on any topic. More details on the Piedmont Chapter

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