DOCSIS 3.0 to reach 77% of homes by end 2011, NCTA says

Cable MSOs will have deployed DOCSIS 3.0 platforms to 77 percent of U.S. homes by the end of 2011, up from 60 percent in December 2010, the National Cable Telecommunications Association told the FCC this week.

NCTA offered the details about deployments of DOCSIS 3.0, which allows MSOs to offer wideband Internet service tiers of 50 Mbps to more than 100 Mbps, in response to an inquiry from FCC commissioner Robert McDowell. The cable lobbying group noted in the FCC filing that McDowell had asked for more information about DOCSIS 3.0 during a meeting that NCTA and some representatives from member companies that it did not name had with McDowell on Sept. 3.

NCTA gave the FCC detailed information about the levels of DOCSIS deployments from several small cable operators, including BendBroadband and Massillon Cable TV. But it did not break out the DOCSIS 3.0 deployments from public cable MSOs and NCTA members such as Comcast (Nasdaq: CMCSA), Time Warner Cable (NYSE: TWC), Cablevision (NYSE: CVC) and Charter Communications (Nasdaq: CHTR).

"The rollout of DOCSIS 3.0 is often attributed only to the bigger cable operators, so the list of small cable operator 3.0 deployments shows that communities of all sizes, urban and rural, are the beneficiaries of cable's ultra high-speed networks," NCTA spokesman Brian Dietz told FierceCable. "In the context of the [Universal Service Fund] reform proceeding, the examples also demonstrate the cable is already delivering innovative broadband services to rural communities across the U.S. and that limited government subsidies should only be targeted to areas that are truly unserved," he added.

Here are examples of DOCSIS 3.0 deployments from small cable operators that NCTA included in the filing:

• BendBroadband has deployed DOCSIS 3.0 to 100 percent of the homes it passes in Central Oregon.
• Eagle Communications has deployed DOCSIS 3.0 to 99 percent of the homes it passes in Western Kansas.
• Massillon Cable TV has deployed DOCSIS 3.0 to 100 percent of the 67,725 homes it passes in Western Kansas.
• Mediacom Communications Offers DOCSIS 3.0 to 85 percent of the homes it passes in Iowa.

For more:
- See NCTA's FCC filing

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