By Ayham Al-Banna, David Bowler, and Xinfa Ma, ARRIS Group, Inc.
Achieving the promised DOCSIS 3.1 capacities is a function of the network architecture and its EoL performance. This paper analyzes the network End of Line (EoL) performance theoretically and stochastically based on location-aware real-world plant measurements. Computer simulations and laboratory experiments are also used to support the field measurements in characterizing the performance of different network segments (e.g., source, fiber links, coaxial cascades, and tap/drop/in-home network/modem) with an ultimate goal of identifying the network pieces that can potentially dominate the network EoL performance. The performance metrics of the network segments are then combined to yield an EoL performance range for multiple network architectures (e.g., centralized N+6/ N+3/ N+0 and distributed N+0/ N+3/ N+6 architectures). Finally, DOCSIS 3.1 spectral efficiency analysis is performed for the various network architectures given their EoL performance ranges.