Question about Time Warner Cable and doing my own DOCSIS 2 to 3 upgrade

[Pgoodwin1]

From Wikipedia:

DOCSIS 3.0 features channel bonding, which enables multiple downstream and upstream channels to be used together at the same time by a single subscriber and adds management over IPv6.

Speeds

2.0 38 Mbit/s  downstream     27 Mbit/s. upstream

3.0 m × 38 Mbit/s n × 27 Mbit/s

Where

m and n are # channels, max of 4

It looks to me that the the throughput increase of DOCSIS 3 over 2 is from multiple channel operation. If I put a DOCSIS 3 TIme Warner Cable compatible modem in place of my DOCSIS 2 model they provided me, will I automatically get multi channel operation and a speed increase on their standard service? i.e. does Time Warner have to enable the multi channel operation on their end? Or does the modem respond back to Time Warner that it's multi channel and automatically TxRx in multi channel.  I'm wondering if their high speed service is as simple as a DOCSIS 3 model or do they have to enable the 4 channel operation

[TriRan]

From Wikipedia:

DOCSIS 3.0 features channel bonding, which enables multiple downstream and upstream channels to be used together at the same time by a single subscriber and adds management over IPv6.

Speeds

2.0 38 Mbit/s  downstream     27 Mbit/s. upstream

3.0 m × 38 Mbit/s n × 27 Mbit/s

Where

m and n are # channels, max of 4

It looks to me that the the throughput increase of DOCSIS 3 over 2 is from multiple channel operation. If I put a DOCSIS 3 TIme Warner Cable compatible modem in place of my DOCSIS 2 model they provided me, will I automatically get multi channel operation and a speed increase on their standard service? i.e. does Time Warner have to enable the multi channel operation on their end? Or does the modem respond back to Time Warner that it's multi channel and automatically TxRx in multi channel.  I'm wondering if their high speed service is as simple as a DOCSIS 3 model or do they have to enable the 4 channel operation

Timewarner would have to enable it so in short you won't see a speed increase past your advertised if you just simply buy a modem

[Pgoodwin1]

Thanks TriRan. I had a hunch it wouldn't be that simple

[TriRan]

[quote name='Pgoodwin1' timestamp='1

329685741' post='333804']

Thanks TriRan. I had a hunch it wouldn't be that simple

Yeah lol if it were everyone would be using DOCSIS 3.0 modems haha I have heard reports of people seeing slight speed increases by going to a DOCSIS 3.0 modem while on 2.0 service but I have no experience with that myself

[mudmanc4]

From my understanding , there is a threshold utilized right now where a certain given amount of bandwidth is available per channel / frequency.

Depending on what is allocated to the mac address, depends on how many channels will be used to achieve the bandwidth.

Unless, and in my opinion again , unless you are dealing with 5Mb and lower , you won't see any increase, as there is no need for an extra channel. If you are dealing with 20Mb and up , in my opinion , you may depending on the set allocated bandwidth per channel , see cleaner throughput. There's a lot to be said about overhead.

None the less, dealing with 20 Mb and up , my thoughts are that the connection would benefit from the latest ISP pushed firmware on a DOCSIS 3.0 modem. With the latest modem and firmware , at the very least , if operating properly , you can alleviate the device while trouble shooting.

Doing a quick search , Iv'e found this:

All three versions of the DOCSIS standard support a downstream throughput with 256-QAM of up to 42.88 Mbit/s per 6 MHz channel

Source

This in the end , tells us that theoretically , unless your running above 42 Mb downstream , you won't utilize a DOCSIS 3 modem. Although I have serious doubts there would be no positive influence, not excluding the possible QOS and quota config that might be set at the head end for distributing quality bandwidth. To say the least, as already stated , it gets much more complicated then this.

With what limited knowledge I have about this , I'll still stick to my original thoughts , that the latest hardware / firmware would be beneficial at or around 20 Mb downstream.

[Pgoodwin1]

Thanks guys. Well, according to Time Warner I'm only guaranteed 10 MBps down and 1 MBps up. I consistently get about 9 and 0.9 using TMN - it shows above 20 down on Time Warner's OOKLA derived tool, and 0.9 up. And this is on two different modems (they swapped one out for me lately because my speeds were erratic, but later found it was circuits outside). Based on those upload and download numbers, I doubt if the the modem is the bottleneck. But to be honest, MudMan, I don't really know if bigger RAM buffer sizes and faster processor in a more modern modem still might help some.

And yes the numbers are 42.88 (30). Mbps Where: "Maximum raw throughput including overhead (maximum usable throughput without overhead)"

[mudmanc4]

Well if your showing +/- 1Mb ( 9 ) on a 10 Mb connection , I don't see any issue. Unless of course your having other issues such as intermittent connections and so on.

It's hilarious there showing 20Mb internally when they only have your modem allocated at 10 Mb Perfect example of how in correct that type of testing can be.

[Pgoodwin1]

Yeah their test tool typically shows almost 3x what the TMN tool shows. Theirs shows really good numbers even when the service is herky jerky and intermittent and nowhere near their guaranteed 10 down and 1 up. When I'm having problems with their service, the numbers are more like 4-5 down and 0.2 up tested on TMN, but show green on theirs at about 15 down curiously their tool reads much more accurately measuring upload-reads almost the same as TMN. Our local RoadRunner here in Cincinnati is also quite a bit slower than the Nat'l typical numbers that you can pull up here on TMN.