What are the bonding limitations of used DOCSIS 3.0 CMTS systems?
For example, on a Cisco 10K, can you do 24x8 or 32x8 groups? What about on a UBR 10K? Or a UBR7246VXR or UBR7225VXR?
I am looking for something that can do more than a 16x4 1U CMTS that I can buy new for around $4000 from someone like Pico Digital.
I know there are lots of used CMTS on ebay and similar places, but I am not sure which models and cards can do more than a 16x4 configuration.
In the used cisco market there is nothing in that price range that can do that density.....
First you have the IOS limitation
* 16 x DS bonding requires IOS 12.2(33)SCH1 or later
* 24 x DS bonding requires IOS 12.2(33)SCH2 or later
IOS 12.2(33)SCH1
has the following hardware sup and line card requirements:
Cable Interface Line Cards Supported
Table 1-2 provides information about the supported cable interface line cards and processor engines in Cisco IOS Release 12.2(33)SCH.
Table 1-2 Supported Cable Interface Line Cards and Processor Engines
Supported Line Card
Supported Processor Engine
Cisco UBR-MC20X20—maximum 8
PRE4, PRE5
Cisco uBR-MC3GX60V—maximum 8
PRE4, PRE5
found here
Now a 20x20 blade can't do 24 or 32 downstreams, so your left with PRE4 or PRE5 and MC360V card, plus this is M-CMTS (Modular cmts) and so it requires a DTI server, there aren't many on the used market but they can be found but they are $5k ish all by themselves.
so a setup that can do 24 ds bonding group would require
a ubr10k chassis,
1-2 PRE4 or PRE5 cards
1 MC360v card with at least 24 licenses
1 DTI server
2 DTCC cards
1-2 Power supplies
1 Fan tray
all told the CMTS thus configured will cost you about $8-10k
the DTI server will cost $2.5-5k
the external edge qam will cost $2.5k-4k as well
don't buy it on Ebay, go through the resellers themselves, either Rincon or shoot can't remember the other one. They are usually the ones selling on Ebay anyway, and if you buy it directly from Rincon at least they will warrantee it for you.
a used Ubr10k setup will cost $10k-15k and require 3/4 of a rack and some hefty power requirements.
If your looking for a cheaper and easier solution, try a ubr 10k with multiple 20x20 cards (no dti or external edge qam required) and segment your rf network to have multiple 16 ds bonding groups serving different areas.
There is also in the near future a CMTS as a service offering from one of the major CMTS vendors so keep an eye out for that. There is a trial currently underway. No word on pricing but it would be a monthly per subscriber price using the latest gen CMTS with a Remote Phy node on premises. No licensing or hardware costs.
Also, do not use the Pico unit if you have more than 50 or so modems trying to do 16x4 or D3 in general. THe CPU usage will kill the box. If you are doing voice at all, do not use. We had 10 of these deployed and ripped them out, went back to D2.0 on Cisco in some areas and went to Motorola BSR's in others that we had to have D3.0, until we can afford to get Cisco. There is just one guy supporting these at Pico, and he sends any issues out to the OEM in China.
kwesibrunee,
That you for the great info. The UBR sounds like a bulky and expensive solution just to get 24 channel bonding. Does this same configuration you mentioned also do 32 channel bonding? Or is 32 channel bonding simply not an option with that you have mentioned?
I understand what you are saying about segmenting the plant and going with 16 channel bonding groups, but if I were to do that I would think it would be easier just to use multiple of the Mini CMTS platforms that support 16x4 for $4000 each new?
Is this the Ricon reseller you are talking about? Did you remember who the other reseller was? Is it AMT?
Which vendor is trialing the CMTS as a service offering?
Rincon is actually Rincontechnology.com talk to Ms. Dobbins, jdobbins@rincontechnology.com she is great to work with, tell her Jason formerly of CableAmerica sent you.
The other reseller is worldwide supply, worldwidesupply.com, my old rep was Mr. Pavia, though I am not sure he still works there.
Given the choice between, multiple pico cmtses and 1 larger cmts, I would choose the larger one every time, the main reason is complexity, managing multiple cmtses is much more difficult than one. Secondly, unless you have an abundance of ip space, your going to have a hurdle getting and keeping enough ips on each box.
I am not sure if the 10k platform is capable of 32 chan bonding, I imagine it could, but would be cost prohibitive. probably would bump up the price $10k or more, plus $3k per service group for edge qams. Pretty much all of the big providers, are using new CCAP CMTSes for anything over 16 DS, so there is not many still adding on to the ubr10k platform, they are ripping the ubr 10ks out to put in Cisco CBR8, Arris E6k and Casa C100G chassises. Though the reason they are upgrading has more to do with number of subs per chassis, rather than the 10k not being able to do more than 16 ds. Big providers usually have 20-35k subs on one cmts.
I can't say which vendor, because it has not been launched yet, but they are planning to launch early next year.
Arris C4's are EOL and fairly cheep on the 2nd hand market and will do 32x4, though the port density is not so good. We've used Rincon to source these in the past.
mttbb,
Thanks for the advice on the Pico Digital - miniCMTS200a. I have read on other forms that people are having much success with this product, so I am suprised to hear you had so many issues. Do you know who the OEM manafacture is for this product? Its sad to hear they only have one employee supporting this product.
Did you look at the other 16x4 Mini CMTS from other vendors? I know of these:
BT-CMTS-3000
Vecima Networks Portico DOCSIS mini-CMTS
Harmonic NSG -EXO
Summavision Topvision CC8800C
So far, out of these I am leaning towards the Harmonic NSG -EXO if I want to do 16x4 in a mini-CMTS. A Harmonic engineer on this forum said "Harmonic makes a 1RU DOCSIS 3.0 16x4 CMTS. While it uses the Broadcom 3218 and 3219 chipsets, Harmonic designed this product which includes an FPGA and many features that support a number of use cases including Hospitality Wi-Fi, Packet Cable 1.0 voice (or DQoS-Lite), and IP Multicast for IPTV set tops."
I think all these products have this same Broadcom chipset, so it comes down to support, features, and price. I think Harmonic being in the USA might have the best support. I am also hoping their OS is the same OS that is on their bigger platforms, meaning it probably has a better feature set and code than these other mini cmts platforms where its the vendors only CMTS product.
Sumavision is interesting.
do you have any interested in jinghong CMTS ? 16x4 1U CMTS
JH-HE3416B is a 19 inches, 1U rack- mount CMTS of D3-B family. It is designed for Headend access network, dedicated for indoor deployment. JH-HE3416B is a perfect CMTS for small to medium access network, providing the right solution for ISPs who have a lower number of clients. Benefitting from the new features of D3-B family such as high throughput, better QoS, JH-HE3416B can not only provide high bandwidth internet service, but also prefer solution for bandwidth and latency sensitive video services like IPTV and VOD.
JH-HE3416B is a highly cost effective, compact, easy to install and configure CMTS.
About D3 - B Series
D3-B family is the upgrade version of D3 family, running DOCSIS 3.0 and C-DOCSIS protocol. The D3-B family includes the following forms of CMTS: compact rack-mount type (1U), high-density type(3U), outdoor type and D-node type.
The benefits of D3-B family over D3 family are listed as follows:
◆ Upgrade from Dual core to Quad core processor for data forwarding;
◆ Upgrade from DDR2 to DDR3 RAM;
◆ Improved power management;
◆ Migrate to Linux operating system;
With these changes, the D3-B family provides faster forwarding capabilities and larger throughput for IP packet (especially smaller size packet or fragment packet are optimized).
All D3-B family products implement CMTS channel bonding technology, providing up to 16 QAM channels with total 1Gbps for DS (downstream), and up to 4 QPSK/QAM channels with total 160 Mbps for US (upstream). The DS can be easily configured to run as either data channel or IPQAM channel. It provides both electrical (RJ45) and optical (SFP, 1.25Gbps) connection for data forwarding. D3-B family also implements layer 3 routing function, QoS, DHCP/TFTP servers, and DHCP relay.
Users have 2 management methods, including CLI withTelnet and Web interface.
◆ Users can use CLI by login with Telnet (direct connection to the CMTS).
◆ Users can remote login to the CMTS embedded web interface through internet.
D3-B family is capable to run with DOCSIS 3.0/2.0 cable modems, set-top boxes (built-in with modems) and eMTA.
NECECISO UNA PERSONA EXPERTA EN CMTS 3.0