Coax max speed

Stickman · 2 Jul 2010 at 14:05

I've been reading up on DOCSIS 3 to learn how cable internet is provided etc, and have a couple of technical questions that someone here might know the answers to...

1) I keep hearing people refer to the "CAB" but I'm not sure what it stands for. For Virgin Media, is that those little green boxes (about 2 foot wide, 2 foot tall, 8 inches deep) at the roadside?

2) Are these boxes the "cabinet" mentioned in FTTC (i.e... is this the end of the fibre network, or does it switch to copper coaxial cables even before there?)

3) Finally, I hear virgin media are thinking of trialling a 400mbps service by channel bonding eight 52mbps eurodocsis 3 channels. Will the last leg of this into the home still be possible over the current single copper coaxial cable that runs from the green box to the home?

Thanks in advance.

tolien · 2 Jul 2010 at 15:49

1. It doesn't stand for anything. It's not an acronym but an abbreviation for cabinet and yes it's the green boxes (the proper name for which are...cabinets).
2. Yes and no. The green boxes are Virgin Media's: BT's FTTC service doesn't use them and VM's network isn't FTTC by any useful definition.
3. Yes.

Stickman · 2 Jul 2010 at 18:59

Thanks tolien. Much appreciated.

dave-lew99 · 2 Jul 2010 at 19:47

Not all green boxes are made equal however!

Loads of people operate streetside cabinets, on my street alone there is a BT copper/voice cab, O2 3G mast cab and VM cabs. They're not all green either, some are black.

So BTs FTTC service will use BT cabs (usually new ones judging on the new installs which have been made for FTTC areas).