Hi there

rossies

I hope this becomes a lively forum for all things Spectrum. I'd have restarted the Hi-Split thread from Broadband Reports but I don't have any news to share except we're still waiting in the Tampa area. So I'll let someone else get that going again. ;-)

toolman1990

rossies Hopefully Spectrum gets to the Tampa area soon. I am in Cincinnati Ohio with Spectrum their symmetrical speeds are great for high-resolution videos and photos, so they do not take as long to upload.

terabitz

rossies we're still waiting in the Tampa area

it's coming soon! field tech in the area told someone i know that symmetrical speeds will be here before we know it

Motorola870

toolman1990 I have to wonder what the uptake on the 2gig tier is going to be in Cincinnati considering the competition has rolled out a 2gig/1gig tier as well.

North Texas isn't likely to see 2gig until probably summer as they still haven't even finished my city yet and other areas. They upgraded 2/3rds of the city and pushed back the rest of the city. Apparently something happened as they were using Technetix gear here but switched back to Motorola style (Commscope) equipment mid upgrade and likely will finish the city out using drop in gear instead of Technetix.

Motorola870

Is there going to be a way to create sub threads like DSL Reports had? It would be helpful for continuing the High-Split thread.

The latest I have seen on the bcl.spectrum.com website was Cincinnati and Lexington Kentucky getting 2gig down 1gig up sign ups that where the capacity is added the entire hub at once when they have the first signup instead of a staged rollout over a few week period.

North Texas has not had anymore areas show as available since Burleson and Everman were turned on the middle of last month hopefully we get another wave in the next few weeks.

CBusdude

Yeah, I haven’t really seen or heard anything else here in Columbus, Ohio. Although I’d much rather be part of the 1.8GHz High-split build. I believe we’re supposed to be the phase 2 1.2GHz DAA.

DjKilla

terabitz I had a tech last year say that my neighborhood (Temple Terrace) is completely ready for the switch. For the last couple of years they've been slowly changing outdated equipment in Tampa so all they really need to do is just flip the switch when they're ready. I'm expecting the second half of 2025 is when this will probably happen. Hopefully others will share any tidbits of info they may hear so we know a little more.

cypherstream

Motorola870 It could just be supplier constraints as well. Maybe they had to use another vendor to fill orders and then really didn't like it, so decided to wait for Technetix to get caught up?
There's probably over a million amps and LE's in the United States from the Miami Keys to last few communities in Alaska with wired broadband. Every cable operator is competing for supply at some stage of their plant upgrade process all at the same time.

SPC-Texas

Motorola870 Something odd has happened to me here in Rockwall. I'm at 940 x 40 waiting for symmetrical. Spectrum says upgrades will start at the end of Feb, but they have been doing upgrades for a year now. Now, I still have the legacy OOB @ 75250 kHz. I really thought they killed or relocated that last year, but I was either wrong or they have reinstated the legacy OOB. Temporarily?

Motorola870

DjKilla I don't think they have gotten a large percentage of Tampa upgraded yet. They just started phase 2 equipment swapouts in the second half of 2024.

It may take a year or longer until they turn the speeds on, My portion of my city that has been upgraded took from July 2023 when the swapout occurred until August 2024 to go live. Hopefully they have it streamlined for future phases but phase 1 has had to go back and check things off in the early portions of the upgrades.

Motorola870

Got an email today from Charter saying that if I want faster uploads I would need to switch to a spectrum owned modem and that they are offering 12 months of advanced home wifi for free.

There wasn't any wording stating that it was mandatory to keep service to switch to a spectrum modem I suspect that will be down line when they go to refarm most of the SC QAM upstream channels to make way for a wider OFDMA channel.

nucleartx

Hi Motorola870, I moved on over here too. I found a 4 node split a few miles away. There was not a node here before.

Motorola870

nucleartx That looks to be some sort of setup to test the RPHY software. I have not seen 4 physical nodes in the same location before. Cypherstream posted on DSLR before a setup where they had 2 or 3 nodes in the Hudson Valley area at the same location but that was from before where they could 4x4 virtual splits.

Motorola870

SPC-Texas

The HSC device is likely replicating the OOB signal at 75.25MHz and converting it from a DOCSIS DSG carrier.

They have been doing upgrades in North Texas going on 2 years now. The Rockwall and Waxahachie headends seem to be last with the upgrades. Arlington has one hub that is still in progress as well that is supposedly going to start next month to finish the upgrades as it got pushed back and they started Arlington in 2023.

SPC-Texas

Motorola870 Nope. That's what I thought was happening after April of last year when I needed the HSC to stay in business. However, now I have noticed that I can receive my non-SDV channels without the HSC. I'm wondering if they ran into problems, maybe even with their legacy STB's, and rolled back the schedule a little. The other possibility is that they never killed the OOB in the first place and I was just making an assumption.

terabitz

SPC-Texas Only way to tell for sure is to use a spectrum analyzer (either through a Broadcom modem or an RTL-SDR dongle using spektrum software) to see if the OOB carrier is in fact there on the line.

SPC-Texas

If anyone is confused, we're both Tivo/cablecard users.

SPC-Texas

Sure, and I am not a technician or telecom engineer, but the Tivo absolutely will not receive any channels without OOB on the legacy frequency. If the legacy frequency goes away, the HSC will emulate the OOB to the Tivo from the DSG info. But that is not what's happening to me right now. The clear deduction is that I am receiving the legacy OOB. It may be that I have a misperception about my high split status. (Rockwall, a suburb of DFW) A while back Spectrum said I was pre-high-split. But last year I got the final letter that my cablecard would not work on or after 3/15/2024 unless I got an HSC. I had already had the HSC for some time. Sure enough on 4/8/2024 something dramatic happened. My interpretation at the time was that I had hit the first consequence of high split upgrades - a replacement of my node and/or loss of the legacy OOB. I lost service and it is interesting that it was only restored (instantly) when they changed my cablecard provisioning to a two-way device. Please note my service is fine, I have excellent assymetrical gig service and the Tivo is working well. So it's just curiosity since the conventional knowledge suggests the OOB should have gone away by now.

fmd

SPC-Texas So it's just curiosity since the conventional knowledge suggests the OOB should have gone away by now.

I think the conclusion is that your node is not yet high-split. The industry has talked about various ways to preserve downstream OOB. One way is by a special filter in the node and amplifiers that allows the forward OOB to live inside the return path. Charter has said no to that approach. Their workaround is the high-split converter.

SPC-Texas

Thanks. So updating the node is specifically what would kill the legacy OOB? It doesn't make a lot of sense, but my symptoms almost make me think they changed out the node, but a few months later ran into difficulties and put the old node back. Is there any upgrade they could have done last year, other than the node swap, that would have required me to have the HSC to keep the Tivo in business?

fmd

SPC-Texas Is there any upgrade they could have done last year, other than the node swap, that would have required me to have the HSC to keep the Tivo in business?

I don't think so.

So updating the node is specifically what would kill the legacy OOB? It doesn't make a lot of sense

The node and any amplifier between you and the node. There is a hard split between upstream and downstream (diplex filter in each device), so when upstream is extended to 204 MHz, the downstream OOB can no longer be transmitted, because that part of the spectrum is now upstream.