In the early days of dslreports I would post about back then very hypothetical tech brought to cable. Like 512QAM or 1024QAM, or going to 1, 1.2 GHz or beyond. This was like 2004-2006 ish so way ahead of the time. People like CableTool, gar176er, fiberguy, and a few others were like no that’s impossible. There were doubts we could go much past 1 GHz and even 1 GHz was so bleeding edge new that it was challenging to overcome the loss at high frequencies. It was said Cox tried it and was having a hard time keeping good levels out to 1 GHz.
I even thought what if everything was digital data into a gateway device, then that did the conversion out to the TVs and Ethernet. This was before IPTV so I guess I was thinking more along the lines of a Vecima Q2A or something like used in hospitals and hospitality industries.
Now look how far we’ve come. Not only did we overshoot my 1.2 GHz prediction (to 1.8 GHz and talk of maybe more)… but well beyond my idea of 512 or 1k QAM. Granted I never thought of OFDM back then… I still envisioned a boatload of 6 MHz “channels”… but amazing how far the industry advanced.