Standards for high speed digital communications over cable tv networks

The development of a standard for interactive multimedia services over CATV networks draws interest from both the data communications and the entertainment industries. Current solutions available for data transfer over Hybrid Fibre Coax (HFC) Community Antenna Television (CATV) networks are based on proprietary random access protocols. Consequently they can't be used in an open system and are limited when delivering digital audio and video streams. Few manufacturers have implemented custom technologies that can support Quality Of Service (QOS) which does not allow deployment of multimedia services on a wider scale. A unified standard is required, that will allow the development of interoperable hardware and drive down the cost of implementation. This paper presents the efforts, progress and strategies of the different bodies working on the production of a standard for CATV networks.