DVB-C2 Trials in Germany

13 June 2013

Kabel Deutschland started transmission of the new DVB-C2 standard on cable channel D794 (794 MHz center frequency) at ANGA COM 2013 as part of an extended DVB-C2 field trial in its CATV networks in Berlin Hamburg und Munich. The field trial will migrate into a regular service as soon as relevant availability of DVB-C2 compliant receivers is given for KD cable customers.

„The essential advantages of DVB-C2 are the excellent spectrum efficiency and the flexibility to adapt the parameters to the characteristics to the individual network or application“, says Lorenz Glatz, Chief Technology Officer of Kabel Deutschland. The key building blocks of DVB-C2 are the new OFDM modulation scheme and the powerful LDPC Error protection system, which both will be used in the future DOCSIS 3.1 standard as well. DVB-C2 will allow increasing the maximum downstream capacity in an 862 MHz cable network from today about 5 Gbit/s to up to 8 Gbit/s in future. “The introduction of this new standard will further improve the competitiveness of our already very powerful infrastructure cable and allow extending the service offerings significantly. Cable customers can look forward to a new range of products and services“, Glatz adds.

For the first time the DVB-C2 1024-QAM modulation scheme at 3/4 FEC-rate is deployed in a CATV network, which allows to improve the spectrum efficiency in relation to DVB-C at the same signal level by 46 percent. „We hope that the CE industry will now equip their digital TV receivers with combined DVB-C2/DVB-C frontends, enabling us to extend our DVB-C2 offering and to migrate step by step to DVB-C2. We especially would like to thank our technology partners ARRIS, Astro Strobel Kommunikationssysteme and Sony who provided DVB-C2 compatible devices for the technical implementation of this field trial“, says Frank Hellemink, Vice President Network Engineering at Kabel Deutschland.

Source: KDG