Cox Communications^® has declared that it has commenced the testing of its DOCSIS 3.1 based broadband services as a part of its next phase of gigabit rollout. The Telco has begun the testing among its employees and will soon make available this gigabit networking technology in some of the markets by the end of the year.

Cox^® intends to use its existing HFC networks for introducing the DOCSIS 3.1 based broadband services. With these new developments, the Telco has edged itself as a pioneer in offering advanced connectivity services. Moreover, it has also stepped up the competition of gigabit rollout among the other best internet providers operating in the country.

A newly released statement by Cox^® states, “Our current deployment schedule is ahead of many providers: 40% of the households we serve nationwide will have access to Gigabit speeds by the end of 2017, and we will continue to aggressively expand the availability of our customers going forward.”

Previously, Cox^® had declared its Gigablast platform that offered targeted speeds of one Gbps. The Telco released this as a fiber to the home platform and made this service available in all of the key markets in the country. With its initial launch in Phoenix, Cox^® stated that it will expand this Gigablast platform into 18 states across the country. Gigablast is much faster than an average DSL connection and offers a host of notable features such as fast in-home WiFi, Cox^® Security Plus protection, etc.

After the nationwide rollout of this service, the company announced its next phase of making available gigabit services across the country through DOCSIS 3.1 networking technology. According to the company statement, “Bottom-line, we remain fully committed to gigabit internet, and we’re about to step on the gas hard with the next deployment phase.”

According to their current deployment plans, Cox^® intends to make the gigabit speeds to about 40 percent of the homes by the year-end. As a part of its rollout, Cox^® has approved a set of DOCSIS 3.1 modems currently sold in the retail market such as Motorola MB8600, Arris Surfboard 8200 and Netgear CM1000. Moreover, the Telco is also phasing out its existing older models of the D1.1-based modems.

Cox^® has begun the recall of these modems citing them outdated in the currently developing network infrastructure. Meanwhile, Cox^® has also announced that it will provide replacement modems to customers using DOCSIS 1.1 modems at no extra charges.