Atlanta -- Chip vendor Libit Signal Processing said it has
made a breakthrough for sending bits in the upstream signal path.
Speaking at a press conference during last week's
National Show here, Libit executives detailed a plan that it touted as an alternative to
Terayon Corp.'s S-CDMA (synchronous code-division multiple access) technique.
Libit's new INCA approach, for increased
capacity/ingress cancellation, lets operators jam 50 percent more users in the upstream
bandwidth, the company said.
Jacob Tanz, an executive with Libit, said that INCA is
"a breakthrough in headend technology" that is standards-based. Specifically,
Tanz said the technique means that operators can run 64-QAM (quadrature amplitude
modulation) signals -- upstream -- in noisy environments, that have signals with a
carrier-to-noise ratio as low as 23 decibels.
Terayon executives said in response yesterday that the new
Libit technique, which was news to them, is a validation of the overall need for advanced
techniques to combat the sometimes murky 5- to 40-megahertz upstream path from homes to
headends.
Several MSO engineers, asked about the new technique, said
they were unaware of the Libit development.
"Sounds too good to be true," said one, who said
he'd need more information before he could intelligently discuss the new technique.
