Fast Turn-Up, Budget-Friendly, Great as a Secondary Path
Coax Cable Internet (DOCSIS) delivers broadband over hybrid fiber-coax (HFC) plant. It’s excellent for quick deployments and as a cost-effective underlay behind fiber—especially when paired with SD-WAN for resilience.
SolveForce provisions business-grade coax, integrates it with IPsec/SD-WAN, SASE/Zero Trust, and NOC telemetry, and documents everything with audit-grade evidence.
Where this fits in the portfolio:
🌐 Access → Connectivity • 💡 Prefer symmetric SLAs? → Fiber Internet
📡 Wireless options → Fixed Wireless • 📶 Mobile → Mobile Connectivity • 🛰️ Remote → Satellite Internet
🔀 Control → SD-WAN • 🔐 Edge → SASE / ZTNA
🎯 Outcomes (Why Coax with SolveForce)
- Fast time-to-service — ideal for new sites, swing space, and interim connectivity.
- Great secondary underlay — adds physical diversity behind fiber with solid bandwidth.
- Deterministic paths — IPsec/GRE to hub; SD-WAN steers by loss/latency/jitter.
- Evidence-first — turn-up baselines, SLO dashboards, and carrier tickets exported to SIEM/SOAR.
🧭 What You’re Getting (Plain-English)
- DOCSIS access over HFC: provider manages the RF plant; you get an Ethernet handoff.
- Business coax tiers with higher upstream and static IP options (varies by market).
- Best-effort service (not DIA); pair with SD-WAN for application-level SLAs. → SD-WAN
📐 SLO Guardrails (Typical Business Coax Targets)
| Profile (market-dependent) | Down / Up (typical) | One-Way Latency | Jitter Target | Packet Loss (sustained) | Availability* |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mid-tier DOCSIS 3.1 | 100–600 / 10–35 Mb/s | 10–25 ms | ≤ 15% of latency | < 0.3% | 99.0–99.7% |
| High-tier DOCSIS 3.1 | 600–1200+ / 20–50+ Mb/s | 10–20 ms | ≤ 15% | < 0.3% | 99.0–99.7% |
| Sym-leaning (mid/high-split) | 300–1000 / 35–100 Mb/s | 8–20 ms | ≤ 15% | < 0.3% | 99.0–99.7% |
*Availability improves with dual underlays (e.g., fiber + coax) and SD-WAN brownout steering. Actual rates depend on node loading, plant quality, and split architecture.
🧰 Design Patterns (Pick Your Fit)
A) Dual-Path Branch (Fiber + Coax)
- Fiber = primary; coax = diverse secondary.
- SD-WAN steers per-app by loss/latency/jitter; IPsec to hub for predictable routing.
→ SD-WAN • Direct Connect
B) Interim / Quick Turn-Up
- Use coax to bring sites online while fiber is built; later keep coax as a backup underlay.
C) Tertiary Resilience (Fiber + LTE/5G + Coax)
- Triple-path for high availability: fiber primary, LEO/LTE secondary, coax tertiary.
🔒 Security & Zero-Trust (Built-In)
- Tunnels — IPsec/GRE from branch to hub/colo or cloud on-ramps for deterministic paths.
- Per-app access — ZTNA/SASE for users; no flat VPNs.
- Edge policy — deny by default; QoS classes; microsegmentation for OT zones.
- Secrets — pulled from vault; short-lived tokens; never in device configs.
→ ZTNA • SASE • Microsegmentation • Secrets Management
⚙️ Networking Notes (Reality Checklist)
- Static IP vs CGNAT — business coax often offers static public or private static IP; residential-grade plans may be CGNAT only.
- Modem/eMTA — we typically bridge to your firewall/SD-WAN CPE for policy control.
- DOCSIS splits — upstream capacity depends on plant split (mid/high-split markets have better uploads).
- Power — HFC relies on outside plant power; keep CPE on UPS and plan for node power events.
- MTU/MSS — set MSS for tunnels to avoid fragmentation; validate end-to-end path.
📊 Observability & NOC
- Telemetry we track: modem sync, power/SNR, correctable/uncorrectable codewords, retrains, throughput, latency/jitter/loss.
- SLO dashboards & alarms; carrier escalation runbooks; monthly SLA reviews.
→ Circuit Monitoring • NOC Services
💵 Commercials (No Surprises)
- Speed tier (down/up), static IP option, term (12/24/36 mo), and install type (standard vs special).
- Equipment: provider modem/eMTA + your firewall/SD-WAN CPE.
- Coax remains best-effort; for strict SLAs and symmetric bandwidth, see Fiber Internet.
🧪 Turn-Up & Acceptance
1) Pre-qual address and speed tier; confirm static IP need.
2) Install modem; bridge to FW/SD-WAN; bring up IPsec to hub.
3) Baseline throughput/latency/jitter + failover drills; archive RFC 2544/Y.1564-style results.
4) Monitor with NOC; thresholds/alerts; carrier escalation contacts.
Artifacts (photos, configs, tests) export to SIEM for audits. → SIEM / SOAR
✅ Pre-Engagement Checklist
- 📍 Site address, demarc/MPOE access, inside wiring status.
- 🔢 Required down/up and static IP needs; CGNAT acceptability.
- 🔀 SD-WAN/SASE policy; failover thresholds (loss/jitter/latency).
- 🧭 Diversity plan vs fiber/LTE/5G; target availability.
- 📊 SLO dashboards; SIEM export; carrier escalation contacts.
🔄 Where Coax Fits (Recursive View)
1) Grammar — a managed broadband underlay in Connectivity.
2) Syntax — carries Cloud paths with IPsec/SD-WAN.
3) Semantics — Cybersecurity enforces ZTNA/SASE and logging.
4) Pragmatics — SolveForce AI predicts congestion and auto-tunes steering.
5) Foundation — consistent terms via Primacy of Language.
6) Map — indexed in the SolveForce Codex & Knowledge Hub.
📞 Add Coax as Fast Primary or Solid Secondary
Related pages:
Connectivity • Fiber Internet • Fixed Wireless • Mobile Connectivity • Satellite Internet • SD-WAN • SASE • ZTNA • Circuit Monitoring • NOC Services • Cybersecurity • Knowledge Hub