:: Uncapping

Many cable modem service providers impose a bandwidth cap. Uncapping is the concept of removing this imposition.

Uncapping will eventually improve the speed of the cable modem. Cable ISP’s cap or limit speed of their cable modems. This is because, it is easier for cable modem ISPs to distribute bandwidth among users with lower speed, it discourages users to run big servers, packet loss is lower and also so that the system can handle worse signal quality. Capping is also done to make the system more robust. Since capping is done by the ISP’s, you as a user cannot do uncapping; though tweaking is permitted. Uncapping can be done only by the ISP at the head computer.

Nevertheless the various techniques for uncapping of DOCSIS 1.0 Cable Modems are widely known. Before we start with various options of uncapping, let us first see DOCSIS standards for cable modems.

DOCSIS standard specifies how Cable Modems are supposed to work in each and every detail. The DOCSIS config file contains Cable Modem setting for most parameters. The config file is a binary file in a well-specified format that can be edited using a special config file editor. This software is not generally for public.

The different ways to do uncapping are TFTP, shell enabled Cable modems, fake Macs and IP accumulation.