Data-over-Cable Service Interface Specification (DOCSIS)

DOCSIS is a powerful software that enables cable operators to bring data to a

subscriber.
DOCSIS® is a registered trademark of CableLabs.  Founded in 1988 by cable
operating companies, Cable Television Laboratories, Inc. (CableLabs®) is a
non-profit research and development consortium that is dedicated to pursuing
new cable telecommunications technologies and to helping its cable operator
members integrate those technical advancements into their business
objectives.
DOCSIS and Cable Modems – How it works: RF Fundamentals
Most of us are quite comfortable with changing the dial on our FM radios. 
Don’t like what’s on Soft 95.1 FM, then change the frequency (Kenneth) to
102.5 FM for some classic rock.  What you have actually done is changed the
RF (radio frequency) tuner in your car stereo from a lower frequency of 95.1
MHz to a higher frequency of 102.5 MHz where there was a different station
playing.  The fact that two different stations were playing at different
frequencies is something call Frequency Division Multiplexing or FDM.
FDM is used in cable TV to deliver many television channels to our homes on
a single piece of RF coaxial cable.  Typically, the range of frequencies that are
delivered to our homes for television signals is 54 MHz to as high as 1000
MHz (though many current systems only support 750 MHz or 860 MHz).
In DOCSIS, a device at the cable operator’s headend call the CMTS or Cable
Modem Termination System, is responsible for managing hundreds or
thousands of cable modems residing in subscriber’s homes (aka you and
me).  The CMTS sends data to the cable modems by transmitting a 6 MHz
wide band of information (1’s and 0’s) in an FDM mode, just like all of the
other television channels that you receive.  Now the 1’s and 0’s are actually
converted to Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM) and RF-upconverted.
So if the CMTS communicates with the cable modems from 54 MHz to 1000
MHz, how to the cable modems send data back to the CMTSs?  We do want
to send Internet data in both directions, right?!  Well this is a pretty cool, yet
seldom known fact about CATV plants; cable plants actually transmit RF
signals in two directions.  See figure 1, below.  The forward (or downstream)
path is from the cable operator’s headend to the subscriber and is generally
from 54 MHz to as high as 1000 MHz.  While the upstream is what is returned
from every house back to the cable operator’s headend.  This frequency
range is typically from 5 MHz to 42 MHz.  Now the cable modems can send
their data back to the CMTS using FDM in the upstream sending 1’s and 0’s
which are also converted to QPSK or QAM and RF-upconverted.

DOCSIS and Cable Modems – How it works: Advanced RF