HFC & High Split Upgrade Engineering
Turnkey Engineering Solutions provides field engineering, plant mapping, and design documentation for HFC upgrades — including mid split and high split migrations supporting DOCSIS 3.1 and DOCSIS 4.0. We work at program scale for cable operators and the prime contractors executing their upgrade cycles, delivering construction-ready deliverables across the southeastern United States.
What a High Split Upgrade Actually Requires
North American HFC plant has historically run a sub-split architecture: roughly 5-42 MHz upstream, with downstream beginning at 54 MHz. That allocation was built for an era when subscribers consumed far more than they sent.
Upstream demand broke that assumption. Operators have been moving up the band split ladder ever since:
| Split | Upstream | Downstream begins |
|---|---|---|
| Sub-split | 5-42 MHz | 54 MHz |
| Mid split | 5-85 MHz | 108 MHz |
| High split | 5-204 MHz | 258 MHz |
| Ultra-high split | up to 684 MHz | above |
Moving to high split reclaims a substantial block of spectrum for upstream — but it is not a headend-only change. Everything in the path has to support the new split, and everything that doesn't has to be found, documented, and replaced. That is a field engineering problem before it is a construction problem, and it is where upgrade programs slip.
Where TESINC Fits
Upgrade programs fail on documentation, not on theory. Operators frequently discover that as-built records don't match the plant in the ground — and every discrepancy found during construction instead of during design is a truck roll, a change order, and a schedule day lost.
We do the work that prevents that:
- HFC plant mapping and verification — walking the plant and capturing what is actually there, not what the records claim
- High split and mid split upgrade documentation — identifying actives, passives, and plant elements requiring replacement to support the new split
- Node split design support — documentation for segmentation and node-split programs
- Fiber deep and DAA migration support — field data for architecture transitions
- As-built surveys — closing the loop so records match reality when the program ends
- Make ready and pole loading — where upgrades require plant changes in the aerial path
Deliverables come back in Katapult Pro, KMZ, or custom GIS formats, and our CAD team works in AutoCAD and MicroStation.
Program-Scale Capacity
HFC upgrade programs are measured in thousands of plant miles, not route segments. They require a bench that can be stood up quickly, hold a consistent data standard across many crews, and sustain throughput for months.
TESINC is actively engaged in high split mapping in the Southeast. We can staff a defined footprint or carry field engineering and documentation for an entire upgrade program, and we add crews as a program expands rather than becoming the constraint on it.
Why Operators and Primes Work With TESINC
- HFC depth, not just fiber. Most engineering firms market FTTH. We do both, and we work coax plant fluently.
- Field data you can build from. GPS-synced capture in the formats your team already uses.
- Documentation discipline. Consistent standards across crews, so a large multi-crew program reads like one dataset instead of twelve.
- Southeastern footprint. Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas, and Alabama — with DOT permitting expertise in each when upgrades touch right-of-way.
Where an upgrade changes the aerial path, the same field survey feeds our make ready engineering and pole loading analysis work.
Discuss Your Upgrade Program
Tell us your plant miles, split target, and timeline. Our engineering leadership will follow up directly.