Service Providers Archive

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Flexible DRM Opens Many Ways To Reach Short, Long-Term Goals

By
Fred
Posted in: Navigation & Convergence, Service Providers
Steve Tranter, vice president for broadband, NDS

Steve Tranter, vice president for broadband, NDS

A highly flexible approach to delivering robust IP content protection for cloud- and media gateway-based multiscreen service solutions is proving to be the key to allowing service providers to give consumers what they want without incurring risks of stranding capital or moving too slowly.

While it’s very difficult to lock in on what has been a moving target when it comes to building a next-gen video service architecture, SPs are finding they can act now to take advantage of what works best in a given situation with the option to shift course over time, as long as they have assurance they can bring the level of content protection required for delivery of premium content to any screen anywhere into whatever architecture emerges. SPs want a “quick win which satisfies the customer base, keeps them happy, gives them extra functionality, while, in parallel, they’re working on a longer-term strategy which has more longevity,” says Steve Tranter, vice president for broadband at NDS.

Cox Communications, for example, is taking this two-track approach by leveraging the new NDS VideoGuard Connect DRM system to secure a new IP streaming service dubbed “TV Connect” to deliver content to IP devices direct from the headend via the internet, while still deciding on a gateway strategy. As previously reported (October, p. 23), VideoGuard Connect applies a variety of advanced capabilities designed to overcome fears of delivering premium content over IP, including means by which DRMs native to specific devices are supported with “moving target” protection, where elements cryptographically bound to the client software create a trusted device environment for persistent variations in security execution from one session to the next.

Cox TV Connect initially is streaming 35 live channels over the Internet to iPads. ”We’re using CDNs to deliver that content to multiple devices,” he explains. “It’s protected all the way through to the iPad, and that DRM client is actually part of the application that you’re viewing the content on. So we’re protecting it right through to the point of consumption, which is obviously important to the content providers to maintain their business rules.”

The security platform can be readily augmented to serve Android and other types of devices and to support progressive downloads that will allow users to take content with them when they leave home. The cloud-based system allows users to switch from live streaming to progressive download with assurance they will be able to pick up viewing on the stored content wherever they left off in the live streaming session, Tranter notes.

Complementing the near-term streaming solution, which operates independent of set-tops, Cox, like many other MSOs, is developing a media gateway strategy that interfaces between the reliable QAM delivery network and a managed IP network to all IP devices in the home. As explained by James Field, director of technology at NDS, the home gateway solutions, such as NDS’s Unified gateway architecture, provide a unified approach to distributing video, data and voice services around the home, utilizing the utilizes the advanced DRM protection in conjunction with transcoding and formatting of content for adaptive rate streaming and downloading to IP-connected devices. It draws on a cloud-hosted universal navigation system that renders the UI via HTML5 to suit the display parameters of each type of device.

“The home gateway terminates content delivered with traditional CA (conditional access) protection and, for IP distribution, applying VideoGuard Connect to secure content beyond the gateway,” Field says. The DRM and AR formatting support distribution to Apple iOS, Microsoft PlayReady and Adobe Flash Access devices, he adds.

While “everyone is looking at the gateway” as a key ingredient to service migration, they’re also intent on finding solutions for immediate service enhancements that will work in the legacy CPE environments, Tranter notes. “Everybody is trying to support iPads, Macs, Android devices and PCs,” he says.

Aiding NDS in fulfilling these requirements is Morega Systems, a five-year-old company that until recently was working under the radar to develop solutions precisely tailored to the requirements of multiscreen service. Last year NDS forged a partnership with Morega, which has led to market wins with DirecTV, BSkyB and other providers.

For example, DirecTV, along with moving to an IP streaming service over broadband using VideoGuard Connect, is offering customers a means of place shifting content stored on any type of DVR to their PCs and iPhones. Dubbed “Nomad” the progressive download solution jointly supplied by NDS and Morega employs an independent device, available at retail for $149, to discover all the household’s DVRs and perform all the conversion processes required for delivering that content securely over the Wi-Fi home network.

“If the customer has several DVRs, we discover them all and present all the content on a unified navigation system,” says Philip Poulidis, president and CEO of Morega Systems. “The system is designed to support streaming as well, but that hasn’t been launched on Nomad as yet.”

Rules such as a 30-day content expiration requirement and a five-unit limitation on household device counts are easily implemented on the system, he adds. Support for Mac, iPad, and Android devices will be coming soon, according to DirecTV’s promotional literature.

As such capabilities open a path to immediate responses to market demand operators also need to be assured their long-term migration paths are heading in the right direction, Tranter notes. “It’s not just about choosing an infrastructure,” he says. “It’s about how the application sits on top of it and the final experience to the viewer. We can show today what that will look like so people will feel more comfortable about making decisions.”

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EchoStar Blends Assets to Serve Multiscreen Needs of All Players

By
Fred
Posted in: Consumer Services, Service Providers

Alistair Chatwin, product manager, EchoStar Technologies

Alistair Chatwin, product manager, EchoStar Technologies

January 25, 2012 – EchoStar Technologies is pulling out all the stops in efforts to leverage its products and infrastructure to open a fast track to multiscreen services for service providers of every description.
 
The core magnet to everything it’s offering, from over-the-top and hosted TV Everywhere support services to home gateways and licensing of its technology on chipsets in other OEMs’ set-tops and gateways, is the fact that sister company Sling Media’s platform is a proven ticket to streaming live premium content to multiple devices in the home and beyond. Some of the implications of what this means were seen with the announcement last summer that Time Warner Cable’s New York operation was offering subscribers who take its $99.99 wideband DOCSIS 3.0 service, operating at 50 mbps downstream and 5 mbps in the return, reimbursement on purchase of a $299.99 Sling Pro HD.

TWC’s New York system already has an iPad streaming service offered at no cost to existing subscribers, which it launched last spring over its broadband Internet channels, resulting in a backlash that forced it to drop channels from Fox, Discovery, Scripps Networks and Viacom. In contrast, subscribers who use the Slingbox can stream whatever they want, insofar as its place-shifting capabilities have been generally accepted as legally on par with the fair use rights associated with time shifting.

Meanwhile, notwithstanding TWC’s hassles, the floodgates have opened for live and on-demand streaming of content to connected devices as cable and other SPs pursue various technical strategies aimed at ensuring they stay relevant to users of unmanaged devices. But the legal issues remain clouded.

Cablevision, for example, is offering a connected-device streaming service encompassing its full channel lineup with the iPad as the first target and other devices to be added later. The MSO claimed that because it was using its own proprietary digital network with the aid of switched digital video (SDV) technology to deliver the dedicated IP streams to users on their iPads, it was acting within its rights under existing contracts.

Viacom and YES, the Yankees and N.J. Nets ports network, have disagreed. Viacom filed and then settled a suit with Cablevision, which continues to stream Viacom content but without the latter acknowledging any change in its legal stance. YES remains opposed, according to recent press reports, but apparently has not taken legal action.

Cox, too, has launched an iPad streaming service involving 35 channels (see p. 12) but with no public pushback from content providers who are in the mix, including Fox, Discovery and Scripps. The service does not carry any Viacom channels.

With SPs hungry for streaming solutions that won’t land them in court, EchoStar Technologies has the advantage of incorporating a solution, namely Sling, into all its service and product offerings that provides SPs assurance they’re protected on the multi-device service side. It’s a strong selling point, says Alistair Chatwin, product manager for EchoStar Technologies.

“Using our industry accepted Sling Media transcoding capability at the set-top box, we’re moving linear content from the QAM-delivered linear to an IP-delivered adaptive rate streaming mode,” Chatwin says. “All the existing linear content from the headend is delivered over the service provider’s network using cable card technology. And then we use two different MPAA-approved DRM technologies for our IP feeds from the set-top.”

Along with marketing this capability to SPs in conjunction with its lineup of set-tops and gateways, EchoStar has cut deals with chip suppliers Broadcom and ViXS enabling them to embed the key library and other functionalities of Sling Media in other OEMs’ set-tops and gateways. “A lot of these gateway devices actually have a transcoder integrated, and so we’re able to provide a library so that any STB manufacturer [using Sling Media-enabled processors] can offer Sling technology to the cable operator,” Chatwin says.

EchoStar Technologies is also using the technology in conjunction with a cloud-based over-the-top wholesale service which it first launched last year to serve the needs of smaller operators. Aria, as the service is called, is targeted to operators with anywhere from a few thousand to a million subscribers to provide them “all the tools and all the technology the larger operators have access to,” Chatwin explains.

Aria leverages EchoStar set-top technology and a massive data center and MPLS (Multiprotocol Label Switching) infrastructure in combination with its content aggregation business to support cloud-based VOD, TV Everywhere and universal navigation across legacy linear, VOD and other OTT content on all devices. The legacy linear streams are integrated at the set-top with the OTT-delivered VOD content to support all these functionalities, including Sling-enabled IP streaming of all content to unmanaged devices.

As big MSOs develop their own cloud strategies in conjunction with multiple approaches to how headend and home devices are configured, smaller operators no longer have the luxury of leveraging products mass produced for the big guys as they’ve always been able to do with succeeding generations of headend gear and set-tops, Chatwin observes. Rather than being left behind, smaller operators can compete against big providers, including DISH, Chatwin says, noting the marketing tagline for Aria is “Your competition is now scared.”

Aria is moving into field trials with at least two unnamed customers. Meanwhile, EchoStar is leveraging the OTT infrastructure to serve a broader potential customer base, including individual content providers, CE manufacturers and big service providers who may have interest in extending premium service capabilities over other providers’ broadband links. One of the key components of the evolving OTT support service will be network DVR, according to EchoStar chief product officer John Paul, who went public with those plans at last year’s TelcoTV conference in New Orleans.

With nearly 200,000 square feet of data center space throughout the U.S. and one of the largest MPLS networks, EchoStar can provide such services much more cost effectively than individual providers might be able to do with construction of their own cloud infrastructures, Chatwin notes. “What it means is we’re able to ingest it once into our network and then provide it out to any number of subscribers,” he says.

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12 Mbps ViaSat Broadband Alters Rural Service Picture

By
Fred
Posted in: Consumer Services, Lead Story, Service Providers

Tom Moore, SVP, ViaSat

Tom Moore, SVP, ViaSat

January 17, 2012 – In what could be the start of a game-changing role for satellite providers, especially in bringing high-speed Internet to rural regions, ViaSat has launched a next-generation broadband service that delivers a user experience, including voice over IP, comparable to multi-megabit landline connections.
 
For now the ViaSat service outstrips anything on offer from satellite, but, soon, EchoStar subsidiary Hughes Network Systems intends to launch its own super Ka-band satellite with broadband capabilities that could be comparable to ViaSat’s. Hughes’ Jupiter satellite, slated for launch in the first half of this year, was built by the same company, SS Loral, that built the new ViaSat 1 Ka-band bird, which was launched in October.

But it remains to be seen whether the advanced technologies employed by EchoStar will match what ViaSat has accomplished with its own proprietary solutions. “We have advanced satellite technology to the point that satellite can now be a better alternative for broadband Internet than DSL and 3G/4G wireless offerings for fixed home use – an enormous leap for satellite broadband technology,” says Mark Dankberg, chairman and CEO of ViaSat.

ViaSat’s new Exede service, introduced in some parts of the country in mid-January, offers dedicated broadband links operating at up to 12 megabits per second in the forward path and up to 3 mbps in the return for $50 per month. By the beginning of March the service will be available across ViaSat 1’s entire footprint, which the company says covers about 70 percent of the U.S., including Alaska and Hawaii.

“This is a completely different economic proposition and quality of service compared to our previous offerings,” says Tom Moore, senior vice president of ViaSat. ViaSat, through WildBlue, a company co-founded by Moore that ViaSat acquired in 2009, provides 1.5 mbps residential broadband service at $80 per month from an earlier generation of Ka-band spot beam satellites.

Moore says ViaSat will add voice service “within the next two quarters,” with pricing still to be determined. The voice service is already operative for demo purposes, as was evident at the recent Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

Both the broadband and voice aspects of the service were on display at CES, confirming the provider’s claims of breakthrough performance capabilities. In a conversation via satellite with Moore, the timing of voice responses was on par with terrestrial cellular service. “When we demonstrated the service to FCC commissioners they had the perception you couldn’t do voice over geosynchronous satellite,” Moore says. “It made quite an impression.”

In the broadband demo at CES Web pages loaded as fast as they do with terrestrial broadband. Videos from randomly selected sites displayed quickly without buffering.

As described by Moore, ViaSat is employing a broad variety of technological innovations to accomplish this level of performance, starting with the satellite itself. With capacity to operate at over 140 gigabits per second, ViaSat 1 delivers more throughput than all the currently launched U.S. Ku- and C-band satellites combined, he says. The satellite’s spot beams serve smaller geographic areas with more capacity per spot than previous generations of Ka-band technology, he notes, adding that interference mitigation is superior as well.

Ka-band communications, by virtue of the high frequency spectrum they work in, are more susceptible to atmospheric interference than lower-frequency Ku- and C-band communications, but, according to Moore, ViaSat has largely neutralized the difference. As a closed-loop system that monitors performance on every link, the ViaSat platform can identify situations where rain or snow may be reducing signal power and adjust the modulation level and data rate to maintain the connection.

“We use multi-level modulation, dynamic encoding and power along with forward error correction to allocate more resources when needed,” Moore says. The upshot is a ViaSat 1 customer’s reception in a snowstorm will still be operating for at least a little while longer when a Ku-band customer’s goes out in the same location, he adds.

Speed of communications is facilitated by ViaSat’s SurfBeam 2 ground-based architecture, which uses an advanced Web acceleration technology that goes beyond caching to provide a fast-responding Internet browsing experience, Moore notes. Acceleration software running on SurfBeam 2 servers positioned in multiple locations links with client software running on user terminals to perform such tricks as breaking up Web page components to deliver the container ahead of other objects on the uplink to the customer and then utilizing any relevant objects that are already there to speed rendering when the user jumps to another page.

Another big factor in performance has to do with the system’s ability to assign classes of service to different data service flows on a system-wide basis so that any given user consumes bandwidth in accord with quality-of-service priorities. This ensures that all high-priority traffic receives the bandwidth it requires while minimizing the impact on lower-priority traffic.

As to how the system appears to defy the laws of physics by delivering fast response in voice communications over the 44,000-mile roundtrip from one user to the other, Moore isn’t saying. Presumably the techniques include highly granular breakup of voice packets to get an initial audio signal to the destination as fast as possible.

The basic Exede service comes with a 7 ½ gigabyte limit on monthly consumption, which Moore says is the median usage level for broadband consumers nationwide. The next tier of service, priced at $80, caps usage at 15 gigabytes, and the top tier, with a cap of 25 gigabytes, is priced at $130.

As for Hughes, the company says it has already begun applying technical enhancements to its existing service, with the mid-level tier operating at about 1.5 mbps with a price tag of $80 per month, as it awaits launch of what it calls the HugesNet Gen4 service from the soon-to-be-launched Jupiter satellite.

“America’s best choice in satellite Internet is about to get even better with the launch of our new high-capacity satellite in the first half of 2012,” asserts Mike Cook, senior vice president of the North American Division at Hughes in a recent press release. “Our Gen4 satellite Internet service will be available mid-year 2012 and will deliver unprecedented speeds, download capacity, and ease-of-use so our customers can enjoy a media-rich world like never before.”

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Cisco Aims to Speed Multiscreen With Set-Top Agnostic Solutions

By
Fred
Posted in: Navigation & Convergence, Service Providers

Ken Morse, CTO, Cisco Systems

Ken Morse, CTO, Cisco Systems

January 12, 2011 – Cisco Systems is leveraging cloud-based IP video technology to extend its Videoscape multiscreen service platform to virtually any legacy set-top environment without requiring operators to purchase the vendor’s latest media gateway.
 
At this point the new Voyager cloud versions of Videoscape are designed to work with Cisco’s 8600 generation set-tops in the case of the hybrid client software/cloud solution known as Voyager Vantage and with older set-tops from a wide range of suppliers, including Motorola, in the case of the all-cloud solution Voyager Virtual. Asked whether Voyager Vantage will work with later generations of set-tops from other suppliers, Ken Morse, CTO of Cisco’s Video Services Group, replies, “Not now. But stay tuned.”

The breakthrough to set-top agnostic reach for a next-generation multiscreen service platform greatly strengthens Cisco’s competitive position, at least for the time being. Once Vantage becomes available to all recent-generation set-tops, assuming it does, any service provider would be able to extend the benefits of Videoscape to all its subscribers without waiting to incrementally upgrade customer premises equipment.

“We can’t do everything with Voyager that we can do with Videoscape on our new 9800 gateway,” Morse says. “But we’re doing better than 70 percent, and that’s what the market requires.”

The Videoscape 9800 Series gateway, now in customer labs with general availability slated for the second half of this year, is a whole-home DVR and multiscreen solution that employs six QAM (quadrature amplitude modulation) tuners to enable consumers to watch and record six video streams at once. The gateway performs transcoding on MPEG-2 live content for delivery of up to two simultaneous streams to IP-connected TVs, tablets, smartphone and other devices, Morse notes. The gateway also has a full spectrum tuner for connected device access to content streamed over DOCSIS 3.0 wideband channels consisting of up to eight bonded 6 MHz channels in the downstream and four in the return, he adds.

The primary distinction between Voyager Vantage and Voyager Virtual is the degree to which the versions rely on the innate processing power of the set-top box, Morse explains. “Voyager Vantage is a software solution that runs on Cisco 8600 and later generations of set-tops,” he says. By connecting set-tops to the Videoscape cloud, the software allows service providers to deploy rich user interfaces, provide extensive video on-demand catalogs and integrate new applications for social media, Internet video and content sharing, he says.

Voyager Virtual, connecting to older digital boxes, regardless of maker, doesn’t rely on set-top processing of Videoscape software. Instead everything is done in the cloud with the result that more bandwidth is consumed for subscribers to be able to use new universal navigation systems and other advanced applications.

In all cases the cloud-based system offers a consistent look-and-feel for live and on-demand content across multiple platforms, including iPads, iPhones and Android as well as PCs and Macs, Morse says. The platform supports functions such as transcoding of both premium content for delivery over IP to connected devices and IP over-the-top content for delivery to MPEG-2 set-tops; activation of the DRM systems appropriate to each type of device, and seamless place shifting with pause and resume of content across all devices. And it allows configuration of companion devices for use as remote controls.

To deliver Videoscape to legacy set-tops Cisco appears to be relying heavily on the cloud-based technology developed by ActiveVideo, which for years has been offering operators a way to bring over-the-top content into the legacy set-top domain along with IP-based apps, advanced advertising and universal navigation capabilities (see, for example, May 2009, p. 18). ActiveVideo’s CloudTV service now reaches over ten million TV screens in households served by Cablevision, Time Warner Cable’s Oceanic system in Hawaii and other unnamed operators here and abroad, the company says.

While Cisco hasn’t acknowledged the ActiveVideo tie-in to Videoscape, confirmation comes in a statement attributed to ActiveVideo president and CEO Jeff Miller. “ActiveVideo’s CloudTV solution cuts through the device chaos created by diverse set-top box models, and helps Videoscape become widely and quickly deployed,” Miller says. “We are delighted to have the world’s largest networking infrastructure provider expanding ActiveVideo’s value proposition globally and helping our customers deliver uniform viewing experience to their subscribers.”

Cisco’s Morse says that as the company rounded out the technical components of Videoscape during 2011, which it first announced at last year’s CES show (January 2011, p. 28), it put ever more focus on helping to accelerate MSOs’ transition to multiscreen services and advanced apps and navigation. “When you look at where we were 12 months ago, we were focused on the end scenario, which is enabling migration to all-IP video services,” he says. “But over the past 12 months we’ve been more focused on the journey our customers need to take to get there.”

Cable operators’ urgency to move forward sooner than later has intensified as unmanaged devices like tablets, smartphones, game consoles and connected TVs have become “disruptors” threatening legacy business models, Morse notes. The Voyager solution, providing a way for operators to engage subscribers using unmanaged devices, has taken shape in the context of an ongoing trial by an unnamed Tier 1 customer that has been using the cloud solution for some time, he adds.

Smaller operators will benefit from Voyager as well, Morse says. Along with marketing Vantage and Virtual directly to such companies, Cisco has teamed with Adara Technologies to leverage the cloud version of Videoscape as part of an initiative aimed at overcoming barriers to expansion at lower tier levels. As previously reported (December, p. 14), Adara is using cloud technology to bring Cisco’s switched digital video platform as well as Videoscape to smaller operators, regardless of what brands of set-tops they are using.

Cisco, like most suppliers of multiscreen service infrastructure, views the companion device as a game changer that has impacted approaches to navigation, personalization, enhanced programming experience, interactivity and advertising. For example, when it comes to providing a template for a universal navigation guide through Videoscape the company has gone to a simplified, no-frills look on the TV set while providing a wide range of graphics and personalization capabilities with renderings of guides on tablets and other devices.

“When it comes to overloading the user interface with gratuitous graphics, out of experience we’ve learned less is more,” Morse says. “We provide user options on a bar that runs across the screen, using graphics as cues and very legible text while not obscuring the picture on the screen.”

At the same time, employing “very comprehensive, rich set of metadata” with content and advanced recommendation and search engines, Videoscape delivers personalized options and access to more content complementing what’s on the big TV screen or another program to the companion device. However, a big challenge the industry faces when it comes to exploiting companion devices for enjoyment of premium programming has to do with the fact that the IP stream is operating completely separate from the MPEG-2 stream to the set-top, making it hard to synchronize the two.

Cisco is working on the problem, Morse notes, pointing to a demo at CES involving use of time stamping technology to prevent lags between the MPEG-2 and IP streams. “This is a vision thing, not a product,” he says. “We’re working with industry partners to drive programming synchronization.”

One approach to synchronization Cisco isn’t pursuing is use of forensic watermarking or finger printing technology support automatic content recognition. ACR isn’t about synching the timing of the streams to the device and the set-top but rather provides a means of synchronizing the companion device to whatever is offered through an interactive prompt in a program or ad.

“We’re tying into enhanced metadata in the streams rather than doing ACR, and we’re doing it from the perspective of on-demand programming,” Morse says. “With ACR it only takes one hiccup to ruin something. What we’ll see is content providers turning to using more metadata with fine granularity to create monetization opportunities.”

Cisco’s JavaScript-based Videoscape software leverages HTML5 to simplify a browser-based approach to accessing IP content through the cloud and on the 9800. Morse acknowledges there’s much work still to be done to solidify HTML5 as a standard capable of handling all types of video formats, but he says that Cisco would rather take care of overcoming such issues while using HTML5 to render directly from Web pages rather than to rely on old approaches to delivering IP content.

“Service providers face real investment issues,” he says. “That’s why most people want to do HTML5 versus working in the native IOS, Android and other environments.” Noting Cisco is working closely with the World Wide Web Consortium that’s responsible for completing the standard, he adds, “We want to do everything we can to accelerate the lingua franca of HTML5.”

That said, there are some situations where Videoscape does resort to use of HTML4 and performs video rendering in the native formats owing to the inadequacies of the HTML5 standard as currently constituted. In addition, Morse notes. And Vantage, as a software solution tailored for use on the 8600 and newer Cisco set-tops, relies on HTML4 as the browser solution resident in the set-tops, most of which bridge over MoCA (Multimedia over Coax) links to leverage the cable modem for communications to the Internet, although there are some 8600s deployed on networks where the IP communications are over DAVIC (Digital Audio Visual Council).

But in all cases the user experience is unified across all devices, Morse says. “Our soft client strategy relies on a common SDK (software development kit) that normalizes all applications for all devices,” he notes.

One of those applications is advertising, which means new approaches to advanced advertising involving unmanaged devices working in consort with premium programming now become available in the legacy set-top domain. “With Voyager and what we’re doing in the cloud there’s a lot of flexibility in terms of what can be put into video streams to the set-top and unmanaged devices,” Morse says.

How such capabilities will impact the use of the widely deployed EBIF platform for interactive advertising on digital set-tops remains to be seen, Morse suggests. “The jury is out,” he says. “Obviously, with the rise of unmanaged devices as an important part of the service provider strategy, the relevance of EBIF is trending to zero.”

A key component of Voyager that will be useful for advanced advertising strategies is the Conductor back-office technology for QAM video, which gives service providers a comprehensive video control plane to expedite rollout of services and applications across multiple networks and devices. “We’re leveraging the Conductor into advanced advertising with a lot of partners,” Morse says.

Videoscape has begun to go into commercial deployments in a variety of network situations. Newly announced customers include Roger Communications, which is beta testing Rogers Live TV, an app that streams 20 channels of programming via home Wi-Fi connections to iPads and, soon, Android tablets.

In Israel, the YES satellite TV service is employing Videoscape as a cloud solution for enhancing its services. And France’s Numericable is building a Videoscape foundation for multiscreen services in conjunction with launch of ultra-high speed broadband.

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MSOs Find New Optical Tech Opens Way Out of Fiber Crunch

By
Fred
Posted in: Network Technology, Service Providers

Mani Ramachandran, CEO, InnoTrans

Mani Ramachandran, CEO, InnoTrans

January 5, 2012 – With surging bandwidth requirements threatening to outstrip the capacity of cable operators’ installed fiber resources, the prospect of having to add fiber is prompting new thinking about optical technology, including speculation that it may soon be time to abandon traditional amplitude modulation transmission in favor of all-digital links.
 
But a spate of innovations in AM optics on the part of InnoTrans Communications is convincing at least some MSOs that they may be able to get more out of existing fiber than seemed possible until very recently. “Our message to the industry is you don’t have to base new decisions on old assumptions,” says InnoTrans CEO Mani Ramachandran. “A lot of people are responding to that message.”

One unnamed case in point is a top tier MSO which has gone so far as to contract with InnoTrans as a sole source for ongoing optical network enhancements. While it’s common practice to tap multiple sources for such equipment, the company’s engineers have concluded there’s nowhere else to turn for the capabilities it is looking for, Ramachandran says.

“They were using our technology just for fiber reclamation,” he adds, in reference to the ways in which the full-spectrum multiple wavelength capabilities of the firm’s Chromadigm transmitters can be used to free up fiber for new uses, such as commercial applications. “Now they have moved to using Chromadigm for all their new downstream transport requirements, whether it’s for fiber deep, RFoG (RF over Glass) or node splitting. They’re engaged in a lot of activity along these lines, so this is a big pump up.”

Over the past year InnnoTrans has experienced a brisk increase in business across the U.S. and Canada as operators confront the competing needs of ever more narrowcast services and an expanding commercial services business for more fiber transport capacity. Most pressing on the residential customer side is the need to go beyond the node segmentation capabilities of traditional AM fiber systems, says George Vasilakis, vice president of sales and business development at InnoTrans.

“The need to get to smaller service groups to support narrowcast requirements is pressing the limits of traditional segmentation technology,” Vasilakis says. “With our system you can go to eight full-spectrum wavelengths in both forward and reverse directions over a single fiber at distances of up to 65 Km.”

The move to full-spectrum optical transmission, which means all the analog and digital broadcast signals are combined with all the narrowcast signals onto a single wavelength, contrasts with the traditional approach in node segmentation where a high-power 1310 nanometer transmitter is used to deliver broadcast signals to the node over a single fiber while multiple wavelengths operating at 1550 nm. are used to deliver narrowcast signals to each node or node segment. InnoTrans officials say that their solution overcomes the operational and bandwidth limitations of the overlay approach at comparable costs of implementation.

A key factor in cost reduction is InnoTrans’ ability to use off-the-shelf 1550 directly modulated transmitters without having to select for very low noise parameters. The company employs proprietary electrical and optical processing techniques that produce an exceptionally high optical modulation index (OMI), which equates to a higher signal-to-noise performance at a given level of optical power than would otherwise be the case.

Equally vital to InnoTrans’ high performance parameters is the fact that the firm’s technology also mitigates chirp and clipping, which, respectively, refer to unintended frequency modulation of each amplitude-modulated optical signal and third-order distortion bursts caused by QAM stacking on each wavelength.

The combination of these techniques not only enables the high-density packing of wavelengths bearing the full spectrum of downstream and upstream channels used in cable HFC networks. Ramachandran says these techniques also eliminate the need to fix distances precisely or purchase receivers precisely tuned to the performance parameters of the optical signal at a given node.

“Our technology avoids the headache of customizing for every part of the network,” he says. “Sometimes residential or industrial growth occurs where it hasn’t been predicted. You want to be able to address that without having distance issues. You want to tell the businesses you’re serving, ‘We can operate anywhere you want.’”

In its latest product innovation, InnoTrans has combined all its techniques along with field-based optical amplification to create a strand-mounted optical hub it’s calling the “I-Hub,” which can be used to replace existing hubs and to lower the costs of adding new nodes for both HFC plant extensions and all-fiber extensions via RFoG. “With the I-Hub you can cover a region with fiber runs of up to 80 Km,” Ramachandran says.

A variety of I-Hub field-hardened modules encased in strand-mountable housing can support optical amplification, optical switching, return recover and re-transmission as well as passive wavelength multiplexing and demultiplexing for a variety of networks. For example, a fully configured I-Hub with full-band loading of four wavelengths per fiber will support a total of 16 nodes in both the downstream and upstream directions.

Or the I-Hub can be used for upstream aggregation where stacking of multiple upstream QAMs on each wavelength will support up to 72 node returns, Vasilakis notes. “Operators’ inability to aggregate and extend further on optical returns has been a big limiting factor for HFC and RFoG,” he says.

Where RFoG is concerned, the I-Hub can be the point of passive regeneration where wavelengths dedicated to the all-fiber service area can be amplified and spliced onto individual fibers and then further split in the field to extend service to hundreds of end users. “The ability to launch RFOG from the I-Hub allows you to greatly extend the reach into new service areas, which is what operators want to do with RFoG,” Vasilakis says.

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Cloud Innovations Put Small Ops On Fast Track to Next-Gen Lineup

By
Fred
Posted in: Operations Technology, Service Providers

Joseph Nucara, CEO, Adara Technologies

Joseph Nucara, CEO, Adara Technologies

December 23, 2011 – As network service providers below the Tier 1 level turn to cloud and over-the-top strategies to shore up their competitiveness they are plowing new ground that could have implications for NSPs at all tiers.
 
One case in point can be seen in the momentum building around the cloud-based switched digital video (SDV) solution pioneered by Adara Technologies, which not only greatly reduces the costs of this bandwidth-saving approach to adding HD services but also opens a low-cost path to IP migration and on-demand services. Adara co-founder and CEO Joseph Nucara reports the firm’s SDV platform, as first described in July (p. 27), is rapidly gaining acceptance among smaller operators across North America, including most recently Cass Cable TV, which serves 16,000 subscribers in central Illinois.

Moving on a separate track, IP hosted services provider Clearleap, leveraging a new relationship with billing systems supplier Great Lakes Data Systems (GLDS), is offering a turnkey approach to launching OTT on-demand services that lowers costs of delivering branded VOD services and helps mitigate the negative effects of off-net OTT video. A small Arizona operator, Orbitel, is putting the Clearleap service into play in conjunction with an agreement with connected-device and aggregated service provider Roku, which has been touting its desire to work with operators to help them create self-branded VOD services.

In essence, these new developments offer an early glimpse of how innovative IP-based hosted solutions could change the business prospects for network owners operating in smaller markets and, eventually, for companies operating in larger markets as well. As Clearleap CTO John Carlucci notes, the expanded cloud-based service streaming capabilities now on offer from his firm provide ways for large as well as small NSPs to cost effectively enhance their service offerings in primary and secondary markets alike.

“Four of the top five service providers are using our media services,” Carlucci says, in reference to Clearleap’s foundation IP Content Management solution, which allows service providers to upload content from anywhere and publish that content over IP to their legacy VOD and linear channel headend systems. For example, Verizon is using that Clearleap platform to aggregate and publish hyper local coverage of sports events, news and weather for distribution to local subscribers and, in some cases, to its VOD system for access by all FiOS TV customers.

Now, with its development of IP-based Stream On Demand, Clearleap has given operators a turnkey means either to start up a VOD service or, in the case of larger operators, enhance legacy offerings with additions from OTT providers like Netflix and Hulu. “We think the value we bring with our streaming service will be harvested by large as well as small operators,” Carlucci says. “The larger operators will use different pieces to fill in and complement what they’re doing with other suppliers, such as to facilitate delivery of programming to connected devices.”

Clearleap has teamed with GLDS, a leading supplier of billing, subscriber management and provisioning systems in the lower tier markets, to make it easy for GLDS customers to add the cloud-based VOD service to their existing operations. “Our integration with Clearleap ensures smooth subscriber authorization, transaction processing and a single, integrated billing solution, allowing our broadband operator customers to cost-effectively offer new advanced on-demand and personalized services,” says GLDS President Garrick Russell.

Now serving hundreds of operators with 200,000 or fewer subscribers, GLDS well understands the cost and risk factors that hold many of them back from getting on board with on-demand services, Russell says. “Our message to them now is that, with the Clearleap option, they can provide a high-quality service within their existing back-office domain at much lower costs,” he adds. But he acknowledges that while the “check writers” at these companies well understand the advantages, the idea of moving to a hosted IP-based service that relies on IP set-tops and connected TVs to deliver VOD is a harder sell with operations people.

“Right now we’re seeing slow adoption,” Russell says. ”But everybody knows Netflix is taking over their networks with OTT on-demand that eats up bandwidth and nets them nothing.”

A development that could go a long way toward igniting faster adoption is the FCC’s newly adopted Net Neutrality rules, which make clear that while service providers cannot block traffic, they can charge for high levels of usage either on the basis of incremental consumption over established caps or through data rate-based pricing tiers. Either way, operators now can safely begin charging for the high levels of usage that characterize consumption of Netflix and other OTT video content, which creates an incentive for their customers to avoid those fees by getting their on-demand content over the SP’s managed network.

“You can allow the traffic from Clearleap to pass free of charge in terms of bandwidth usage, because it’s part of your premium content offering,” Russell notes. “Even if you’re metering usage on OTT, you’re still not getting compensation from those services.”

Adds Carlucci: “People have to take into account the implications of not monetizing traffic when it gets to the levels we’re seeing with Netflix. Looking at usage research, we see that Netflix is consuming 40 percent of operators’ broadband bandwidth when they don’t offer a VOD service of their own. When they do, the Netflix traffic share drops to about 20 percent.”

Clearleap and GLDS are hoping the example set by Orbitel Communications as the first announced customer for the new integrated solution will inspire other NSPs to follow suit. Orbitel, operating in Maricopa, Ariz. with 9,500 subscribers, was able to quickly deploy a VOD service that offers unlimited hours and titles of on-demand content over its existing network to branded applications on the Roku box, says Orbitel president and CEO Keith Kirkman.

Orbitel achieved the launch “at a low cost capital investment with nominal storage costs and without the need to add any additional personal,” resulting in “a tremendous advantage in terms of ROI and time to market,” Kirkman adds. “Our subscribers now have access to a vast array of on-demand movies, TV, local and Web video – all aggregated, authenticated and managed in one place.”

Because it’s an IP-based service the company will be able to employ the Clearleap multi-format publishing service to reach multiple types of devices, Carlucci notes. “Orbitel is walking before they run, but they’re going in that direction,” he says.

The Clearleap platform is designed to work with a variety of aggregation and device partners so that the OTT content supplied to the operator from an aggregator becomes part of the user’s navigation experience within the UI environment of the device supplier. In a demonstration with the Roku box, an LG Electronics connected TV and an iPad at last month’s SCTE Expo in Atlanta, Clearleap showed how the UI sets the operator’s service as the first point of navigation while also giving subscribers visibility into the device supplier’s OTT content options.

Meanwhile, as the cloud-based Clearleap initiative allows operators who have been thwarted from offering legacy VOD to leapfrog to next-generation multiscreen service, Adara’s cloud-based approach to supporting SDV overcomes long-standing barriers to freeing up bandwidth for such services. For example, says Cass Cable TV president Gerald Gill, the Adara solution will enable Cass to maintain and cap its Motorola headend and digital set-top box investment while simultaneously delivering all its channels in HD using Cisco SDV technology and advanced Web-connected set-tops.

“Over the past two years, we looked at a number of upgrade options, including
analog reclamation using DTAs (digital terminal adapters) in particular,” Gill says. “But the huge investment required versus the ultimate benefit to us and our customers did not come close to meeting even a reasonable threshold.”

In contrast, he continues, the Adara solution “delivers an order of magnitude more, at a fraction of the cost. None of the other options were even close from every important perspective, including cost, time-to-market, effective capacity increase, new services and revenues enabled, future-proofing and IPTV migration.”

To achieve these cost and operational benefits Adara provides the digital control system and applications servers that run the locally installed universal session resource managers, SDV QAMs and SDV client software on Cisco 4600 and 8600 set-tops. These resources and the engineering expertise Adara provides can be shared across hundreds of cable systems serving millions of subscribers, thereby lowering the costs for each participating operator, says Joseph Nucara.

“We cut about 80 percent of the costs of implementing SDV and 100 percent of the complications and deliver 100 percent of the benefits,” he says. “All of a sudden the economics are turned on its head, and SDV becomes the obvious route to take.”

In the typical implementation of the hosted SDV model an operator might have a 550 MHz plant offering a combination of analog and digital SD channels, where the SD channels are delivered through 256 QAMs controlled by a legacy digital Motorola or Cisco headend video processing and conditional access system. All it takes to simulcast the entire lineup in HD is to free up eight 6 MHz channels for installation of the Cisco SDV QAMs, Nucara says.

The fact that Cass Cable as a “Moto shop” embraced the solution provides a strong validation to Nucara’s assertion that old assumptions don’t apply in this situation. “As a Moto shop, it never occurred to us to look at a Cisco-based solution,” says Tom Allen, vice president and chief operating officer at Cass. Not only is its past investment in Motorola “completely secure,” he adds. “We are now in a position to offer hundreds of HD channels, whole home DVR, and many more advanced services, and this is only the beginning.”

With several other customers announced prior to Cass, momentum is building rapidly, Nucara says. “All told we have about 80 customers either in the pipeline or already deployed,” he says. “You can expect a new customer announcement coming out about every other month from now on.”

Capabilities on the Adara system are set to expand dramatically with its conversion to the Cisco VideoScape platform in the year ahead, Nucara adds, noting that Cisco acquisitions of Extend Media and other entities have transformed the TV Everywhere paradigm to include multiple devices and linear as well as on-demand content. “VideoScape is already being used for TVE by many operators and content providers,” he says. “We’ll be fully integrated with VideoScape during the first half of 2012.”

0

New Node QAM Concept Touts Lower HFC Costs, Fast Growth

By
Fred
Posted in: Network Technology, Service Providers
John Dahlquist, VP, marketing, Aurora Networks

John Dahlquist, VP, marketing, Aurora Networks

December 14, 2011 – As cable industry strategists discuss the pros and cons of moving modulation and other functionalities now resident in hubs and headends into HFC nodes one company has voiced its intentions to deliver on the concept with the promise of radically reducing cable’s costs of operating over fiber.

Aurora Networks is developing what it calls a universal services “Remote QAM” for deployment in trials in the first quarter and commercial availability by the end of Q2. As described by John Dahlquist, vice president of marketing at Aurora, the “industry-first solution” addresses both the capital and operational challenges cable operators face as they continue to increase narrowcast traffic to support the growing demand for more sophisticated video and data services.

“We believe that positioning QAMs in the node will address a lot of issues that are complicating the migration to more narrowcast services and an all-IP infrastructure,” Dahlquist says. “Some people say they don’t know if they want to go that way. Others say it’s a natural evolution. We want to lead in this.”

One of the great benefits of moving QAMs to nodes in cable architecture would be the elimination of amplitude modulated (AM) or analog transmitters, the development of which made it possible for cable companies to use fiber to deliver their TV signals to remote nodes for conversion to RF over coax. Ever since the late ‘80s, vendors have been competing for the industry’s optical transport business by trying to outdo each other with technological innovations in AM optics.

But while Aurora’s technological skills in analog transmission have been fundamental to its success, it doesn’t want to be relying on those skills if the industry goes to a new mode of optical operations, Dahlquist says. “Analog transmitters are an important part of our business,” he notes. “We want to be in the lead if the analog transmitter is going away.”

Use of small form-factor pluggable (SFP) lasers to deliver digital signals without requiring modulation onto different carrier frequencies allows new QAM channels to be added without having to adjust the headend RF combining network or re-balance the HFC plant, Dahlquist says. And it cuts rack space consumed by ever more edge QAMs, relying instead on the Remote QAM’s ability to dynamically support the addition of more QAM channels with any mix of digital services within each QAM channel.

“This new approach eliminates the rats’ nest that comes with operating edge QAMs where you’re splitting signals into service groups from the digital input and then recombining them for modulation onto the fiber,” he says. “You can have legacy and digital services supported at the node QAM, with the dynamic capability of migrating to more IP digital video at whatever pace you want.”

Use of SFPs with the elimination of edge QAMs will also radically cut power consumption in the headend or hubs, he adds. “Plus you get improved signal quality, because you’re using SFPs and bypassing the signal loss and noise from the headend RF combining network and HFC-related conversion and amplification,” he says.

That a leader in the AM optics space rather than a QAM vendor not relying on that business would be introducing the first node QAM attests to the momentum building behind this idea. For example, in an E-PON over cable (EPoC) architecture as described on p. 8, an all-Ethernet transmission path from headend to node would not require amplitude modulation until the signal was translated to RF for transmission over coax links from the node.

In a paper discussing next-gen architectures for cable, Jeff Finkelstein, senior director of network architecture at Cox Communications, and Boris Brun, senior manager of technologies at Harmonic, Inc., suggest it’s time for operators to consider a remote-QAM component for the emerging solution for streamlining the transition to IP services at the headend known as Converged Cable Access Platform (CCAP).

In Brun’s and Finkelstein’s parlance, the new approach splits the MAC (media access control) mechanisms from the PHY (physical layer) in a departure from how things have always been done with cable’s DOCSIS broadband technology. “By removing analog elements from optical access, we believe there is the potential to run with higher order modulations than previously thought possible, given current HFC plant constraints,” the authors say.

They don’t speculate on the potential bandwidth gains resulting from using higher modulation rates on the coax, but the value of the solution as a way to overcome bandwidth challenges in the years ahead was the main point of the paper, which was presented at the SCTE Expo conference in Atlanta last month. As with the Aurora approach, Brun’s and Finkelstein’s proposal calls for co-existence of the new remote PHY modulation system with the current QAM infrastructure but with the understanding that as ever more content moves to IP, the legacy infrastructure would fade away.

Dahlquist, too, doesn’t speculate on potential bandwidth savings that might result from use of Aurora’s Remote QAM. In early deployments with existing MPEG-2 TV services delivered through the Remote QAM to set-top boxes locked on the traditional spectrum bands up to 750 or 860 MHz, there would be no bandwidth impact in those frequencies, but for TV services delivered in IP mode the spectrum on the coax above 860 MHz would be available with upgrades in elements on the coax, resulting in more bandwidth for narrowcast signals.

The initial Remote QAM product release will support 64 6 MHz channels delivered at 256 QAM over existing coax plant without requiring deeper fiber penetration. That equates to about 2.4 gigabits of throughput on an all-digital service feed. By 2013 the company hopes to increase the QAM channel count to 160, which would be sufficient to cover the full RF downstream spectrum up to 1 GHz.

0

Cable AWS Deal Marks Strategic Shift to Wi-Fi

By
Fred
Posted in: Lead Story, Mobile Services & Devices, Service Providers
Glenn Britt, CEO, Time Warner Cable

Glenn Britt, CEO, Time Warner Cable

December 14, 2011 – Maybe, just maybe the leading cable companies have come up with a long-term wireless strategy they can execute cost effectively by playing to their strengths while neutralizing the perceived threats they’ve seen from the coming onslaught of 4G.

The linchpin to the strategy is a new use of Wi-Fi technology that has the potential to provide cable operators a large, mutually shared national footprint of fixed and mobile wireless operations across metro regions which can seamlessly integrate with services delivered by the big mobile carriers. The decisions of the three MSO partners in SpectrumCo LLC as well as Cox Communications to sell Verizon Wireless their Advanced Wireless Service spectrum as part of deals that include long-term partnerships with the mobile giant represent the first shoe to drop and likely the biggest since the arrangements serve both as a break with past strategies and as a foundation to the new approach.

The only publicly stated hint of what’s to come beyond the marketing and longer term MVNO (mobile virtual network operator) deal possibilities with Verizon was offered by Comcast Cable president Neil Smit, who said, “These agreements, together with our Wi-Fi plans, enable us to execute a comprehensive, long-term wireless strategy and expand our focus on providing mobility to our Xfinity services.”

Those Wi-Fi plans have yet to be spelled out and by all accounts are still in flux, but sources report steps already taken by various MSOs can be seen as the outlines to a larger national strategy that would exploit advanced cable-mounted Wi-Fi infrastructure to extend the reach of their broadband services across their metro footprints while allowing broadband customers of any given MSO to use the Wi-Fi connectivity of the others wherever they go. Depending on how aggressively they deploy new Wi-Fi systems that support mobile as well as fixed wireless connectivity to the cable broadband network and seamless handoff to 3G and LTE mobile networks, the operators would have the potential to keep subscribers on their own networks anywhere within the metro footprint while allowing them to jump to a mobile carrier network whenever those customers move out of reach of the Wi-Fi infrastructure.

On first learning of the $3.6 billion AWS spectrum sale to Verizon Wireless by Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks, Credit Suisse senior analyst Spencer Wang, in an appearance at the Media Innovations Summit in Santa Clara commented that perhaps the cable companies concluded that “Wi-Fi is a better technological solution.” It’s certainly a faster, more economical way to go, he added.

“I’m not sure what the motivation was right now for selling the AWS spectrum,” Wang said. “But I think the cable guys will ultimately have to find some kind of wireless solution. I think it’s just too important.”

Big Win for Verizon Wireless

While opinions varied as to what all this means for cable MSOs as they look for solid footing in wireless, Verizon Wireless was widely seen as a big winner in the deal with its expected acquisition, pending regulatory approval, of AWS B blocks of 20 MHz in 122 markets representing a population base of 259 million. Subsequently Verizon picked up additional 20 MHz AWS blocks in its $315-million deal with Cox, which is also subject to regulatory approval.  These purchases complement another share of AWS spectrum the carrier gained in the auction five years ago, comprising 20 MHz blocks that cover most of the eastern half of the country.

How all this spectrum in the RF region above 1700 MHz gets blended with the 10 MHz of spectrum at the 700 MHz tier that Verizon is now using to support rollout of LTE service remains to be seen. So far, experts report, Verizon’s LTE devices only support the 700 MHz tier, which means new devices will have to be ordered as the carrier implements AWS for LTE. Initially these spectrum tiers will operate separately with bandwidth allocations and end user access rates tied to the limits imposed by each. But within the next three years a new aggregation technology is expected to enable sharing of bandwidth across both tiers.

Real 4G as originally defined by the ITU was supposed to support individual access rates at 100 mbps, which is not an issue at this point, given the fact that today’s mobile devices are designed to work in the 10 mbps range. A year ago ITU conceded this reality by suggesting current generation LTE could be referred to as 4G even if it really wasn’t. Verizon’s LTE platform typically delivers service at 5-12 mbps, so the additional spectrum provides it room to add a lot of LTE customers without losing speed and possibly even to increase the speeds as it introduces the spectrum aggregation technology and a more advanced version of LTE in the years ahead.

As things stand, the proposed purchase, which must be approved by regulators, puts Verizon ahead of rival AT&T in the spectrum race. AT&T, with LTE launching on a thin 5 MHz slice of 700 MHz spectrum in some markets, 10 MHz in others, has AWS spectrum to build on but needs more, which was a big reason it went after T-Mobile. While the carrier hopes to pick up more 700 MHz spectrum in a proposed deal with Qualcomm, analysts say Verizon will end up with a clear advantage if the T-Mobile deal doesn’t go through.

LTE, opening the floodgates to video over mobile, will not be forgiving to spectrum-squeezed carriers. Indeed, even with its large 700 MHz footprint, Verizon may already have been hitting a wall at this early phase of LTE adoption, suggested Credit Suisse analyst Jonathan Chaplin in a recent note to investors. The carrrier’s deal with the cable companies “suggests [Verizon’s] needs are perhaps greater and more immediate than previously thought,” he said.

The Changing Cable Scenario

Notwithstanding the intense competition between cable companies and Verizon, the MSOs in the deal stressed the benefits of cooperation as the far more significant factor in their evolving relationship with the carrier. Time Warner Cable CEO Glenn Britt summed up the thinking, as conveyed in a blog by TWC director of digital communications Jeff Simmermon. Asked, “Why would we want to work together?” Britt replied in part:

“These agreements are with Verizon Wireless and relate to its wireless services. We’ll continue to compete vigorously against Verizon FiOS.

“By working with the leader in wireless services, we will be able to compete effectively with all wireless and landline competitors. This is a smart and efficient way for TWC to deliver a broad array of wireless services alongside our suite of video, HSD and voice products. It makes sense for our business and for our customers. We do not believe it is feasible to enter the wireless market as a free-standing new entrant.”

While the deal with Verizon gives the cable companies the option four years hence to become MVNO sellers of self-branded mobile service using the Verizon network, it’s far from clear how the cable industry as a whole or in various groupings will play in this highly unsettled market. For example, noted Ronny Haraldsvik, senior vice president and CMO at BelAir Networks, a leading supplier of advanced Wi-Fi systems, “Maybe one of them decides they want to go all the way into mobile cellular with an acquisition and becomes a potential MVNO seller to the others. Just because they sold off spectrum doesn’t mean they don’t want to play in mobile. Some will retrench, and some will be on the offensive.”

Indeed, while the cable companies in SpectrumCo have signaled they are through with trying to operate as resellers of the Clearwire spectrum, they as stakeholders in Clearwire Ventures still have a vested interest in that carrier’s success as a wholesaler of valuable infrastructure. And it just happens that T-Mobile, if it’s not to be purchased by AT&T, needs more spectrum if it is to remain a viable independent player or potential acquisition target in the 4G era.

Ergo, says one source, speaking on background, a cable company newly enriched with the AWS proceeds could buy out T-Mobile and then lower the net cost of wholesaling the needed extra spectrum by virtue of the stake it holds in Clearwire. “I wouldn’t rule anything out at this stage,” this executive says. “Clearwire is a spectrum bank that can be better leveraged than the cable guys have done so far with the right business model.”

The Wi-Fi Advantage

But no matter how or whether the MVNO/cellular acquisition side of the equation shakes out, MSOs will gain greater leverage over their fortunes in wireless to the extent they take advantage of the opportunity afforded by the integration of Wi-Fi access points on their broadband networks. A flurry of activity in recent months underscores how advanced Wi-Fi with support for mobile access and seamless handoff capabilities on both the cable broadband and licensed cellular sides of the market has emerged as the foundation for MSOs’ wireless strategies.

A case in point is Canadian MSO Shaw Communications, which has abandoned plans to build a cellular network and instead has begun trials of a Wi-Fi alternative using gear supplied by Cisco Systems in preparations for wide scale rollout in the spring. “Canadians’ use of smartphones and tablet devices has grown exponentially over the years, and more than ever, consumers are relying on Wi-Fi to explore the Internet, connect with loved ones and enjoy entertainment,” said Shaw president Peter Bissonnette. “Thanks to our collaboration with Cisco, Shaw’s Wi-Fi network will allow us to become the first service provider in Canada to deliver our secure, reliable and incredibly fast Internet in thousands of locations.”

Shaw’s move is part of an all-IP integration of fixed and wireless services on Cisco’ intelligent routing platform. The Cisco Service Provider Wi-Fi platform working with these routers allows service providers to offer scalable mobile Internet access similar to services from a cellular network, the companies said.

The pioneer in the use of such platforms on cable is Cablevision, which has been building out its Optimum Wi-Fi service over the past three years throughout its New York area footprint employing platforms supplied by both Cisco and BelAir Networks. As reported at the time (October 2008, p. 1) Cablevision’s multi-phase rollout plan envisioned getting to the point where enough access points were in place to provide saturation coverage for a mobile version of the Wi-Fi service.

Apparently that stage of expansion is close at hand. In May Cablevision COO Tom Rutledge told analysts that testing of the wireless phone service had begun with “devices that switch back and forth between cellular and Wi-Fi.” At about the same time, as reported by Light Reading, the company filed a trademark application for “Optimum Mobile” as the brand for “telecommunications services, namely wireless telephone services.” Also, as reported by Light Reading, Cablevision has signaled in an FCC filing opposing AT&T’s acquisition of T-Mobile that it sees the Deutsche Telekom subsidiary as a potential MVNO wholesale partner for an extension of the branded Wi-Fi based service beyond local boundaries.

These various steps illustrate the ways in which MSOs can use a mobile-capable advanced Wi-Fi platform to strengthen their business positions in an MVNO deal. To the extent their customers can stay on the cable network while traveling around locally there’s no need to use the wholesale carrier’s cellular network and, therefore, less cost involved to support the mobile side of the operator’s service, given that the lion’s share of usage would be on the operator’s network.

While the deal with Verizon offers a roadmap for future growth plans, the opportunity to deploy advanced Wi-Fi networks “with their vast fiber and broadband deployments in metro areas is much closer to their comfort zone technologically,” notes BelAir’s Ronny Haraldsvik. “And I think they’re realizing that building out that infrastructure gives them much greater bargaining power for future arrangements.”

Other MSOs are moving rapidly in this direction. Comcast a year ago announced launch
of Xfinity Wi-Fi service as a free perk for all Xfinity broadband customers throughout its greater Philadelphia, New Jersey and Delaware territories and now says it has over 20,000 hotpots in operation. Time Warner Cable is offering Wi-Fi in many areas including New York and Los Angeles.

Notably, TWC’s newly launched Wi-Fi service in Los Angeles, offered free to subscribers, is also available as an a la carte service to non-subscribers on an hourly, daily, weekly or monthly basis, with the monthly plan priced at $49.95. BelAir Networks is the supplier for TWC’s service in LA and New York.

Another facet of developments pointing to what’s taking shape in cable operator wireless strategies is the roaming deal forged last year among TWC, Comcast and Cablevision under which their subscribers in the Northeast can use whichever operators’ Wi-Fi access point that happen to be near at no cost. An expansion of roaming capabilities on a national scale would leverage roaming architecture specifications issued by CableLabs, under which a uniform mode of sign-in and authentication would simplify the mechanics of the offering for operators and subscribers alike.

Credit Suisse’s Spencer Wang suggested the industry could ensure wide coverage in areas where cable is either not present or an operator is not part of the deal by leveraging a wholesale provider like Boingo. Noting the global supplier was represented at a recent conference held by Wang’s group, he commented, “You kind of wonder if they’re a potential partner for the cable guys as a wholesale supplier.” Such a partnership could bring into play cable Wi-Fi deployments abroad under the CableLabs roaming system.

Wi-Fi Tech Advances

Indeed, Wi-Fi is becoming a hot button among operators worldwide. “One operator is contemplating deploying 500,000 to 700,000 access points over the next five years,” Haraldsvik said. “We’re looking at some very staggering RFPs right now. That’s why you can expect some very big companies like Ericsson and Alcatel-Lucent to be coming into this space in the near future.”

BelAir, as the leader along with Cisco in integrated solutions designed for carrier applications over public infrastructure, has kept up with the evolving scenario by delivering ever more products with the scaling and specific functionalities essential to various segment requirements, including those of the evolving cable strategy. For example, Haraldsvik said, the firm’s controller and management system can now manage up to 100,000 access points within a large metro deployment.

Seamless integration across fixed broadband, Wi-Fi and cellular platforms is now intrinsic to a variety of products designed for different types of network deployments, including the picocells used by cable operators, he said. “We’ve focused our internal efforts on better integration between macrocell licensed cellular service and Wi-Fi networks in very small packaging that makes the transition from one network to another a seamless, no-touch experience,” he noted.

The picocells also support backhaul capabilities for operators who want to provide that type of service as an added benefit for backhaul-depleted cellular partners. And to make all this doable in a way that’s an integral part of the operator’s back office system rather than as an over-the-top add-on service is essential. “We’re now on two operators’ systems that have been integrated into their billing networks,” Haraldsvik noted.

Handoff capabilities, of course, are dependent on agreements forged between the Wi-Fi and cellular providers, but there’s sufficient flexibility such that cable operators with MVNO deals like the one contemplated by the SpectrumCo group with Verizon can participate in roaming arrangements with other operators who have MVNO deals with different carriers. “Whether it’s CDMA or WCDMA based, we’ll work with core network providers to integrate their radio technologies into our small cell packaging,” Haraldsvik said.

Enabling this process to occur intelligently so that the user is obtaining the best experience available from one network or another is another capability now intrinsic to the BelAir platform. “Being able to say to someone on an access point that you’re better off on a licensed or an unlicensed link and to do that dynamically is no easy task,” Haraldsvik said.

Another capability now part of the platform which plays into the multi-operator roaming requirements on Wi-Fi is support for infrastructure integration in a region served by multiple operators. “Our platform is designed so that one network element can be shared by up to eight service providers,” Haraldsvik said. “Networks already in deployment have gone from five to ten to 15 thousand access points, and next year you’ll see expansions to where 100,000 network elements are in place across metro regions.”

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