HFC Network Reliability for Today’s & Tomorrow’s Services

H. D. (Bud) Dowdy, Jr.

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H. D. Dowdy, Jr.

This presentation is intended to provide client with: •information on 7R/E - the announcement in general & the specific 7R/E Cable Solution. •Reaffirm Lucent’s commitment to the Cable industry - tease regarding the Lucent Cable Business Unit and our involvement w/CableLabs & PacketCable. •While also stressing our eagerness & willingness to work w/them to provide the the client w/a solution that they find valuable, while gathering & soliciting additional requirements that they may have to ensure this happens.

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HFC Network Reliability for Today’s & Tomorrow’s Services Overview

• Network Requirements of HFC Services • Network Reliability and Availability History • Causes of Network Outages and Weapons against • Network Monitoring • Summary

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H. D. Dowdy, Jr.

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HFC Network Reliability for Today’s & Tomorrow’s Services Network Requirements of HFC Services

! Transmission quality ! Effective bandwidth ! Service reliability (the probability that a system will survive without interruption for a defined period)

! Outage Rate (the average rate at which service interruptions occur) ! Availability (the percentage of time that service is available)

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H. D. Dowdy, Jr.

Network reliability should also take “degraded services into account and not focus on complete failure of a service. Network reliability should should focus on delivering a quality service

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HFC Network Reliability for Today’s & Tomorrow’s Services Overview

• Network Requirements of HFC Services • Network Reliability and Availability History • Causes of Network Outages and Weapons against • Network Monitoring • Summary

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H. D. Dowdy, Jr.

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HFC Network Reliability for Today’s & Tomorrow’s Services Network Reliability and Availability History Different industries use different measures of service integrity

Telephony Industry Availability objective 99.99% (53 min/yr.) ! ! ! !

Bellcore “goal” chosen arbitrarily, not mandated by government regulation Not the same as end user service availability! Applies to network between local switch and network interface Excludes local switch, customer premise equipment, in-home wiring and loss of primary and backup power ! Some customers may have consistently poor service but still meet objective ! Clock starts when outage reported, not when it begins

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H. D. Dowdy, Jr.

In home wiring is largest single cause of service outage for catv industry

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HFC Network Reliability for Today’s & Tomorrow’s Services Network Reliability and Availability History Different industries use different measures of service integrity

Cable Industry/Broadcast Video Availability objective 99.7% ( 26.3 hr/yr.) 2 outages within 3 months for single customer ! CableLabs “goal” based on outages exceeding this rate become a major factor in customers perception of service quality

! 10 minute outage perceived as bad as an all day outage ! “Outage” is 2 or more customers losing 1 or more channels, “Loss” is interruption not degradation. ! Includes power outages! ! Does not count single outages, so drop and in-house wiring not included ! Outage not count if repaired before being reported

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H. D. Dowdy, Jr.

In home wiring is largest single cause of service outage for catv industry 99.7=.6 outages/month and 4 hours MTTR

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HFC Network Reliability for Today’s & Tomorrow’s Services Network Reliability and Availability History Does Cable industry require 99.99% availability? ! ! ! ! !

Traditional HFC Plants Broadcast Video (Analog/Digital) Cable Modem Primary Line Telephony Secondary Line Telephony

99+% (3.7 days/yr.) 99.7% (26 hours/yr.) 99.8% (13 hr/yr.) 99.99% (53 min/yr.) 99.7% (26 hours/yr.)

Note: 11/28/00 CableLabs document recommends an end-to-end availability objective of 99.94% (5.256 hrs.)

Depends on: What are customers willing to put up with for these services Business Model entering market

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H. D. Dowdy, Jr.

In home wiring is largest single cause of service outage for catv industry

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Customer Expectations of Network Availability Designed by Bellcore Spec

100% Available 99.99% (53 minutes available)

Good Service

Primary Line

99.98% (106 minutes available) 99.97% (159 minutes available)

Requires Maintenance

99.96% (212 minutes available) Secondary Line • VoIP Set Top Box MTA • No Backup Power • No Carrier Grade CMTS, MTA, SW 8

99.95% (265 minutes available) 99.94% (318 minutes available) 99.93% (371 minutes available)

H. D. Dowdy, Jr.

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Unavailability Related to Concentration of Revenue Cable Modem Termination System

VoIP Customer

HFC Access Network (DOCSIS)

Media Termination Adapter

Sub Lines Served 50 45 40 35 30 Unavailability 25 20 15 10 5 0 9

300

SONET Transport

SONET Transport

3k

100k

PSTN

Revenue per minute of Network Element drives reliability!

H. D. Dowdy, Jr.

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Network Availability “Primary Line” Engineering the End to End Telephony Solution Local Access (99.99% = 53 min)

Switching (99.999% = 5.3 min)

Inside Wire VoIP Customer Cable Modem Termination System HFC Access Network (DOCSIS)

Media Termination Adapter

Unavailability in Minutes MTTR

SONET Transport

SONET Transport

10 1

36

5

1

5.3

4

4

4

4

4

4

Redundant

Redundant

Redundant

PSTN

NOTE: Unavailability is calculated from MTBF historical data or FIT Rate/Part Count

53 minutes 5.3 Assumption is Power is always up 10

H. D. Dowdy, Jr.

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Network Availability “Second Line” Engineering the End to End Telephony Solution Local Access (99.96-99.93% = 172-346 min) Switching (99.999% = 5.3 min) Inside Wire Cable Modem Termination System

VoIP Customer

Media Termination Adapter

Unavailability in Minutes MTTR

60 6

HFC Access Network (DOCSIS)

20 0 24 24 4

SONET Transport

SONET Transport

20

45

5.3

4

4

4 Redundant

172-346 minutes 11

PSTN

NOTE: Unavailability is calculated from MTBF historical data or FIT Rate/Part Count

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H. D. Dowdy, Jr.

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HFC Network Reliability for Today’s & Tomorrow’s Services Overview

• Network Requirements of HFC Services • Network Reliability and Availability History • Causes of Network Outages and Weapons Against • Network Monitoring • Summary

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HFC Network Reliability for Today’s & Tomorrow’s Services Causes of Service Interruptions

! Signal Quality ! Commercial power problems ! Equipment failure ! Interfering signals ! Network Capacity ! Customer misuse

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HFC Network Reliability for Today’s & Tomorrow’s Services Causes of Service Interruptions - Signal Quality

! Signal Quality Effects on Services Analog Video Digital Video Cable Modem Telephony

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HFC Network Reliability for Today’s & Tomorrow’s Services Causes of Service Interruptions-Signal Quality/Analog Video Expectation grows with Consumer Product Improvements ! 10 years ago, consumer products not capable of displaying full resolution of NTSC signal BETA VHS

! Today’s consumer equipment has greater resolution than broadcast NTSC Super VHS Hi-8 Laser Disc DVD

! Future HDTV Next generation High Definition consumer products

! Trend to larger screen sizes also make video impairments more evident and customers less tolerant

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HFC Network Reliability for Today’s & Tomorrow’s Services Causes of Service Interruptions-Signal Quality/Analog Video ! Customers expectations are continually increasing

60 50 40 C/N

Perceptible/Annoying

30

Perceptible/Slightly Annoying Perceptible/Not Annoying Imperceptible

20 10 0 TASO 1958

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CBS,NASA 1983

Cable Labs 1991

H. D. Dowdy, Jr.

TASO-Television Allocations Study Organization CRC-Canadian Research Council COCLUSION: Subscribers have become more critical and are likely to become even more so as they see more images delivered with digital video. Annoying levels will continue to approach imperceptible

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HFC Network Reliability for Today’s & Tomorrow’s Services Causes of Service Interruptions-Signal Quality ! Digital Video Blocking and freeze frames Loss of detail with heavy compression Advances like HDTV will also increase expectations of Standard Digital Video

! Cable Modem Availability of cable modem service is already important to MANY Customers Home users will demand higher availability as “reliable” service providers offer alternative technologies at similar prices (xDSL, Satellite)

! Telephony Hard for many people to leave existing reliable phone service Decide to market as Lifeline or Secondary Services However, proliferation of cell phones and Internet telephony (not VoIP!) have gotten people used to lesser quality phone service

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HFC Network Reliability for Today’s & Tomorrow’s Services Weapons against Service Interruptions-Signal Quality

! Dealing with Signal Quality Proactive plant maintenance RF Monitoring Test Equipment Make use of intelligent agents deployed in network (STB, CM’s)

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HFC Network Reliability for Today’s & Tomorrow’s Services Causes of Service Interruptions - Commercial Power

! Commercial power problems Commercial Power Outage Lightning Strikes Equipment Failure

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HFC Network Reliability for Today’s & Tomorrow’s Services Weapons against Service Interruptions- Commercial Power

! Dealing with Commercial power problems Power Back-up (Battery, generators, mobile generators) ! Added maintenance issues (oil, batteries)

Network Powering, NIUs, MTA’s, EMTA’s & CPE

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HFC Network Reliability for Today’s & Tomorrow’s Services Weapons against Service Interruptions- Commercial Power CableLab’s task force showed 30% of all power supplies will see a service outage each year 400 350 300

Unavailability (min/year)

250 200 150 100 50 0 Zero Backup

4-Hour Backup

8-hour backup

12-hour backup

Average Commercial Power Unavailability in the United States (from Network Reliability Council) 21

H. D. Dowdy, Jr.

Line powering a BIG issue. BELLCORE guidelines look for 53 minute total nonavailability. Commercial power with 12 hour batteries will not achieve this. Additionally, if NIUs or CM, MTA’s not line powered then they service will go down

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HFC Network Reliability for Today’s & Tomorrow’s Services Causes of Service Interruptions- Equipment Failures ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

Power Supplies: Amplifiers: Optical Transmitters: Optical Receivers: Passive Devices: Coaxial Connectors: Fiber-optic Cable: Coaxial Cable: Customer Premise Equipment: Network Interface Devices: Headend Equipment:

3% .15% to 10% 2.3% .7% to 1.7% .07% to 1% .01% to .25% .3% to 3% .23% to 3% 7%? 5.4% 5% to 30%

Regional differences such as lightning strikes and underground construction laws have major effects on outages. from variety of sources: Network Reliability Council, Werner & Gatseos, Merk and Srode, Hamilton-Piercy and Balsdon, Bellcore

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HFC Network Reliability for Today’s & Tomorrow’s Services Weapons against Service Interruptions - Equipment Failures

! Dealing with Equipment failure Start with high quality, reliable equipment Network Architecture minimizing subs affected by single point of failure Monitoring equipment to isolate failure, decreasing repair time Redundant Hardware Self healing rings Spares

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HFC Network Reliability for Today’s & Tomorrow’s Services Causes of Service Interruptions - Interfering Signals

! Interfering Signal Problems Ingress CB Radios Automobile Ignition Consumer Electronics

Internally generated signals CSO CTB XMOD CIN Common Path Distortion Improperly balanced plant Equipment failures (active and passive)

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HFC Network Reliability for Today’s & Tomorrow’s Services Weapons against Service Interruptions- Interfering Signals

! Dealing with Interfering signals Cut-off switches (Located in taps, nodes or amplifiers) Ingress monitoring test equipment Use intelligent agents (STB’s, CM’s) distributed in network Frequency Agility Highly trained techs Develop ingress mitigation techniques NID rather than CPE Pre-test of equipment and signal loading to verify margins in system engineering calculations and manufacturers specs

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HFC Network Reliability for Today’s & Tomorrow’s Services Causes of Service Interruptions - Network Capacity

! Network Capacity Problems Internet Hogs Slow POP to Internet No dial tone, Voice call blocking Back haul congestion

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HFC Network Reliability for Today’s & Tomorrow’s Services Weapons against Service Interruptions- Network Capacity

! Dealing with Network Capacity Traffic engineering for HFC access portion on network Traffic engineering for backhaul network Traffic Monitoring Headend lashups to facilitate redistributing service Service contracts-Charge “Internet hogs” Network/Traffic Audits “Future Proof” Network minimize rebuilds

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HFC Network Reliability for Today’s & Tomorrow’s Services Causes of Service Interruptions - Customer Misuse

! Customer misuse problems Power off to CM or STB PC’s not configured properly Not connected properly

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HFC Network Reliability for Today’s & Tomorrow’s Services Weapons against Service Interruptions- Customer Misuse

! Dealing with Customer misuse Improved customer training Trained customer call center technical support Literature On-line self assistance

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HFC Network Reliability for Today’s & Tomorrow’s Services Overview

• Network Requirements of HFC Services • Network Reliability and Availability History • Causes of Network Outages and Weapons against • Network Monitoring • Summary

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H. D. Dowdy, Jr.

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HFC Network Reliability for Today’s & Tomorrow’s Services Network Monitoring Today’s Architecture

Multiservice Architecture

Headend

FN Master Headend FN

Master Headend Internet

PSTN

Hub

Access Telephony

LAN / WAN

Video High Speed Online

IP Telephony

Services being Integrated 31

Network Operations Center

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HFC Network Reliability for Today’s & Tomorrow’s Services Network Monitoring Registration Server (Web)

IVR System (Voice)

CSR Network DB Inventory System

Order Entry Customer Records Database

Billing Inquiries (Web Based)

Dispatch/ Work Force Mgmt

Order Management

Trouble Reporting

Trouble Management

Electronic Gateways Billing Platform

IDCM Circuit FM

CDR Collection

Circuit Config

TN Admin

Inter-Domain Fault Management

DB

Future Development

Churn Management

Policy Server

DHCP/ DNS Server

EMS ATM EMS Circuit Switches

Call Agent EMS ATM Switches

Cable Config. Manager

Optical Fault Mgmt.

Cable Fault Manager

CMTS / NIU EMS

Optical EMS

Cable Network Elements Call Agents

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Optical Config. Mgmt.

DB

• Cable Modems & CMTS • DOCSIS/PacketCable NIU/MTA • Video Servers • Set-top Boxes • Optical TX/RX • PFG

Optical Network Elements

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HFC Network Reliability for Today’s & Tomorrow’s Services Network Monitoring - Monitor all Intelligent Agents

Distribution Hub(s)

EM

EM

Circuit Switch / Trunks

Cable Fault Manager

EM

EM

High Speed Data Routers, Servers, and CMTS

O E

Fiber Transport & Distribution High Speed Data CMTS

PS 26

W

Optical Fault Manager

EM

HFC Plant and End-user Terminals

Video Channel Equipment and Ad Insertion

O E

Channel Insertion

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W

EM

Optical Transport

Circuit Fault Manager

Headend

Modem

Telephony Termination

VoIP

NID

Set-top

EM

EM

Telephony over Internet (VoIP)

O E

Facility, Powering, and Environment

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HFC Network Reliability for Today’s & Tomorrow’s Services Overview

• Network Requirements of HFC Services • Network Reliability and Availability History • Causes of Network Outages and Weapons against • Network Monitoring • Summary

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H. D. Dowdy, Jr.

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HFC Network Reliability for Today’s & Tomorrow’s Services Summary ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

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Decide on Services to be offered Design/Build to needs of highest availability service offered Decide on Business Plan - Do you need to be “highest quality service provider” Develop appropriate architecture Work with high quality equipment vendors Perform availability/reliability/failure rate studies Integration/Reliability Testing before deployment Select high quality construction and Project Management firms Partner with experts in Network Monitoring Invest in Training! Lost revenues when service unavailable or significantly degraded

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