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Time Warner Cable?s Oceanic system in Hawaii is deploying Optinel Systems PLEXiS MFX transport platform.
The platform helps operators add new services in a way that minimizes capital and operational expenditures. Optinel says it has three other deployments completed and five in progress. Comcast and Adelphia are among those using the gear.
The key is transforming networks from first-generation scenarios in which services are added in a piecemeal fashion to platforms where additions are made in a systematic manner. The widespread adoption of gigabit Ethernet is the biggest enabler of this evolution. Vendors and operators are now thinking of hardware and software approaches that most logically harness and manage that bandwidth.
Centralizing VOD
Video-on-demand (VOD) is the first area of attention for Oceanic. ?As we have more and more need for storage capacity, instead of upgrading at each hub we are going to centralize to a higher-capacity server in the headend,? says Metod Lebar, the director of transmission systems for Oceanic, which is rolling out the technology on the island of Oahu. ?Before, this was not feasible because networking would be prohibitively expensive.? Now, he says, more flexibility is possible as pricing falls.
Lebar says that Oceanic covers the island with two rings comprised of 15 hubs. The Optinel gear, which he said was the most cost-effective of the vendors examined, was slated to have arrived last month, and rollout is planned for the first quarter of this year. VOD will be followed by business services and, possibly, residential data services in the future.
The Optinel approach, according to Lebar and Optinel Chief Scientist Irl Duling has the ability to protect the fiber links at either the physical or logical levels. The physical approach can switch to the redundant fibers in case of a disruption, such as a fiber break.
Logical protection enables switches to switch to the redundant fibers, according to operator-established prioritization. Operators can choose either of these protection scenarios on a per-wavelength or per-hop basis, but are unlikely to run them simultaneously.
?Being able to structure the appropriate amount of protection for the appropriate service is a huge advantage for deployment,? Duling says.
Lebar adds that management and maintenance are simplified by grouping wavelengths in a ?banded? approach based on whether they are bi- or unidirectional.
Lots of streams
Bandwidth is king, and the Optinel system serves up a tremendous amount. PLEXiS offers 1 Gigabit, 2.5 and 10 Gbps options. Oceanic, according to Duling, is pushing the envelope in opting for the 10 Gbps option. PLEXiS fits 8 GigE streams into the 10 Gbps capacity. Since each Gigabit stream can carry about 240 uncompressed MPEG-2 video streams, each wavelength can carry about 1,920 programming channels. That amount, multiplied by the 40 wavelengths that can be opened, equals about 76,800 programming streams.
?When you scale from 1 to 40 wavelengths, the big hit is in the optical amplifiers,? Duling says. ?If an operator thinks it will ever expand to 40, from day one we make sure the amps can cope.?
In Oceanic?s case, the simplicity of the Optinel approach also mattered. ?We wanted to keep the backbone as generic as possible,? Lebar says.
?One of the assets Optinel brought to the table in that win is the ability to long haul transport,? says Alan Bezoza, a broadband analyst for investment bankers Friedman Billings Ramsey. He says Oceanic in Hawaii was somewhat of a ?natural fit? for Optinel, adding that only Optinel, Internet Photonics and Fujitsu are currently shipping ?true? 10 Gigabit solutions.
?Carl Weinschenk
Nortel Networks generated momentum with wins at two MSOs that serve distinct markets with different services.
Lightpath, Cablevision?s business telecom division, is deploying Nortel?s OPTera Metro 5200 dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) transport solution to increase the number of services it already is providing to the relatively dense New York, New Jersey and Connecticut business markets.
New York State?s third largest local exchange carrier (LEC), Lightpath generated more than $160 million in 2002, and currently runs more than 140,000 access lines and 18,000 Internet circuits over synchronous optical network (SONET) technology.
Brian Fabiano, Lightpath senior vice president of network services, says in a statement that Nortel platform will help the provider increase network capacity, lower operating expenses and add new services.
The OPTera 5200 platform delivers 32 wavelengths, each scalable at 10 Gbps, and can be used to deliver metro Ethernet, storage area networking (SAN) and Gigabit Ethernet, among other services.
?Nortel has a respectable market position, but had been hurting recently from the perception viewpoint,? Ron Westfall, senior analyst with Current Analysis, says. ?The Lightpath announcement shows that Nortel is very much in the game.?
Westfall is also impressed with the potential of Nortel?s new coarse wavelength division (CWDM) enclosure to untap embedded fiber capacity and help operators further serve the business market.
Country cousin
Mediacom serves a different demographic from Cablevision, namely: smaller cities and towns throughout the United States. In serving these nonmetrolitan markets, however, the cable operator picked Nortel?s OPTera 5200 metro transport for much the same reason: the cost-effective addition of services.
Strategically placed optics aggregate these smaller markets; in this case, enabling the delivery of ?new high-bandwidth services to many of our markets where they do not exist today,? says Joseph Van Loan, Mediacom?s senior vice president of technology.
Mediacom?s loss of some 32,000 basic subs over the past two quarters indicates the kind of pressure it is under to ramp up its offerings. Subscriber losses notwithstanding, in November the MSO went free cash flow positive for the first time.
The Nortel gear could further benefit MSO?s financial position. Van Loan expects that the Nortel enhancements to Mediacom?s network also will reduce communications costs between network facilities and Internet backbone, as well as between customer call centers.
?Jonathan Tombes
 Back to January 2004 Issue
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