|
Archives
 August 1999 Issue
News & Opinion
Deployment Watch
By Greta Durr
Think you need major Wall Street backing, a magic spell and several first names to deploy advanced services in your cable system? Think again. Better yet, let an operator in the boondocks of North Americas vast prairie lands tell you how its done. Meet Joe Floyd, president of Midcontinent Media, a freshly formed parent company to Midcontinent Communications.
Midco operates approximately 130 cable systems throughout North Dakota and South Dakota, as well as the northern sand hills of Nebraska. Subscriber counts range from 50,000 in Sioux Falls, S.D., to 38 in Lehr, N.D., said Floyd.
More channels
"The problem we originally faced was trying to expand programming and increase the number of channels we could offer in many of our smaller systems to compete with (direct broadcast) satellite (DBS). Many of these systems were 20-channel systems," said Floyd.
"It became our mission two years ago to get a minimum of 40 channels on all of our systems," explained Floyd. By interconnecting the neighboring systems with fiber, Midco was able to eliminate headends and reuse channel processors. "The theory was to connect several cable systems in a cluster, eliminating all but one headend, and then salvage the channel processing equipment and use it in the cable systems which were not connected to a fiber cluster."
"With the fiber interconnect, we actually got 80 pieces of equipment back to use in four other nonconnected systems," Floyd added. "The plan did significantly slow the loss to DBS."
Floyd said that ADC stepped in to help Midco with the analog deployment, providing installation support and training staff to wrangle with the relatively new technology.
"Once we had the fiber clusters completed," said Floyd, "we decided to connect Bismarck, N.D., to the Aberdeen, S.D., network to save costs on T-1 circuits for customer service, PPV (pay-per-view) and customer call routing." The cost of a T-1 from North Dakota to South Dakota is about $5,000 per month, reported Floyd. The solution was to install a 24-count fiber route to avoid the T-1 cost burden.
Teamwork spurs success
With teamwork, the deployment was a success, said Wayne Walters, ADCs vice president of product management for Cellworx.
"Some of the distances between distribution and colocation sites were reaching the limits of the transmit distance of the lasers," Walters said. "The ADC engineers were able to test the distances and optical budgets. Midco also agreed to use their best fiber strands to transmit their traffic." Walters said the decision helped the deployments cause.
Simultaneously, Midco had developed a cable-based, high-speed Internet service running at l.5 Mbps symmetrical with the network operations center (NOC) in Sioux Falls, S.D. "This service was designed to be deployed on all of our systems that we had rebuilt to 500 or 750 MHz HFC (hybrid fiber/coax)," said Floyd. The decision followed to continue the 24-count fiber all the way to Sioux Falls.
"This gave us a 530-mile fiber route on which we could deploy advanced digital services to all systems connected to the network. We then decided on an OC-12 (optical carrier) SONET (synchronous optical network) design. We selected the ADC Cellworx system because we knew they could do it in severe weather conditions," Floyd explained. "If you have not been to Bismarck, N.D., in January, you have missed something," ADC performed the installation in January.
"We found the ADC personnel seemed used to the cold, sometimes oppressive weather; they stuck with the job under all conditions. We were pushing the limits of the technology for distance on fiber, so we had no patterns on performance. We also had some bad conditions in Steel, N.D., getting the terminal installed," he said.
This network is allowing Midco to deliver advanced services and to operate more cost-effectively and seamlessly.
"Midcontinent Communications is now able to offer high-speed Internet in many of our small systems where people have had to use long distance to use the Internet and PPV service. We also use this network to connect our SeaChange digital insertion equipment in several systems."
Improvements across the board
Customer service call routing also has improved greatly since the deployment. "This backbone network is our future in the telecommunications business in the Midwest," he said.
"We are very proud of this project; it gives us a great technological lead in the area in the deployment of advanced service on HFC cable systems. Our high-speed Internet service that we call CableNet is very well-received. In the future, we plan to use this network for the deployment of the Midcontinent service," said Floyd.
"In the future," he predicted, "we will most likely introduce the TCI-developed HITS (Headend in the Sky) digital service by locating the HITS headend at our NOC in Sioux Falls and deploying it up our network." CT
 Back to August Issue
Access Intelligence's CABLE GROUP
Communications Technology | CableFAX Daily | CableFAX's CableWORLD | CT's Pipeline
CableFAX Magazine | CableFAX databriefs | Broadband Leaders Retreat | CableFAX Leaders Retreat
|
