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Acting Editor, 
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This week’s edition of "CT’s Pipeline" was delayed a day because of the effects of Hurricane Isabel.
"CT’s Pipeline" Editor Laura Hamilton will be on maternity leave until mid-December. The acting editor is Alex Zavistovich, who may be reached at .
FEATURE STORY
OSS Space Heats Up
Cable's operations support system (OSS) arena continues to be busy, with ongoing wins and losses, tactical gambits and shifting alliances.
Flying in the face of concern over the number and stability of cable's OSS vendors, Alopa Networks (www.alopanetworks.com) and partner ARRIS (www.arrisi.com) kicked off the news cycle this month by offering to replace existing workflow and provisioning solutions with its MetaServ product by the end of the year for free.
"If you have an existing system and are concerned about it...we're happy to go in and replace it," Tom Engdahl, Alopa president and CEO says.
"We aren't going anywhere," he adds. "We're looking for companies to acquire at this point."
Last week Alopa followed up by using its success in fighting the Blaster worm for broadband providers such as Wide Open West as an occasion to promote the idea of commercial grade software.
"If we'd had a homegrown system like a lot of MSOs have, [the fix] probably wouldn't have happened as easily," Michael Jury, vice president of Internet technology for WOW, said in a statement on Alopa's behalf.
SupportSoft 2, Cable 1 -Further evidence that OSS, once a telco-exclusive concept, is now a competitive equalizer came from SupportSoft (www.supportsoft.com), which simultaneously announced that Adelphia and BellSouth have given the thumbs-up to the firm's broadband installation and customer service rep (CSR) tools.
Both broadband providers now have access to the firm's SmartAccess, Service Automation Suite, HomeNet and Knowledge Center. One goal of this software is to wring efficiencies from what Marc Itzkowitz, SupportSoft director of broadband product marketing, calls the "awkward mating ritual" of subscriber/CSR interaction.
In the case of Adelphia, SupportSoft's service automation tools supercede software from Motive Communications (www.motive.com), which the MSO had begun using in early 2002.
Matt Bell, Adelphia director of high-speed data strategy and product development, says SupportSoft is "one component" of a larger service delivery framework that is under construction. He describes the fast-paced project as best-of-breed, customized, flexible and fully integrated with the billing system.
Upcoming Sale and Decisions - In last week's year-end earnings call for Liberate Technologies (www.liberate.com), CEO and Chairman David Lockwood confirmed that the company would be looking for a buyer of the OSS assets it acquired via Sigma Systems in August 2002.
"With our focus as a product company and without compelling synergies to our business, we believe that the OSS division is more valuable to others than to us," Lockwood said.
Meanwhile, two major MSOs are themselves are in the midst of build-or-buy decisions and vendor bakeoffs. Insiders say Time Warner has strong "build" tendencies, especially on the VoIP front at RoadRunner, but that if the MSO opts to "buy" then CEON (www.ceon.com) is a likely first-round winner.
Comcast is also weighing its OSS options. SupportSoft won a bakeoff earlier this year in its functional category, Itzkowitz says. In the current round, leading contenders are CEON and JacobsRimell (www.jacobsrimmell.com), with Lemur Networks (www.lemurnetworks.com) also in the mix and Cisco (www.cisco.com) a possible dark horse, sources say.. - Jonathan Tombes
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ENGINEERING NEWS
Comcast Goes Digital for Ad Insertion in Miami.
As Comcast Cable Communications continues consolidating assets and services in its markets, digital ad insertion has become an important priority. Most recently, the company selected nCube Corporation (www.ncube.com) to provide its Digital Advertising Insertion System for Comcast's South Florida market, which reaches more than one million subscribers in Dade, Groward and Monroe counties.
Comcast Advertising Sales, Miami plans to use nCUBE's advertising solution in consolidating operations for the local interconnect and advertising sales. The initial conversion to nCUBE will begin later this year and include 16 zones before eventually expanding to include additional digital program insertion (DPI) channels on selected zones.
40 Channels in the DMA - Miami was one of the last markets to be consolidated by Comcast in terms of ad insertion, said Theresa Fletcher, area vice president and general manager of Comcast's South Florida market. The consolidation requires 40 channels of ad insertion in its dominant market area (DMA).
"Working with nCube has allowed Comcast to achieve multiple objectives in multiple markets across the country," Fletcher commented. Comcast started bidding the South Florida contract in February of this year, she said; the choice of nCube was made at the end of June. Fletcher declined to disclose the dollar value of the contract.
At press time, seven out of 16 headends in the DMA had been turned over for digital ad insertion. Fletcher was pleased with the progress made. She noted that "preplanning, and the depth and scope of the project management from nCube" made the process painless - in particular because the headends were being turned over at night. The entire project will be completed in eight weeks, Fletcher estimated.
Seamless Transition Is Important - According to John Boland, vice president and general manager of nCube Corporation's Advertising Systems Group, cable operators are looking for a way to move their insertion revenue simply from analog to digital delivery platforms.
"Ad insertion is a tried and true revenue stream," Boland said. "As systems transition from analog to digital plant, operators don't want to worry about ad insertion. They want a seamless transition." nCube's platform supports both analog and digital signals, he explained.
nCube's Miami project, Boland said, enabled the transition to occur seamlessly because nCube's platform uses servers that simultaneously insert analog and digital signals. Comcast is able to keep the analog service alive, Boland noted; as digital set-tops are deployed, they can be turned on immediately. Comcast can have digital subscribers inserted with the same content.
The nCube systems works in a hub and spoke architecture, which feeds cable headends via Unix-based servers at the headends and headquarters, Boland explained. Each cable operation's headquarters, employs nCube's Skyvision management software. At the headend, the company installs a server and the nCube Headend Kit software.
Downstream, for analog insertion, a Matrix Decoder Switch converts the signal from MPEG-2 to analog. If digital insertion is required, the content is streamed to digital subscribers via a digital card in the server. The signal is then groomed for an MPEG bitstream, Boland continued.
Miami is the 15th Comcast market served by nCUBE's ad solution. nCUBE's ad solution is deployed in 67 markets worldwide, according to company data, including the nation's largest interconnect Los Angeles.
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CAREER ENGINEER
Getting the Skinny on IP Telephony
With services like Vonage suddenly taking off, cable is starting to see a real business case for IP telephony. That's why it may be more important than ever to take a course like "Delivering IP Telephony." The two-day seminar will be presented by the SCTE's Joel Welch on October 23 and 24 on the Cisco campus in San Jose, California
This seminar geared to technical managers, supervisors, senior level technicians and others deploying IP telephony. Topics of discussion will include fundamental technologies, issues and considerations in implementing a PacketCable(tm) telephony system.
The two-day course offers a detailed look at critical components such as how the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) works and considerations for interfacing with it, circuit-switched and PacketCable call set-up and tear down, PacketCable architecture, interfaces, security, potential problems, and more.
The cost to attend the seminar is $495 for SCTE members; $645 for non-members. For more information, visit www.scte.org/events/index.cfm?pID=601#iptechnology
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BROADBAND SOAPBOX
Power Outages: How Did You Deal?
Most MSOs affected by the Great Power Outage of '03 handled the whole mess with aplomb, according to accounts. So there's got to be a bunch of you out there with some great lessons-learned from your "powerless" experience.
To share your war stories with other Pipeline readers, send an e-mail to to comment. All letters may be published, and edited for style or length.
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SCTE ANNOUNCEMENTS
Catch a Rising Star
Can You Name That Rising Star? Nominate an outstanding engineer under age 30 for the 2004 Young Engineer of the Year Award, presented by Pace Micro Technology, Multichannel News and SCTE. Get details at http://www.scte.org/membership/index.cfm?pID=207. Your candidate may be the one to join the ranks of the award's past winners: Pragash Pillai of Charter (2003) and Robert Pendarvis of Comcast (2002).
Get up to Speed on Cable's Hottest Technologies at Seminar Central--SCTE will hold its second annual Seminar Central Oct. 21-24 on the Cisco Campus in San Jose, Calif. This year's collection of learning opportunities focuses on new services and technologies such as VOD, home networking and DOCSIS 2.0. Plus, save $75 when you register to attend more than one seminar. Select your seminars at http://www.scte.org/events/index.cfm?pID=601.
Give Credit Where It's Due: Nominate Someone for an ET Award--SCTE is accepting nominations for its prestigious Emerging Technologies (ET) Awards. The ET Awards include the Polaris and Star of Integrity awards as well as a new award: IP Innovator. Each of the three award winners will be recognized during SCTE's Conference on Emerging Technologies (ET), set for Jan. 13-15 in Dallas. Additional details about the awards and nomination forms are available at http://www.scte.org/membership/index.cfm?pID=153. The ET Awards are made possible by Cisco Systems, CommScope, C-COR, CED, Multichannel News, and SCTE.
New DOCSIS Book Available From SCTE Bookstore--Innovations and advanced versions of DOCSIS have hit the market more quickly than engineers have been able to create the roadmaps to implement them. Now, in this new first-of-its-kind book, Optimizing the Future with Next-Generation DOCSIS: Mechanics, Options and Issues on the Road to 2.0, by Fred Dawson, you have a comprehensive guide to building these complex platforms. Order your copy ($55 for SCTE members) at http://www.scte.org/acb/stores/2/product1.asp?SID=2&Product_ID=264 or .
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Joe Matarese
On Demand Considerations in the All-Digital Network
SCTE Member Since 2003
Title: Chief Technical Officer, CTO nCUBE Corporation (www.ncube.com)
As the industry transitions to an all-digital network, what are the top three issues that CTOs need to be thinking about now to prepare for the transition for on-demand applications? All-digital networks will make more on-demand services possible. The biggest issue will be one of prioritization. Which use of the digital network will provide the greatest return and what is the best mix of bundled services to attract and retain subscribers?
Video on demand (VOD) services including high definition (HD) VOD, Switched Broadcast, Network PVR and Advertising-supported VOD will continue to build upon the popularity of early movies on demand (MOD) and subscription video on demand (SVOD) applications. Operators must be proactive in measuring subscriber interest in these services through carefully executed deployment strategies coupled with appropriate marketing. Wall Street will not be forgiving of those who fail to capitalize meaningfully on the transition.
The second important issue is bandwidth management. All-digital will free up bandwidth, but one must be careful not to become complacent about greater bandwidth availability. All-digital networks will allow for better tracking of bandwidth utilization and more robust traffic engineering. Operators must demand tools to accurately monitor and manage bandwidth on all-digital networks such that the balance of triple play services can be optimized.
The third critical issue is differentiation among interactive services to address the varying needs of subscribers. Many subscribers will continue to want nothing more than broadcast programming, with better interactive program guides to help locate interesting shows.
Subscribers with greater time-sensitivity will avail themselves of on-demand services so that conventional programming selections can be adapted to personal schedules. The most demanding set of subscribers will be a younger generation brought up on greater interactivity, who desire more sophisticated applications like gaming and home shopping that make use of TV-based video and audio to a degree not found nor available by way of high speed data services on home computers.
Operators must be prepared with a range of applications and supporting infrastructure – set-top boxes, compelling user interfaces, back office software – to offer each individual subscriber the choice and flexibility to extract appropriate value.
What’s going to be necessary for HD VOD to be deployed on a mass scale? Is it a question of industry standards, or economics? One of the beauties of HD VOD is that very little is required to deploy on a mass scale other than proliferation of HD-capable set-top boxes. Industry standards are needed, but these are not difficult to achieve. With falling transport costs, bandwidth likely will not be an issue.
The remaining challenge will be in the area of content storage and streaming. Most "first generation" VOD systems will need to undergo an expensive forklift upgrade to keep pace with the demands of HD VOD.
Moreover, newer server platforms based on off-the-shelf storage and server components still do not provide the cost-efficiency, proven reliability or scalability needed to meet future content requirements to which HD VOD contributes heavily. nCUBE prides itself on having built a "future proof" server platform that can easily scale to accommodate HD VOD.
How can operators best manage their on-demand deployments given the complexity of integration issues? There are two sets of issues, really. First, there are issues associated with integrating components into a deployable solution. Second, there are issues associated with operating the system after it has been deployed.
In either case, the key is for operators to choose management applications that simplify integration and operation of on demand systems. Moreover, operators must adequately prepare and train their staffs in order to maximize the return on investment. On demand systems don't run themselves. Powerful tools for making on-demand systems operate efficiently are worthless if they go unused.
What kind of impact has the move towards open platforms had for engineers in the field? Does it make their jobs any easier? In the long term, of course, open platforms will lower total cost of ownership by encouraging competition among vendors and by encouraging the development of standard interfaces between components. Standard interfaces lower the risks associated with engineering development by making interoperability easier.
Now, on the path to open platforms there is usually a time where there are a fair amount of challenges and costs associated with integration. This is because open platforms encourage more vendors to participate in the construction of solutions. More vendors means more permutations of system components that will need to be tested thoroughly. But remember, the reason for open platforms is to make sure that is a transition rather than a permanent state.
What role do codecs such as MPEG 4 play in the transition to everything on demand (EOD)? Codecs like MPEG-4 and Windows Media 9 will reduce the bandwidth requirements for video streams by a factor of two or more. This will further reduce transport costs that have already been dropping rapidly with the move to switched GigE transport. Advanced compression will also reduce server cost per stream as video content will require less storage and lower streaming bit rates.
Because MPEG-4 and WM9 can be encapsulated into MPEG-2 TS at constant bit rate, there may be little impact on existing server and transport infrastructure. The main impacts will be at the encoder and decoder. Encoding specifications will need to be formalized in the same manner as with the Cable Labs VOD Content spec, and encoder implementations will need to be optimized to deliver quality MPEG-4 streams. Decoder chips will need to be integrated into production set-top boxes. It will take some time before such set-tops displace the rather large installed base of MPEG-2 set-tops, but the advent of a retail approach toward set-top distribution may speed this transition when it does eventually occur.
The average subscriber doesn't care about MPEG-4 vs. MPEG-2, but MPEG-4 functionality can be rolled out as part of attractive and compelling consumer electronics device packages.
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