Communications Test & Measurement
The stakes are high in the competition for voice customers. Entering a market dominated by telcos, cable operators have to increase their average revenue per household and also ensure carrier-class network performance and POTS quality service at all times. Competitive pricing in the high-speed internet and television markets, however, has curtailed sustained investment into the packet voice infrastructure. High up-front operational costs due to service and network complexity, lack of voice expertise and management processes, and the real-time nature of packet voice have impeded cable operators’ ability to rollout, manage, troubleshoot, and ensure VoIP service quality using existing resources and processes.
JDSU’s NetComplete™ Cable Voice Service Assurance Solution is an integrated, comprehensive system for managing VoIP services over a packet-based cable network. It provides unparalleled visibility into the end-user experience.
Through data collection, consolidation, and correlation, NetComplete overcomes many operational obstacles by facilitating efficient VoIP service turn-up verification, rapid fault isolation and troubleshooting, and network and service performance management. It allows cable operators to effectively scale their network and operational resources as service penetration increases.
An integrated solution designed specifically for cable operators’ VoIP service assurance process, NetComplete provides:
Using the intelligence provided by this centralized, integrated system, cable operators achieve faster service rollouts, an increased number of satisfied customers, improved MTTR, and decreased maintenance and service costs.
A sophisticated integrated toolset comprised of JDSU’s robust, scaleable software, instruments, and interfaces to CMTS network elements and customer record systems, NetComplete removes barriers between functional areas.
Continuous proactive monitoring by JDSU test heads and probes detect degradation or hot spots. Active call and capture campaigns can be initiated from a central server to measure voice quality and identify potential problems. Network performance and voice quality data sent back to the server are analyzed and correlated, enabling cable operators to proactively identify and manage TopN users, predict trends and potential sources of degradation, and immediately detect conditions that are a forecast of future problems.
NetComplete’s components include:
NetOptimize Operations Support System
This carrier-class OSS software application combines service and network performance and capacity management functions with a fully scaleable architecture that keeps pace with network and subscriber growth. QoS metrics, with imminent problems highlighted on consolidated views, enables degradations to be immediately identified and reported, while the correlation of network, quality, and customer data fully qualifies the customer experience and identifies and/or predicts network and service problems. Key features include:
QT-600
The JDSU QT-600 provides end-to-end VoIP QoS visibility with passive call monitoring, call capture and analysis, and active call campaigns. On-demand test access, via NetOptimize, enables passive call “studies” and calls generation to detect potential and existing problems. Sectionalization and troubleshooting prevent customers from experiencing poor quality. Key features include:
RSAM 5600 and PathTrak
JDSU’s RSAM-5600 and PathTrak systems perform proactive and on-demand monitoring of the downstream and upstream channels of the RF cable plant. Integrating these data sources with the QT-600 metrics and CMTS statistics allows cable plant problems to be rapidly sectionalized to ensure packet voice call quality.
Key PathTrak features include:
Key RSAM-5600 features include:
CMTS interface
A comprehensive interface that provides access to the critical equipment, application layers, and technology being monitored. Key features include:
Customer record import interface
Automated customer record import for subscriber-specific data enables service metrics and network topology data to be merged and correlated. This capability lets cable operators initiate customer-specific troubleshooting and problem resolution measures. Key features include:
Service turn-up verification
During service turn-up, on-demand calls with auto-answer are generated. The voice quality is measured, verifying that QoS specifications were met at service hand-off, and results are stored to provide a quality baseline in case of future problems.
Proactive monitoring
Probes distributed throughout the network, and connected at key aggregation points, monitor live VoIP calls continuously or at scheduled intervals. By defining test connections between the probes, cable providers can detect service-impacting conditions within specific network segments and initiate immediate corrective action.
Reactive troubleshooting
Probes located in cable head-end hub sites can simultaneously monitor thousands of packet voice calls. The information is automatically correlated to a specific customer MTA and its corresponding CMTS port, upstream channel, and downstream channel for rapid sectionalization between the cable plant, hub site, and IP transport network. For connectivity and route-specific issues, calls can be generated on demand to isolate the location and cause of quality problems. Additionally, to analyze PSTN and customer premises issues like echo, filtering can be used to capture only specific customer calls. The data is uploaded for audio replay analysis.
Screen displays provide network operations technicians with the data they need to accurately troubleshoot intermittent problems, which may be missed if historical data was not available.
United States