It is very clear that there is an ongoing shift in the way consumers get their news, information, and entertainment. Everyone wants a unique, branded viewing experience and therefore the emergence of IP streaming has become one of the most vital components of premium TV operations. New players are en-cashing on the video rich experience in the internet connected television sets. Its just not TV anymore. Its internet TV! The Cable TV Industry which is in a war with other technologies for living room dominance is constantly re-inventing itself. Its time to think out of the traditional box while factoring in all the bases that have to be covered without tilting the ‘cost benefit equation’ in the wrong direction. On this aspect the revolutionary DOCSIS 3.1 technology is known to give more bang for the buck!-a high performing low cost technology.
For a long time now, DOCSIS is known to be the technology behind cable broadband services. The new specifications lead to better performance and faster upstream and downstream speeds and what makes DOCSIS 3.0 different from its predecessors in its ability to support multiple QAM channels and bind them together. This leads to staggering speeds upto 10 Gbps downstream and 1 Gbps upstream leading upto a 50 percent improvement in spectrum efficiency. This is the result of optimizing the copper infrastructure already in place. For most operators the shift to end-to-end fiber technology (FTTH) would be more attractive as it enables the highest bandwidth possible but it isn’t ubiquitous yet. The cost and time involved in deploying fiber however has slowed down widespread adoption as it wouldn’t make the best economic sense. With the need for the best return on investment for operators, DOCSIS provides the perfect solution as it enables the speeds over existing HFC ( Hybrid Fiber Coaxial ) networks already installed at homes/businesses and also the desirable characteristics of the fiber – ‘high bandwidth and low interference’ are not compromised.
Empowered by such advances in the technology, service providers must effectively utilize these viable and cost effective options. Shaping strategies in the much broader context of ‘multi-service virtualization’ will help find them the best business outcomes. Virtualization of TV operations by orchestrating the devices of a network in a framework will enable us to make the desired changes. Not to be falling behind in the race, WebNMS which has a feature rich framework supports all the latest versions of DOSCIS allowing operators to view the operational performance metrics of their infrastructure and apply customized thresholds to these metrics to provide accurate real-time visibility into the performances across data, voice and video services. This is necessary for operators to achieve the levels of quality assurance essential to building ROI.
Innumerable benefits of the WebNMS platform with regard to customizability and dynamic provisioning will help optimize performance and improve customer satisfaction. It is pertinent for operators to choose wisely about the high speed broadband strategies in order to maintain or even grow in their market share in the next decade.