Ensuring Reliable Delivery of Triple Play Bundled Services Over FTTx

Abstract:
The pressure is on TELCO Service Providers. As competition increases, they need to act fast before competitors’ service offerings significantly impact their profits. Bundled services of voice, data, and video are the solutions that they are choosing in their quest to retain both customers and profits. Cable MSOs are offering voice and data to their subscribers on top of broadcast video, and they are rolling out new video-on-demand services. Wireless carriers are taking voice business away from traditional voice providers, and they are offering new wireless broadband data services, including video, to their own subscribers. The more new services competitors offer, the more important it becomes for TELCOs to ensure that their services meet the high expectations of customers, both new and existing. To survive, TELCOs are beefing up their broadband networks with fiber as they add video to their voice and data offerings. Service Providers are making FTTx networks an essential part of their competitive strategies to offer Triple Play services– IP-based voice, data, and video. Fortunately, the technologies used to build FTTx networks, including passive optical networks, digital subscriber line (DSL), and new video compression techniques are approaching practical price points. FTTx networks are playing an increasingly important role in helping Service Providers stay in the game, retain existing customers, and ultimately, win new ones. As if the demands of deploying FTTx networks are not difficult enough, Service Providers must also ensure that the Triple Play services they deliver perform flawlessly. If Service Providers successfully deploy FTTx physical plants, but the services they deliver are sub-par, they face the possibility of forever losing once loyal customers to competitors that are offering the same type of service packages with better quality. Customers become more and more unforgiving as competition increases, and there are no signs of competition slowing anytime soon. To accomplish their goals of building FTTx networks that deliver high-quality, IP-based Triple Play applications, TELCOs must add an application-aware test and service assurance strategy to their arsenal of test processes and procedures. New test and measurement equipment as well as service assurance systems with highly integrated capabilities and multi-port access are necessities. These solutions must enable field technicians and operational support personnel to test the quality of service (QoS) of each IP-based application and test the network at the physical layer. Both the network’s physical transport mechanisms and packet flow mechanisms must meet stringent parameters in order to deliver proper application-specific QoS levels.