Innovative collaboration with Broadcom produces a virtual meter in every home.
EdgeTrak, a proprietary JDSU test client built into participating manufacturers’ customer premises equipment (CPE), uniquely combines Broadcom Full-Band Capture technology with JDSU testing expertise. It enables innovative remote qualification and troubleshooting with quality measurements (MER) for all downstream digital carriers and patented ingress under QAM signal analysis to detect interference such as LTE and other off-air signals.
"JDSU has moved their expertise of field meters into Broadcom DOCSIS® CPE by leveraging Full-Band Capture Technology," says Brian Wheeler, Broadcom Senior Product Line Manager. "EdgeTrak will allow MSOs to enhance the entire Broadcom portfolio of Full-Band Capture modems and gateways by enabling the power of a field meter inside the CPE and further reducing operational expense."
"This collaborative innovation between recognized industry leaders creates a disruptive technology. Remotely accessible digital analysis at the true network edge will be a key component to game changing and much more efficient HFC maintenance practices for cable operators globally," says Kevin Oliver, Vice President and General Manager, Media, Access and Content, JDSU.
EdgeTrak measurements can be accessed via standard SNMP polling methods through integration into existing MSO polling and analysis/display toolsets or using the JDSU EdgeTrak Viewer software package.
Benefits
- In depth, remote downstream visibility at the true network edge – the CPE: Get quantifiable digital performance information to enhance subjective downstream spectrum analysis.
- Avoid unnecessary truck rolls with improved technician dispatch accuracy: Lower costs by leveraging a fleet of remotely-accessible test probes to localize plant issues instead of rolling trucks.
- Increase customer satisfaction: Make fewer home-service calls and lower MTTR by troubleshooting issues remotely. After fixing service-impacting impairments verify that they are truly fixed with measurements from inside the customer’s location.
For more information on EdgeTrak visit www.jdsu.com/go/EdgeTrak.
DSAMobile has won the TMC Cable Spotlight of the Year Award. TMC says, "JDS Uniphase Corporation was recognized for its DSAMobile iPad app, which increases technician productivity with intuitive portable interface and the ability to view all necessary test results, including all channels and multiple measurements, on one large screen remotely."
Read the full article
here.
Date and Time:
Thursday, May 16
11:00 AM - 12:00 PM EDT
Video-Network Analytics for Evolving Video Services
While the evolution of digital video has intensified competition and enriched the viewer experience, it has also made the network operator’s task of assuring service quality increasingly complex, particularly at the network edge. Gathering meaningful insights is no longer a simple matter of measuring packet loss and latency, but now requires simultaneous deep intelligence about IP transmission and MPEG service layers, as well as content measurements and metadata monitoring. With the ever-expanding traffic volumes, operators must process data efficiently to properly assure services.
The JDSU Video Stream Analyzer (VSA) migrates leading-edge compressed video intelligence on to a powerful, economical off-the-shelf server hardware delivering a platform that is perfectly suited for video network and content analytics.
This webinar explains more about our video network analytics such as:
- Use cases for monitoring loudness at the network edge
- Monitoring video and metadata
- How JDSU evolved point-based video analysis tools to an analytics platform to optimally monitor evolving video services at the network edge
Speaker: Eli Kerch, Video Solutions Architect
The new DSAMobile Prem iPad App video provides a quick overview of the DSAMobile Prem™ iPad® application with emphasis on its value to cable companies in improving installation technician performance, leading to improved customer experience, lower churn, fewer repeat truck rolls, and more profitable operations. Watch it now.....
The JDSU Test Productivity Pack (TPP) incorporates a tremendous amount of capabilities for the users to manage their DSAM's and the associated test files.
To understand some of the features and to help users get the most out of TPP, the embedded application notes are easily opened by selecting the content related application notes which are identified by a question mark enclosed in an orange circle. By selecting this link, a PDF application note relating to the subject is opened.
If you want to browse and view all the application notes that are available without hunting through the different screens, the app notes can be found where the TPP web application is installed. This is typically in the following directory on the server for TPP 5.0.
C:\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\Tomcat 7.0\webapps\ActernaTPP\doc
These app notes cover topics ranging from User and Asset Management to more complex topics of Database Mining and Backup and Restore procedures.
JDSU continues to help service providers improve customer experience by introducing complete test coverage for bursty data applications, comprising the majority of today’s network traffic. JDSU has integrated burst testing enhancements into RFC 2544 and Y.1564 SamComplete™ automated test procedures for its T-BERD®/MTS platforms as well as its Ethernet Service Assurance solution, NetComplete®.
This critical test helps service providers identify buffer provisioning issues and verify committed burst sizes (CBSs) now specified in many service-level agreements (SLAs). In combination with JDSU award-winning TrueSpeed™ RFC 6349 test suite, service providers can verify correct provisioning of the expected buffers to reduce frame loss as well as verify performance and experience their network like their customers do.
JDSU worked with leading service providers who required this combination as part of their Ethernet service turn-up procedure. This new JDSU test functionality reduces repeat repair calls and provides these benefits:
- Full automation and ease of use: Reduces complexity and operational expense through automated tools that minimizes technician time and expedites time to revenue
- Repeatable reliability: Relies on standards-based test procedures such as RFC 2544, Y.1564, or RFC 6349 with clear pass/fail results for service providers based on the new MEF 23.1 recommendations
- Improved customer experience: Ensures correct buffer handling so customers experience better network and application performance.
The mobility network evolution to 4G/LTE radio technologies is supported by both distributed antenna systems (DAS) and small-cell deployments that leverage more cost-effective fiber-to-the-antenna (FTTA) technologies. Over these fibers, newer protocols such as the common public radio interface (CPRI) and the open base station architecture initiative (OBSAI) are tailored to support emerging bandwidth and service requirements.
Register to join JDSU representatives to learn how the JDSU T-BERD®/MTS platform can improve FTTA deployment reliability as well as reduce repair time with CPRI and OBSAI testing.
JDSU recommends a robust testing methodology including bit-error rate testing (BERT) and delay testing during installation and protocol-aware monitoring capability to identify alarms during repair.
This presentation will include a live demonstration of the T-BERD/MTS CPRI application.
WEBINAR DETAILS
Date and Time: Tuesday, February 12
11:00 AM - 12:00 PM ET
Our experience working with large service providers in Asia and North America shows that ensuring a quality customer experience requires verifying the link between the radio equipment (RE) and radio equipment controllers (REC). These links comprise dark fiber, a DWDM network, or CPRI over OTN. Eliminating dropped calls because of missed handoffs or errors in baseband processing and poor data throughput caused by TCP packet retransmissions requires verifying Layer 1 and 2 parameters, like error-free transmission and delay.
For more information about this new JDSU solution, visit our website.
LTE deployments are challenging Mobile Backhaul Providers worldwide. With LTE we are now seeing a truly integrated service deployment where all applications (traditional voice, interactive data and streaming video) are being processed simultaneously over towers and carried over networks traditionally designed for single applications. Delays and poor customer experience ensue with no clear explanation visible until now. Come join JDSU for a Webinar covering the importance of testing and validating the networks ability to handle bursty traffic.
Join JDSU representatives to learn about our complete test coverage for bursty data traffic applications. Increasingly service-level agreements specify a committed burst size (CBS) due to end-customer demand for high reliability on their business services and wireless backhaul services. Consequently, carriers must revise their service-activation test methodology to prove that their networks can handle bursty traffic.
JDSU recommends taking an integrated approach to burst testing with a methodology that includes testing for CBS as part of an RFC 2544 or Y.1564 SamComplete test and also testing application throughput using bursty TCP traffic with an RFC 6349 TrueSpeed™ test. The combination of testing network buffer configuration for CBS as well as their performance definitively proves network robustness to bursty traffic and is an integral part of JDSU automated and award-winning service-activation workflows.
The presentation will include a live demonstration of an RFC 2544 test including a CBS and a TrueSpeed test to illustrate the importance of testing for both configuration problems and for customer experience. You will see how quickly and easily these service activation tests run using JDSU automated workflows.
We hope you can join us to listen in on December 6.
Over the last decade, the return path has gone through significant change. In the good old days, available spectrum was plentiful, so you could pick and choose service frequencies and bandwidths for optimal performance. You could assess the return path or node condition by looking at unused reverse spectrum. And, service performance could be assessed with relatively simple analog carrier-level and noise measurements. When DOCSISÒ and its QAM-modulated TDMA upstream carriers were deployed, we could troubleshoot the one, or even two, upstream carriers and keep things in check by monitoring noise in the unused spectrum. Then demand for bandwidth sky-rocketed, requiring more and more upstream carriers, and wider carrier bandwidths with higher-order modulation. Ultimately, today most of the useable reverse spectrum is being used.
This transition to higher upstream bandwidth usage changes the requirements for return-path monitoring. The abundance of active upstream signals obscures viewing spectrum/noise-related data, requiring in-band and in-channel analysis to see and troubleshoot upstream transmission impairments.
But that’s only half of the story. This new information must be usable (actionable), both to solve problems and to drive operational efficiencies. JDSU will present a webinar on Thursday, November 15 at 10:00 AM EST, covering the current dynamics of upstream-carrier monitoring, and offering some practical, innovative solutions. We will provide real-life examples to help illustrate the value of these new monitoring and troubleshooting capabilities.
Be sure to signt up for the webinar now as spots will go fast! Creatures of habit. That’s what we are, in the world of network operations. It’s in our professional DNA. We like process, procedure. We like predictability and repeatable results. We like the ‘IF: Then’ statements. It streamlines operations, creates efficiencies and lets us model costs and manage massive workflows. It makes our lives easier. Heck, it makes our lives possible. Great network ops managers find ways to extract the expertise of their staff and transcode that to operations procedures. These are the folks who craft our “Best Practices”. However, habit isn’t always our friend. Sometimes we get so programmed on process that we miss key windows where evolution of process would generate even greater efficiencies.
Take, for example, one of the hallmark programs that JDSU has helped the cable industry implement – Home Certification. Cable has relied on the RF meter from day one. Nobody on the dark side of the hill was getting video if the coax run wasn’t clean enough to get the signal there. If you wanted to get cable, someone was coming to your house to run the drop, and ideally test it with a meter to confirm it was good. And if you reported a problem with cable, someone was coming back to the house to make sure it wasn’t a problem with the drop. So universal is the cable tech’s role that truck rolls are modeled in virtually every cable network operations business case. To standardize and streamline the process, Home Certification programs were born. The concept was fairly obvious, in hindsight. Hundreds of techs were in the field every day, each armed with a meter, but each individually using it as they saw needed to confirm the service was good. The good ones used it regularly to confirm RF levels and error ratios. The not so good techs might just turn the TV on and confirm video was on one or two channels, and then leave without ever turning the meter on. When that subscriber reported an issue a few weeks later, nobody knew exactly what the RF performance was when the cable tech last left the premise. Did the tech (or contractor) run a good clean drop? Not necessarily. Do we know that the RF level was 0 dB at the set-top? Nope. Ok roll a truck, let’s a get a tech out there…
Home Certification resolved this by standardizing the set of tests the tech would perform and automating the test sequence on the meter. Now when a new subscriber is turned up, the field ops manager knows exactly what tests the tech is administering, and exactly what levels and error ratio the drop had before the tech left. He has a standard expectation as the service level that subscriber had when the tech left, and now when the subscriber reports an issue the operator can work from valid assumptions about the quality of the drop. Voila, instant efficiency gains. Home certification remains a great tool for cable operations, but most of its value is tied to the less dynamic voice and data services. In these cases, a good certification of the RF drop can confirm that quality of service complaints will not be due to issues at the drop. But with the advent of digital video, home certification is no longer sufficient for segmenting problems. When a subscriber calls with a video issue, we find that we are quickly back in the model of rolling a truck as the first response. Why? Habit - we always have. That’s how we segment the network – start at the drop and work backwards. In many cases, cable ops teams are finding that they are working all the way back to the headend when chasing video problems, and ultimately are finding that something in the MPEG stream or the RF modulation is causing the problem at the Hub. At that point, there’s a hand-off of sorts between two operations groups. Field Ops turns the ticket over to the inside plant, or headend engineering group, who will use more complex analyzers to troubleshoot the video equipment in the headend, or even further upstream into the inside plant. Let’s stop and look at the timeline here. Depending on how many times this particular pair of tech ops and headend engineering has been down this path, we’re probably on average several hours or several days into chasing this problem before that hand-off occurs and the appropriate operations unit is tasked to the issue. If only we had been regularly qualifying the video services at the headend handoff to the HFC…
Enter Headend Certification. Rack the meter in the headend, define the acceptable RF and MPEG performance thresholds, scan through the channel lineup, confirm those metrics for each channel, and store the results. Generate regular reports to indicate all services are clean and the RF carriers are in good health at the top of the HFC. Now when we have a reported video issue from a subscriber we can check two data points specific to the service in question for that subscriber – the home certification record and the headend/hub status. In a matter of minutes we can clear the RF at the top of the HFC, and isolate deeper MPEG issues that originated in the headend or upstream. Tech’s aren’t rolled to the field unless we know there was not a problem leaving the headend, and headend engineers are dispatched immediately when an issue was present upstream of modulation. Voila again, instant efficiency gains. Seems obvious in hindsight, but then again, so did Home Certification once upon a time…
JDSU is introducing the new DSAMobile™ iPad application at the SCTE show this month in Orlando. This new application garnered 4.5 diamonds from industry judges in the Broadband Technology Reports Diamond Technology Review. According to one Diamonds judge, the iPad’s networking capability “will take the DSAM series to another level” and will make the tablet the technician’s “second screen.” The number of diamonds received is significant: a “4” signifies “Excellent product with technical features and performance that provide clear and substantial benefits;” and a “5 signifies “Superb product that sets new standards for performance and provides groundbreaking and new technical milestones.” Find out more: the DSAMobile app Diamond review, or check out the product brief, or better still come to the booth and get a live demonstration.