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THE PREMIER MAGAZINE OF BROADBAND TECHNOLOGY | www.CEDmagazine.com | November/December 2014

2014 Women in Technology Award winner:

Sherita Ceasar

Cable-Tec Expo: Taking care of business Prepping for the smart home Using the cloud for maximum benefit

inperspective EDITORIAL Editorial Director David Mantey david.mantey@advantagemedia.com Editor-In-Chief Brian Santo brian.santo@advantagemedia.com

End game re-think

Senior Editor Mike Robuck michael.robuck@advantagemedia.com ADVERTISING AND SALES General Manager Nick Pinto nick.pinto@advantagemedia.com

In the end, everyone was going to have a fiber connection. Gigabits a second to every home! Except now, maybe not. The fiber, not the gigabits. Which is to say, no fiber, yes gigabits. Confused? Who isn’t?

The cable industry is rushing to develop DOCSIC 3.1, which promises to deliver up to 1 Gbps, and anywhere between 10- to 17 Gbps with further refinements. On coax wire.

By Brian Santo The telco industry, meanwhile, is rushing to develop G.Fast technology, which promises to deliver up to 1 Gbps.

Editor-in-Chief On twisted copper pair.

Copper is not just still alive; it’s full of vigor.

Copper is not Yet Verizon has been on a tear ripping out copper wherjust still alive; ever it has FiOS. It gets cagy when asked if it’s going to stop there. Meanwhile, AT&T earlier this year proposed to the it’s full of FCC a market test in which it would examine the transition to all-IP networking – and oh, by the way, that part of it vigor. would involve ripping out copper.

Those two are eager to ditch the highly regulated phone business entirely if they can establish that wireless broadband is an acceptable equivalent.

But do viewers need 1 Gbps? For all the buzz Google is inspiring with Google Fiber, its 1 Gbps customers still have no idea how to get even close to exhausting that bounty.

So do Google’s competitors need install fiber? With little real demand for 1 Gbps (other than a desire to have it, just because) and with D3.1 and G.fast able to support 1 Gbps if and when it’s needed, the answer appears to be no, with some exceptions.

There’s growing interest in a hybrid approach that will enable companies to run FTTH from nodes only to neighborhoods where a provider has a greenfield or a cluster of subscribers willing to pay extra for the privilege.

The cost of copper versus the cost of fiber has been essentially a wash for a couple of years in greenfields, but that’s still only 50 homes here, 200 homes there.

Oddly enough, it might be the smallest service providers who end up being the most consistent market for fiber. Some are doing it now. Others were going to wait to install G.fast or DOCSIS 3.1 anyway, and if they wait long enough, fiber might end up being the cheaper upgrade.

To read past columns, visit www.CE Dmagazine.com

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november/december ’14 CED MAGAZINE

Features

Volume 40, number 6

Departments UPFRONT 6 6 7 7

President throws his weight behind Title II Number of broadband subs to surpass pay TV The dam breaks: HBO, ESPN, CBS going direct Viewers watching more TV on broadband

FEATURES 22

CLOUD NETWORKING: MAXMIZING THE BEN-

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HOME NETWORKING: EVOLVING HOME NET-

EFITS OF CLOUD-BASED PAY TV STRATEGIES WORKS TO ENABLE SMART HOMES

COLUMNS

Women men in Technology Award Aw 12 2014 ar winner: Sherita Ceasar Sherita Ceasar has done more than enough in her telecommunications career to merit winning this year’s Women in Technology Award, but her legacy going forward is built upon her passion for helping others.

By Mike Robuck, Senior Editor

16 Taking Care of Business With the entire pay TV universe being shaken, it was a comfort to come back home, to Denver, the cradle of the cable industry, for Cable-Tec Expo, where taking care of the nuts and bolts of the cable business was the order of the day. That meant DOCSIS 3.1, Wi-Fi, the cloud, and more.

By Brian Santo, Editor-in-Chief, Mike Robuck, Senior Editor, Craig Kuhl, Contributing Editor

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3 8 9 10 11 30

IN PERSPECTIVE MEMORY LANE OPEN MIC ENGINEERING-WISE CICIORA’S CORNER CAPITAL CURRENTS

ALWAYSON 28 29 29 29

New products Web extras Ad index Company list

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UPfront

Latest industry news and insights

President throws his weight behind Title II

P

resident Barack Obama Consumer groups were largely came out in favor of rein favor of the proposal, but the classifying broadband unindustry instantly went ballistic. der Title II, even as FCC chairman CTIA president and former Tom Wheeler appeared to have FCC commissioner Meredith been backing off from the notion Attwell Baker called the proposal a in the face of furious opposition “gross overreaction.” NCTA presifrom the industry. The President dent and former FCC Chairman said the decision is the FCC’s to Michael Powell claimed to be make, but his endorsement of “stunned,” called the measure “exTitle II reclassification strengthtreme,” and said the issue should be ens Wheeler’s negotiating position. thrown to Congress (where Powell The issue of reclassification knows the idea will die of neglect). ostensibly arises from the issue ACA president Matt Polka disof network neutrality, specifically missed Title II as a throwback to the paid prioritization. There’s little FDR era. Comcast and Suddenlink evidence any major companies had issued releases seemingly in “Title II is the wrong approach that would put at risk the nation’s Internet are engaged in paid prioritization, minutes railing against the proposal. economy that today remains the envy of the world,” according to the Internet Innovation Alliance. though AT&T’s defense of userIn the face of such howling indirected priority has been misinterdustry opposition, it’s a very open preted as an endorsement of the practice. Also in encouraging competition, which is weak in question how much wind the President will end misinterpreted have been the peering agreements many markets and lacking in many more. up providing for Wheeler’s sails. While he explicThe counterproposal is to acknowledge the itly called for Title II reclassification, the rest of Verizon and Comcast have signed with Netflix, a misconception Netflix helped foment.

FCC has some authority to monitor the industry his statement was essentially a recommitment to Title II reclassification will give the FCC for network neutrality violations under Section an open Internet and to commonly cited network unambiguous authority to enforce net neutrality 706 of the Communications Act, but that author- neutrality provisions such as no blocking, no rules, but network neutrality has always been a ity would be tenuous, and it would leave the FCC throttling (admittedly, some violations there), side issue for Wheeler, who is far more interested with no authority to encourage competition. increased transparency, and no paid prioritization.

Number of broadband subs to surpass pay TV subs any day now During the next few months, and for the first time in history, the number of home broadband subscriptions will surpass the number of home pay-TV subscriptions.

The video market has been at a saturation point for some time. Indeed, the pay TV industry as a whole has been losing subscribers through the last few quarters.

There is some evidence that younger viewers are not signing up for pay TV, and speculation they might not ever, but no one is claiming they have the data to demonstrate a causal relationship between pay TV and broadband trends.

That said, worrisome data is accumulating. The Diffusion

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Group has determined that 14 percent of adult broadband users do not use a legacy pay-TV service, up from 9 percent in 2011, the 36-month period during which home pay-TV subscriptions began to decline.

“Today, residential broadband services are used in 75 percent of U.S. households, meaning 13 million broadband households are currently doing without a traditional pay TV service,” said Michael Greeson, TDG president.

While these consumers pose an obvious and growing challenge for incumbents, they provide an excellent opportunity for new video purveyors, TDG noted.

The dam breaks: HBO, ESPN, CBS going direct

H

BO was first, with CBS hard on its heels. ESPN deliberated a bit but eventually followed, and CBS figured it might as well go all-in and said its Showtime subsidiary was also going to offer subscriptions directly to viewers, all to be delivered over the top (OTT), all promising to start sometime next year.

Viewers, analysts, and investors have been pestering HBO for years to offer direct subscriptions. The company smiled and swore it would stand with its distribution partners and stay in the programming bundle.

Why would HBO betray its distribution partners? The better question might be: why would HBO’s distribution partners think HBO was content to watch millions and millions and millions of people all over the world pirate Game of Thrones? All that money being left on the table? Not a problem. No, really. Trust us.

CBS is another instance of a company leaving money on the table, as the major holdout from HuluPlus. CBS’s options were to join HuluPlus and – what? Everybody gets a smaller slice of the $8? HuluPlus raises its fee? Or CBS could go it alone, and keep the entire $6 a month per sub.

ESPN? It has no rivals as the king of content. The only surprise is that HBO went first.

Now the question is, how many other companies will follow?

Cablevision CEO James Dolan said a significant number of channels were preparing to

make the same move, but the betting line is that not many will. There is too much uncertainty about going over the top; there are too many questions: • Are there enough people who don’t have a pay TV service, or who subscribe only to a basic tier, to make going direct worthwhile?

• If not, will there be enough people who want only ESPN, HBO, CBS, and Showtime (possibly supplemented by Hulu and Netflix), who will ditch their pay TV subscriptions to make going direct worthwhile?

• How many people will think CBS is worth $6 a month, especially if they can get all the other major networks for $8 a month through HuluPlus?

• If CBS is successful, will that inspire the other members of HuluPlus to pull out of that partnership?

• If it does, how many people will then pay $6 a month for each of the major networks? How many networks will each viewer sign up for?

• How much will HBO be able to get? How much will ESPN be able to get?

• How many other channels will follow suit?

• How many channels will be able to afford to? Of the hundreds of channels out there, how many can charge enough per subscriber to remain viable?

• How many individual channels can any viewer subscribe to before the pay TV bundle becomes a better deal?

Game of Thrones is the most pirated content in the world.

• Will HBO, ESPN, and whatever other channels decide to join them charge so much that the pay TV bundle becomes a fantastically better deal?

Say ESPN starts at $20 a month. Some people think that’s high, but sports fans are like crackheads; they have no ability to say no. ESPN can and will charge as much as it wants. HBO will charge – what? $8 a month?

CBS is at $6. Showtime won’t be less than $5.

You know these viewers already have Netflix at $8 a month. Four channels, plus Netflix and you’re already paying what you’d pay for basic cable.

Viewers say they want a la carte? Here’s the most fundamental question of all: • If viewers get what they say they want, will they still want it?

Viewers watching more TV on broadband Four out of five U.S. households get broadband service. That hasn’t changed much since last year. What has been increasing is the amount of time people use their broadband connections every day, and that’s largely because people are watching increasingly more TV online.

The mean reported time spent online at home per day is 2.8 hours among all individuals online at home, up from 2.2 hours per day in 2009, according to the latest consumer research from Leichtman Research Group (LRG).

Other findings include: • 63 percent of adults access the Internet on a smartphone, up from 44 percent in 2012.

• 59 percent get Internet service at home and on a smartphone, up from 42 percent in 2012.

• A quarter of the people who do not have Internet service at home do have Internet service – on their phones; 24 percent of all not-online-at-home access the Internet on a smartphone, compared to 19 percent last year, and 12 percent in 2012 • 41 percent of households with annual incomes <$30,000 do not use a laptop or desktop computer at home, compared to 9 percent with incomes >$30,000 “The percentage of U.S. households with a computer, and the percentage of households that get an online service at home, have leveled off over the past few years, while broadband continues to grow at a modest pace,” said Bruce Leichtman, president and principal analyst for LRG. “Along with more people accessing a broadband Internet service at home than ever before, more time is also being spent online at home.”

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memorylane

To read past columns, visit www.CEDmagazine.com

HBO scripts a pay-TV sequel By plotting to deliver HBO over the Internet as a standalone video service, Time Warner Inc. is exhibiting just the sort of creative audaciousness that brought HBO to life in the first place.

In 1972, when HBO made its debut as a regional pay-TV channel and quickly morphed into a national network, there was nothing else like it. Not even close. Attributes we take for granted – watching a full-length feature film uninterrupted by commercials, occasionally featuring adult themes and even nudity – was the stuff of breakthrough in the early 1970s. Believe it or not kids, before HBO, you never saw any

By Stewart Schley of that on a television screen in your living room.

Media & technology Now, as it makes an historic leap into over-the-top video, HBO again is defying convention. writer Denver, Colo.

True, there are other online movie aggregators in the category already. And original programming investments are stewart@stewartschley.com also happening at Netflix, Amazon, Hulu and elsewhere. But nobody else brings to the market quite the same original Vongo was content skills and cachet as HBO. Fifteen years ago, HBO rocked television’s world when a new serial drama, “The a brazen Sopranos,” made its debut. Sunday nights were never the same. Neither was pay TV. HBO singularly rewrote the rules innovation. for economic success in the premium category. Movies were out. Captivating (and expensive) original series were in.

Eight years Now HBO is redrawing the lines again by embracing the idea of a direct-to-consumer video service. It may feel later, HBO revolutionary, but HBO really isn’t making pay-TV history. follows.

Because the model of a premium cable channel spinning off an online variation had already come. And gone.

Early in 2006, HBO rival Starz Entertainment unveiled a subscription online video service, Vongo (short for “video on the go”). The idea was similar to what HBO recently outlined: more or less replicate the content appearing on the flagship Starz premium service in an online environment. Viewers who paid $9.95 a month could download movies like “Hitch” and “The Incredibles” on laptops and computers outfitted with a broadband Internet connection. (Vongo also worked with portable video players, but this was the preiPad era, and penetration was thin.)

Vongo’s business model and technology profile sound mostly ho-hum today, when watching video over the Internet is a common habit (196 million Americans did it in August, according to comScore). But eight years ago, Vongo was a brazen innovation.

It also was novel from a platform standpoint. Although Starz had launched Starz Ticket, a subscription online video service, that initiative rode over an online video infrastructure maintained by Seattle’s Real Networks. For an independent service like Vongo, there was no handy template for piecing the various elements together. Video encoding for the Internet was an emerging art form. Authentication schemes that cross-referenced 8

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cable company billing records had scarcely been tried. User interfaces for Internet video were new terrain. And only 42 percent of Americans even had broadband at home.

To bring Vongo to life, Accenture, the consulting partner Starz enlisted, cobbled together 14 suppliers including Microsoft’s Windows Media group and Sony. To the delight of some and the chagrin of others, Vongo worked. A 2006 Time magazine review found that “surprisingly, the video quality is as good as a DVD.” But Vongo wasn’t ideal. Its dependency on downloading meant viewers had to wait 25 minutes or so for a movie to load. And some found the selection wanting: “Needs a better selection of movies and improved compatibility with portable devices,” said CNET. Vongo never quite found its niche. Starz abandoned the service in 2008 in favor of Starz Play, an affiliate-distributed online video service. Pressure from the cable/ satellite affiliates Starz relied on as a conduit to retail customers was a factor in Vongo’s death. So was timing: As a (mostly) PC-dependent service, Vongo missed out on the usage and interest lift that tablets and smartphones later would deliver to online video services like Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Instant Video.

Still, somewhere in the annals of premium video history, Vongo deserves credit for trailblazing a category. Like many would-be media industry disruptors, it couldn’t quite get the timing down. But as Time Warner and HBO now have realized, Vongo probably was on to something from the start with its vision of a direct-to-consumer retail play. “The service Vongo provides seems so obvious it’s a wonder it’s taken this long for anyone to offer it,” wrote Time’s reviewer in 2006.

Eight years later, maybe the right time is finally here.

openmic

To read past columns, visit www.CEDmagazine.com

Broadcast velocity or Internet velocity: Going beyond the buzz Broadcasters and pay-TV operators now have to run to stay still. It’s becoming harder and harder to retain subscribers let alone grow revenue and remain competitive – a quest in which technology plays a vital role.

Technology can come from multiple sources. Twenty years ago, broadcast technology was mainly drawn from specialist suppliers and was often based on custom products with a strong hardware basis and long development and lifecycles. Products from other industries like IT failed to meet the performance or reliability requirements. But as the price and performance of IT products improved dramatically (closely following Moore’s law), Robin Wilson broadcasters drew more from IT and IP technology to streamline Vice president, operations. And while the Internet existed 20 years ago, Internetderived technology to support high quality, high reliability TV business development, barely existed. We’ve seen this evolve over the last 10 years to Nagra/Kudelski where much of broadcast and pay-TV distribution technology now comes from solutions developed to support the Internet.

While incumbent TV operators took advantage from the robin.wilson@nagra.com accelerated use of IT and Internet technology, new entrants The issue with no preconceived or backward-looking ways of thinking or operating often took even more advantage leveraging their is no lonsignificant experience of Internet technology ecosystems. These competitors are also used to moving at Internet speeds rather ger “softthan broadcast speeds.

This analysis also applies to content security, which is vitally ware versus important to pay-TV operators. Legacy operators are sometimes drawn in to pre-Internet ways of thinking. We are often are hardware” asked about software and hardware security. While a detailed answer is too long for this column, I may have to point out that but “what hardware security runs software and software security runs on is the level hardware! The point here is that they are missing the point. The issue is no longer “software versus hardware” but “what is the of security level of security required and how do you implement it?”

Ironically, we find many emerging pay-TV operators already required understand that the software versus hardware issue is bogus, and focus on the real issues. Firstly they know that much of and how do the security is implemented in software, but they appreciate that obfuscation (hiding in plain sight) and tamper resistance is vital. you impleThey also understand that a secure, hardware-based operating environment, signal path and root of trust are critical to securing ment it?” high-value content.

While security in itself does not define the speed of evolution to keep up with rapidly changing viewing habits, understanding the fundamentals greatly helps ensure the technology decision-making process is less likely to be a victim of missteps from 20-year-old preconceived ideas. Few emerg-

ing and Internet-savvy pay-TV operators talk about “software only” security. Yet we still see incumbent legacy operators not understanding the need for secure hardware.

User experiences and user interfaces are another area where legacy operators are often disadvantaged by excess attention to what they think is Internet technology and speed without gaining the real advantages.

Grandiose plans are sometimes stated using cloud-based UIs with browser rendering of the local UI. While there is inherently nothing wrong with this approach, it may not always be the most efficient or fastest way to innovate. Often the most efficient route to a fast evolving solution is to use the mix of local and remote servers to process the UI and drive the video path. This avoids too much load on a potentially highly proprietary headend masquerading under the guise of a cloud or too much load on the local low cost (and hence low power) CPU. Part of the problem is that rather than optimize a solution for fast changing operational needs, some legacy operators are fixated on ambiguous terms like “cloud” and force this potentially suboptimal definition on their architects.

In contrast, if we look at some emerging and successful pay-TV operators coming from an Internet background we see a more pragmatic approach to the “cloud” with local caching as appropriate. We also see a blurring of local apps, Web apps and cloud apps with the selection based on the need to innovate fast and no dogmatic or rigid focus on any one or extreme approach.

So, broadcast or Internet velocity? If you go beyond the buzz, it’s clear that moving at Internet velocity is vital for incumbent pay-TV operators to keep up with ever and fast changing subscriber needs – something new entrants understand. They know how to use Internet technology more efficiently and hence innovate faster. Yet many incumbents focus on partial facets or buzzwords of Internet technology without a true understanding of what it can do for them. “Cloud” and “software only” are two such red flags that potentially indicate a lack of understanding if not implemented properly.

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engineering-wise Proactive network maintenance Proactive Network Maintenance (PNM) began with CableLabs’ reference implementation of their tool utilizing pre-equalization to address linear noise and interference problems. Implemented around the world, it particularly works well with RF impedance mismatches.

But PNM today is much more than pre-equalization. It’s about customers, it’s about their quality of experience, and it’s about operational efficiency and changing the way we look at service performance.

The PNM tool box is no longer a cavernous place with a few isolated tools. The PNM mission today is to provide

By Marty Davidson operators remote visibility into the operations of their plant VP Engineering & and equipment. PNM provides test points in the CMTS and cable modem to enable characterization and troubleshootNetwork Operations, ing of the plant, including the evaluation of linear and SCTE nonlinear noise and interference. Of course the mission wouldn’t be complete without supporting remote, proactive mdavidson@scte.org troubleshooting of plant faults with the goal of improving the reliability and maximizing performance.

Today we have full band spectrum analysis embedded DOCSIS 3.1 into new cable modems. In the downstream, this allows us to have the functionality of a spectrum analyzer implementturns the ed in software to look at things like tilt, ripple, CW ingress, AWGN, nulls, etc. In the upstream we can do triggered cable plant spectrum analysis that delivers a comparison of captured spectrum with transmitted signals. into a true But PNM cannot be slowed down. With DOCSIS 3.1, the PNM toolbox gets an incredible lift with a host of software device to be techniques that were designed from the start. Led by CableLabs’ tested InGeNeOs group of industry experts – including Alberto Campos, Belal Hamzeh and Tom Williams – DOCSIS 3.1 turns the cable plant into a true device to be tested using the spectrum analyzer functions above along with techniques to look at Noise Power Ratio notching. Noise Power Ratio notching provides the ability to look under a modulated signal for intermod products and other interference and noise.

DOCSIS 3.1 also introduces vector signal analyzer functions, capabilities of network analyzers and other linear and non-linear noise test points.

OFDM is the new modulation technique introduced in DOCSIS 3.1, and with it is the network analyzer ability to capture downstream symbols. The CMTS captures the symbol as it goes into the plant and the cable modem captures it as it comes out of the cable plant. Comparing these provides unprecedented abilities to see what happens to a signal as it traverses the HFC plant. In the upstream there are active probes which are used to measure the response of the plant and quiet probes that provide visibility of ingress and the noise floor.

Pre-equalization is significantly improved in DOCSIS 3.1, to a level that is probably as much as we will ever need in terms of resolution. The pre-equalization coefficients are obtained through downstream channel estimation and the reciprocals of this response are used by the 10

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To read past columns, visit www.CEDmagazine.com

cable modem as its adaptive equalizer coefficients. In addition to this vector signal analyzer function, others included are constellation diagrams and MER. There are other “test points” included in the DOCSIS 3.1 tool kit, such as histograms used in the downstream and upstream. The histograms offer some unique ways to measure the impacts of nonlinearities on a channel. FEC statistics are still around and very valuable as are statistics associated with burst and impulse noise.

But our PNM toolbox is growing beyond DOCSIS. There are some big needs for PNM in the home, particularly around Wi-Fi. The rate of Wi-Fi enabled devices is growing incredibly fast and shows no signs of slowing down. At SCTE Cable-Tec Expo this year, ZCorum’s Scott Helms shared a stat from Sys-Con that there will be more than 7 billion Wi-Fi enabled devices in the next three years. If we don’t continue to grow our PNM tool box, we will miss a major opportunity to extend PNM all the way to the increasing number of WiFi devices our customers use at home and on the massive number of WiFi hotspots on our plants. In fact, even today, a large percentage of customer calls associated with Wi-Fi are now occupying customer care agents’ time.

Scott outlined a plan for PNM in Wi-Fi, and in doing so shared some of the eye popping stats: Poor performance due to low RSSI was found in 50 percent of the customers tested. There were 57 percent of Wi-Fi gateways which had at least one Wi-Fi channel with errors and 12 percent of gateway channels that had interference did not change automatically to another channel.

With 7 billion Wi-Fi devices in the market, we must learn from and leverage the great work across all technologies to meet current and future customer demands.

One way the SCTE is trying to help is by offering training for DOCSIS, WiFi and PNM. Please go to http://www.scte.org/courses/ to find out more about these opportunities.

Together, we can learn how to use our PNM toolbox and doggedly pursue our quest for Predictive Network Maintenance. Let’s take advantage of what we have available today and really deliver services with the reliability that is second to none.

ciciora'scorner Watching TV Many years ago, late at night, my wife came into the family room and asked me what I was doing. I told her I was “watching TV.” She noted that there was no programing on, just a test pattern. (So you know this was some time ago; when was the last time you saw a test pattern on TV?) I wasn’t watching programming, I was watching TV! As an engineer in the research department at Zenith in the Chicago area, I was educating my eyes and studying the details of the picture-making process on the screen.

I’m sure that most cable technologists do this sort of

By Walt Ciciora thing from time to time. If you don’t, maybe you should.

Expert on cable and This is, after all, the very fundamental basis of our industry. consumer Many years before that, I recall my uncle’s stack of electronics issues Popular Mechanics and Popular Science magazines and their occasional articles about the future of television. wciciora@ieee.org They were especially focused on potential for color. We take color so much for granted. Each person in this There’s country owns multiple color displays of exceptional quality, but there was a time when that was just a laboratory more than effort. The modification of the monochrome (black and white) television signal to include the additional informaone way to tion to add color is a truly amazing story of engineering “watch TV.” compromise and innovation. The book I coauthored, “Modern Cable Television Technology,” includes a chapter describing those signals. (It’s available on the Kindle to buy for just under $100, or to rent for less. But a used copy of the first addition is 38¢ plus shipping!)

The compromises made to add color had some detrimental impacts on older monochrome receivers. As a youngster, I recall my father and an uncle talking about “dot crawl” and being able to see the distortion caused by the color signal on monochrome television sets. That was my first experience with this kind of watching TV. It was possible to see the impairment if you knew where to look.

Likely you know the analog television picture is interlaced; i.e. half the picture is put on the screen in a first set of horizontal lines and the second half is put in the spaces between the first set of lines. This is a form of signal bandwidth compression used in analog television. When things aren’t perfect, the two sets of lines partially (or even completely) overlap reducing the vertical resolution. This is called “pairing” since the two sets of lines pair in the worst cases. That’s another thing to look for when watching TV on an analog television display. My first patent, 3,855,496, “Anti-pairing system for a television receiver” addressed that problem. Unfortunately, it was too expensive to implement in the days of analog television sets.

The color television picture tube is another underappreciated technical marvel. It has improved over the years, but is still not perfect. Its imperfections can be observed by watching TV on a color picture tube receiver. The first thing to notice is that the picture

To read past columns, visit www.CEDmagazine.com

display changes size and, to some extent, shape as the picture gets brighter or dimmer. The high voltage supply “sags” when a bright picture is produced and the image shrinks a bit. It is possible to make the high voltage supply “stiff ” enough, but that costs money, more than consumers want to pay. And only careful viewing reveals this imperfection.

Another picture imperfection comes from a distortion of the steel shadow mask that directs the electron beams to the correct color areas. Again, see my book for more details on how the color picture tube works. Of course, using magnets near the screen distorts the picture and usually leaves a residual magnetization which messes things up. The other problem is thermal. When a bright spot is produced on the screen, a lot of energy is delivered thru the steel shadow mask.

It heats up and expands and the electron beams fall on the wrong colors. The shadow mask cools when the image is dark and colors return to normal.

Of course, digital artifacts are the most interesting. Images have an amazing amount of redundancy. Converting a picture from analog to digital greatly expands the bandwidth required for transmission or storage. But the video compression methods used in digital television removes a huge amount of that waste. More than 90 percent of the data is removed. Again, the book! (Maybe you should order a 38¢ used copy if you don’t have one.) Sharp edges end up with little fuzzies. They are a consequence of the mathematical Gibbs phenomenon resulting from making approximations. Some have termed this “mosquito noise” but I prefer to call it “the attack of the killer bees”.

Another watching TV phenomenon occurs when you use 3-D glasses. Your eyes are actually focusing on a 2-D image while your brain is trying to make sense of a 3-D display. The conflict can cause a headache for most people.

You can watch TV on your flat screen, your smart phone, your iPad or iPod and on a variety of other displays.

www.CEDmagazine.comnovember/december2014

11

2014 Women in Sherita Comcast’s Ceasar fosters education and team building

By Mike Robuck herita Ceasar has done more than enough in her telecommunications career to merit winning this year’s Women in Technolog y Award, but her legacy going forward is built upon her passion for helping others.

Ceasar, who is Comcast’s vice president of national video deployment engineering, has been a beacon for women and diversity efforts across the cable industry landscape while also giving freely of her time to help educate and promote children through programs such as STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) and FIRST Robotics.

Ceasar recognized that there was talent shortage in the pipeline for computer science, engineering and math skills that

S

Sherita Ceasar accepts the Women in Technology Award during a luncheon at SCTE Cable-Tec Expo in September.

bordered on a crisis not just for the cable industry but the nation as a whole.

Five years ago Ceasar attended a FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Robotics Competition, in which high school students compete in teams to build robots, at the

12 12 CED CED november/december november/december 2014 2014

Georgia Dome in Atlanta. She was enthralled by the amount of effort and the results that were attained by the competitors, but profoundly unsettled by one thing she saw there.

“It was an awesome experience,” she said. “I had never seen anything like it. I looked around at the list of strategic partners and the banners they had around. Comcast was the provider for the Georgia Dome’s business services and Comcast’s banner was way up on the ceiling just below Hooter’s.

“I was so mad when I saw that. That image was burned in my head that we were not focused on the right thing when it comes to fulfilling the talent pipeline and I feel so passionately about that, especially women in technology because there are so few of us.”

Ceasar marched into John Schanz’s office, who is her boss and executive vice president and chief network officer for Comcast Cable, to speak her mind.

“Sherita literally brought the first initiative to my office more than five years ago after she had attended the championships in Atlanta,” Schanz recalled. She said, ‘John, we’ve got to do this,’ and I listened and we took a look at it. Comcast jumped in, as they typically do, with both feet to support her and me on the initiative of putting students around STEM. She does a lot of it on her own time. It’s absolutely amazing.”

With Ceasar at the spear point, Comcast became a big supporter of FIRST Robotics events, including the sponsorship of the Media & Technology Innovation Award.

Ceasar looks at a student’s project at last year’s First Championship in St. Louis.

“Sherita is the most passionate person I know who spends nearly every waking moment looking to enhance the engagement of woman and technically oriented students into the entertainment and

Technology Award winner: Ceasar communications industry,” said Ray Celona, senior vice president at Comcast. “She is asked or volunteers to join various WICT and STEM executive boards. She is a sponsor and an advocate of the FIRST Robotics program and has played many roles in that organization all on her own time.

“Someday I expect Sherita to evolve her full time role to helping women and kids achieve high results in technical industries.”

For the past 10 years, Ceasar has served on the national board of directors for Women in Cable Telecommunications. She has also served on the board of trustees for Illinois Institute of Technology, where she earned her Bachelor of Science and Masters of Science in Mechanical Engineering, and is past National President for the Society of Women Engineers (SWE.) “She has a very, very strong ability to foster potential not only in herself, but in her teammates and her colleagues as well,” said Theresa Hennesy, senior vice president, group technical advisor at Comcast Cable. “She has a very clear passion for technology, a stronger one for women leadership in technology, and I think she emulates the greatest traits for a woman leader in technology. She personally feels the need to work with men and women in this industry to equip them with the best tools and capabilities to promote them in their careers while also achieving the business and industry results.”

A passion for pagers Ceasar, a Chicago native, first started her career in the defense department at Northrop Grumman before migrating to Motorola in 1992.

While at Northrop, Ceasar credited her unit manager, Daryl Osberg, with teaching her a life lesson when it came to working with the employees under her.

“I had a team of draftsmen and at the time we did everything on boards with T-squares and angles and stuff,” she said. “We didn’t have CAD, I’m dating myself here, this was the early ’80s, and these guys were fairly nice guys but I was so demanding with them. The whole notion of being humble and working with people, I learned that from Daryl Osberg.”

While she was at Northrop, she was working on attaining her master’s degree from the Illinois Institute of Technology. Ceasar was nervous about presenting her thesis in front of a group of people, but she credited professor Lois Graham, along with Osberg having her train a group of more than 275 mechanical engineers around the same time, with finding her voice.

“She (Graham) basically said you can overcome this if you teach others and you give to others,” Ceasar said. “You gotta be able to tell that story and Lois helped me with this teaching concept, and so did Daryl.

“It was an incredible experience going from being scared to do my master’s thesis to knocking it out of the park. I had all of that practice of teaching and understanding how to convey my thoughts and selling, and I think those things have helped me build teams because you have to tell them why. You have to give them context and inspire them.”

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A career in team building In 1992, Ceasar started her four-year stint at Motorola, which included jobs in component design and manufacturing, quality and building pagers.

“I ended up having a factory in Boynton Beach (Fla.) and was part of a team that grew rapidly in four years from like $600 million in sales to $3 billion and anywhere from 4,000 to 6,000 employees worldwide,” she said. “I got to see the world with Motorola. I’ve traveled to Japan, to China, to Malaysia and Taiwan to really chase producing a product at the lowest cost as part of a big manufacturing team. It really shaped a lot of my experiences.”

In 1996, a headhunter called her about another job.

“He told me about this company called Scientific-Atlanta and I said ‘Did you say Scientific America?’ He said ‘Do you know that little box you have by your TV at home?’ That was my introduction to Scientific Atlanta,” Ceasar recalled with a hearty laugh. “I came to Atlanta in 1996 the same week that the Olympics kicked off. I started with Scientific Atlanta as their VP of quality, essentially the chief quality leader for the company. I was building another team.

“That’s probably the thing I really enjoy the most. I build teams to get extraordinary results and I feel real good about the team I have now, and the teams I had then.”

While at SA, Ceasar helped create the digital launch service business as cable operators started to move from analog to digital. She also came up with industry training for VOD services. In 2003, she won a TAMI Award for leading the development of the master courses on advanced digital services for the Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing (CTAM.) “When I was left SA I was building a product management team because we started realizing our business model was more effective if we developed software,” she said. “Now everybody is developing software. We did some make stuff to help the systems with auto recovery and things like that. It was a lot of fun there building a team from ground zero.”

Ceasar left SA to gain experience in the service provider sector as vice president and general manager Charter Communications’ Georgia operation.

“When I started we had 500 employees and 15 systems across the state of Georgia,” she said. “I lived in Atlanta I can tell you that while Motorola showed me the world, Charter showed me Georgia. I got to go to places in Georgia that I never thought I would go.

“I was there for a couple of years and then they did some downsizing on their divisions. That’s where I met Neil Smit. I worked for him when he came over to Charter from AOL.” For the first time in her career, Ceasar said she was looking at severance packages after Charter reduced its headcount in Georgia.

Instead of despairing about losing her job at Charter, Ceasar looked at it as an opportunity to re-invent herself, which is how she ended up at Comcast in 2007. www.CEDmagazine.comnovember/december2014

13

Caller ID comes calling Ceasar started out at Comcast as vice president, productt engineering, cross platform & engineering services. One of the projects at her new job, b and one of the achievements she’s most proud of in her cable career, was building a platform for universal caller ID. “That was my first cross functional, cross platform experience and we were working with all kinds of people across the entire team,” she said. “It gave me the most exposure to video, voice and data. I had lots of different components and subsystems and hundreds of engineers. It was getting everyone organized to deliver universal caller ID. For a simple banner app, it was a whole lot of new stuff to enable to get all of the machines to talk to each other.”

Ceasar took on her current role at Comcast three years ago. Her latest team has been involved in the development of the X1 remote, cloud DVR and building the cloud infrastructure.

“New video products are innovated typically within the technology and product engineering teams,” Comcast’s Celona said when describing Ceasar’s job. “These teams create a solution of architected infrastructure, software, and operational tools and they rely on Sherita and her team to deploy the new product or service upgrade.”

Celona said that Ceasar has both strategic and operational skills, and described her as a thought leader that can quickly develop a winning strat-

Ceasar on her Segway next to the ‘Rocky’ statue in Philadelphia

Ceasar stands in front of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial in Washington, D.C.

14 14 CED CED november/december november/december 2014 2014

egy that considers people, process and technology predominantly in the video deployment engineering space.

“I have a pretty diverse team,” Ceasar said. “It’s a beautiful thing, but I tell you my team exceeds my expectations because I learned a long time ago that I can’t be the smartest one and the only one. You have to surround yourself with a lot of people that can make contributions. Give them the challenge and let them rise to it. Give them the resources. Enable them and empower them. You’ll be surprised at what they do.

“For me the big advice is recognize that you can get more by giving people context, being inclusive, transparent and empowering them. As a leader, give them the resources, and be present and listen. All of that came through my management experience with teams and that’s what I’ve found is kind of the winning combinations of getting extraordinary results.”

In her spare time outside of STEM and First Robotics, Ceasar said she likes to challenge herself each quarter by stepping outside of her comfort zone by doing activities such as taking improv comedy and woodworking classes.

“She is extremely funny and she’s willing to laugh at herself whenever she has the opportunity, and that is at the core of also being a good leader, a good mentor and a good technologist,” Hennesy said. “What’s great about Sherita is she makes a personal commitment. It’s not a corporate commitment. It’s not a social commitment. To her this is very personal and I think that’s the real difference with Sherita. She really takes it to heart, she follows through and she’s passionate.”

Taking care of business At Cable-Tec Expo 2014, the industry shrugged off distractions to focus on what counts

By Brian Santo, Mike Robuck, and Craig Kuhl id-September. Two prominent U.S. Senators were proposing local choice – a la carte for broadcast stations. Aereo formally petitioned the FCC to be designated an MVPD. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler was threatening to reclassify broadband as a Title II service. HBO executives were secretly preparing to offer a direct-to-consumer over the top service. Somebody decided to drop the word “cable” from the cable industry’s signature annual event, renaming it the Internet and Television Expo (INTX).

With the entire pay TV universe being shaken, it was a comfort to come back home, to Denver, the cradle of the cable industry, for CableTec Expo, where taking care of the nuts and bolts of the cable business was the order of the day.

Today it remains somewhat murky where the whole pay TV business is going, or precisely what it will look like when it gets there, but MSOs know for certain they need to prepare their networks to deliver whatever has to be delivered, and Cable-Tec Expo made it crystal clear that those networks will still depend heavily on DOCSIS 3.1.

Google wants to spur demand for gigabit broadband, and it has succeeded. Cities are fighting each other to get Google Fiber, other cities with no chance yet at Google Fiber are begging competing ISPs to install gigabit broadband, and many ISPs have either begun or have promised to start rolling out gigabit services, either responding to Google’s (or someone else’s) gigabit offering, or just to milk their most lucrative markets.

Most MSOs making gigabit promises expect to make good with DOCSIS 3.1, aka Gigasphere – a term

M

16

CEDnovember/december2014

Bit Rate (Mbps)

Weighted Bit Rate (Mbps)

8

48

0.002853

512-QAM

9

54

0.035438

0.004829881

512-QAM

9

54

0.260814

0.023692296

512-QAM

9

54

1.279384

34

0.077461589

1024-QAM

10

60

4.647695

35

0.168800653

1024-QAM

10

36

0.24517169

1024-QAM

10

37

0.23734222

2048-QAM

11

38

0.153139828

2048-QAM

39

0.06585819

2048-QAM

40

0.018877301

41 42

SNR

Probability of SNR

Modulation Order

Bits Per Symbol

30

5.9432E-05

256-QAM

31

0.000656257

32 33

Subcarriers per 6 MHz

Symbol Rate (Ksps)

60

10.12804

60

14.7103

66

15.66459

11

66

10.10723

11

66

4.346641

2048-QAM

11

66

1.245902

0.003606438

4096-QAM

12

72

0.259664

0.000459225

4096-QAM

12

72

0.033064

240

DOCSisJ3. 1'1Network ·Avera e Bit'iR.ateleif161MHi1ChanneliBand

25

62.72161

A DOCSIS 3.1 network would be capable of delivering an average raw physical layer rate of 62 Mbps per 6 MHz channel band, an increase of 46 percent versus a D3.0 network. Source: CableLabs

still rarely heard in sessions, on the show floor, or in conversations over cocktails.

There’s some skepticism in the cable industry that most of the people who say they want gigabit broadband really and truly need it for anything any time soon, and even less expectation those who say they want it will be willing to pay for it if it were to made immediately available. Someday, maybe, but not now.

A lack of enthusiasm for gigabit delivery doesn’t do anything to undermine the move to DOCSIS 3.1, however. Researchers are demonstrating that D3.1 will deliver some very important subsidiary benefits. Doing little more with your network than populating it with D3.1 modems can lead to substantial benefits.

In the pre-conference DOCSIS 3.1 and Wireless Symposium, Belal Hamzeh, director and principal architect of CableLabs, reported that 30 percent of a network’s QAMs would be able to go to 2048 QAM simply because the network is populated with D3.1 cable modems.

It is not necessary to swap out all 3.0 cable modems for 3.1-compliant models to get the benefits, though the more the better.

Capacity gain evaluation – downstream channel “Take your system, with no changes except putting in 3.1, you can get a 46 percent expansion of capacity over the DOCSIS 3.0 network,” he said.

“It will be a long time before we have no 3.0 modems in the network,” said Jorge Salinger, Comcast’s vice

president, access architecture, but still.

He said that this demonstrates the value of the backward compatibility built in to D3.1, though. He noted that it’s easy to run 3.0 and 3.1 cable modems at the same time Further capacity gains can be reaped by improving signal to noise ratios (SNR) on a network.

“The great thing about 3.1 is that the more you improve your signal to noise ratio, the higher orders of modulation you can go to,” Hamzeh explained, leading to additional capacity increases.

Hamzeh said that improving SNR by 3 dB earns you almost nothing on a network equipped with D3 modems, but with D3.1, “Every 3dB improvement in your network will give you about 10 percent increase in capacity.”

Comcast expects to start trialing DOCSIS 3.1 technology in the second half of next year, shortly after D3.1 headend equipment becomes available. In anticipation, Comcast is about to start characterizing SNR throughout its network, according to Salinger.

Wi-Fi: why fight it?

The market drivers for cable Wi-Fi haven’t changed much, though one was recently imbued with some notable extra weight. They include satisfying subscriber demand for broadband via Wi-Fi, keeping competitive with LTE, and subscriber retention, among others. T-Mobile had already endorsed dual-mode (LTE/Wi-Fi) connectivity, but when Apple recently enabled dual-mode operation in iPhones, other carriers chose to support the feature, which will serve to make Wi-Fi a more integral component of the wireless ecosystem.

Cable’s wireless play is Wi-Fi, and it’s important for cable to own the WiFi element of the ecosystem. “Voice is becoming a critical application for your subscribers, whether you’re ready for it or not,” noted Vincent Pandolfi, consulting systems engineer, Cisco Systems.

There just hasn’t been much money in Wi-Fi. There are ways to make money, but some of them will depend on cutting business deals with erstwhile rivals.

Assuring voice-over-Wi-Fi quality becomes a path to monetization, said Jeffrey Valley, senior director of consulting engineering, Alcatel-Lucent IP Routing & Transport, explaining that cable operators can cut deals with mobile network operators (MNOs) to provide quality of service (QoS).

“What happens in the background, these devices will establish a

tunnel through the network – your network – to a gateway,” Valley said.

“The device is still getting an IP address from its carrier. So when you talk about voice over Wi-Fi, or video over Wi-Fi – okay, so as a tunnel provider, how do I ensure QoS? That requires a relationship between MNO and MSO. Become a reliable roaming partner.

That leads to monetization,” he said.

Then the issue is seamless connection from Wi-Fi to LTE, said Manish Jindal, vice president and CTO, broadband and media accounts customer unit, Ericsson North America.

“End users should see no difference in experience,” Jindal said.

“When we can do that, as cable operators, then we have the wireless advantage. That’s why we need to optimize our networks, so users can’t tell the difference between them.”

“Historically missing is how to find a network, and how to authenticate,”

said Justin Colwell, VP, access network technologies, CableLabs. “Most of you flew into Denver, turned on your phone, and you found your network and were authenticated. We think WiFi should be a similar experience.”

“Get off a plane, authenticate, yeah that’s great,” said Valley, but what is needed beyond that is subscriber management, and that’s still largely lacking.

“You should be able to bring policy and account information with the user,” he said.

What that allows you to do is treat your customers to additional experiences.

For example, parental controls today, as soon as you walk into a Wi-Fi hotspot, you get a new IP address, and none of the policy is sticky, he said. Policy controls should follow the customer.

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17

Wi-Fi versions compared: 802.11n versus 802.11ac 11n

11ac

Frequency Bands

2.4, 5 GHz

5 GHz

Channel Widths

20, 40 MHz

+ 80, 160 MHz

Spatial Streams Max

4

8

MIMO Use Mode

Single-user

Multi-user

Modulation

BPSK, QPSK, 16, 64 QAM

+256 QAM

Operating Mode

High Throughput (HT), Greenfield

Very High Throughput (VHT)

Beam forming

Optional, Proprietary

Optional, Standardized

PHY Data Rate (3x3)

450 Mbps

2,340 Mbps

PHY Data Rate (Max)

600 Mbps

6,933 Mbps

The n version of Wi-Fi is adequate for in-home distribution of video, but the ac version is optimized for video distribution, featuring wider channels, more spatial streams, higher modulation schemes, and multi-user MIMO. Source: “Wi-Fi for Video,” John Anderson, Fluke Networks.

Patrick Kaiser, director, wireless product marketing, Huawei Technologies, thinks that there can be a great business at managing small cells – and that cable is in the best position in the U.S. to do that.

“The success we see is the sharing model,” Kaiser said. “In cellular, sharing is common in Europe – they share cell sites and cell towers. There’s a huge benefit in controlling expense. The same model in the U.S. should help.”

U.S. cable and U.S. MNOs ought to share in-building infrastructure, he said, especially in in-building cells (80 percent of all data is generated in-building, he noted). The idea is to put in a small cell that supports both Wi-Fi and LTE and charge for managing the cell.

“You can’t have five competitors offering in-building in the same space. Cable should have a leg up, but partnership is what we think would work best.”

Community Wi-Fi Community-wide Wi-Fi services depend on a critical mass of installed modems, each partitioned so that most of the 18

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modem’s capacity remains dedicated to the use of the private subscriber, with the remainder reserved by the MSO for public access.

That already exists, attracting the attention of a growing number of service providers, including Comcast’s Xfinity, Cablevision Systems, FON and others.

Community-wide ser vices sans congestion and replete with seamless connectivity, though?

Working on it.

CableLabs’ system engineer Vivek Ganti said, “Community Wi-Fi will allow service operators to leverage bandwidth for the private and public networks and for roaming partners. Sounds fantastic, but that’s Community Wi-Fi.” Seamless connectivity is possible, but first there are some pain points that need to be addressed, Ganti said. “We must make sure there is no mix-up of private and public data. And we must make sure the network is capable of inter-connectivity.

And QoS is a challenge as well.”

Community Wi-Fi QoS essentially means assuring that private

clients are not affected by public clients, Ganti said.

Other challenges such as radio resource management, network selection and mobility, security and traffic management and prioritization are also on Ganti’s list of challenges.

“There is also a dire need for upstream QoS in Wi-Fi. We’re testing best efforts for Community Wi-Fi adoption now at CableLabs,” he added.

IPv6 is also part of the Community Wi-Fi equation, Ganti concluded.

“Operators are upgrading their Community Wi-Fi networks to IPv6-only with dual stacks and the technology is available for MSOs to deploy Community WiFi. And businesses are supporting Community Wi- Fi. There are business decisions to be made, some technical and operational issues to be solved and checks and balances to be put in place, but Community Wi-Fi is here and available.”

Carrier Grade Wi-Fi The next step beyond Community Wi-Fi is creating a wireless service similar, and perhaps eventually indistinguishable from, the cellular experience – Carrier Wi-Fi. CableLab’s Mark Poletti and ZCorum’s Scott Helms went over how to build better Wi-Fi networks, both in public places and in customers’ homes.

Poletti, CableLabs’ lead wireless architect, said Carrier Wi-Fi touches the entire Wi-Fi ecosystem, including access point (AP) vendors, AP controllers and servers that can provide data analytics.

The IEEE, Wi-Fi Alliance, and Wireless Broadband Alliance (WBA) have been working on Carrier Wi-Fi requirements and standards for the past few years with three goals in mind: consistent user experience, network management and fully integrated end-to-end networks.

With the building blocks in place in the core network, Poletti said Wi-Fi operators could build large-scale Carrier Wi-Fi networks that meet the three goals.

In addition to the various “alphabet” flavors of Wi-Fi, Carrier Wi-Fi also includes traffic prioritization and procedures for time sensitive applications, jitter, latency and packet loss, as well as Wi-Fi certified products from the WFA. An element supporting Carrier Wi-Fi is Hotspot 2.0, which allows mobile devices to automatically join a Wi-Fi network based upon preferences and network optimization whenever the user enters a Hotspot 2.0-enabled area. Hotspot 2.0 brings cellular like capabilities to Wi-Fi users by enabling them to log in one time instead of entering their passwords at every access point when they come in range.

H o t s p o t i s t h e t e ch n i cal specification that the WiFi Alliance uses for hardware, while Passpoint is the certification process to that is needed to make sure the hardware is Hotspot 2.0-compliant.

Helms, ZCorum’s vice president of technology, spoke about the lessons learned from a project that used DOCSIS proactive network maintenance (PNM) practices for in-home Wi-Fi networks.

When subscribers call in with problems with their data services, Helms said, a large proportion of the calls were from end users who had problems with their WiFi networks. By finding potential channel interferences issues from the likes of baby monitors or radio-controlled cars.

With more analytics at their disposal, technicians and customer support can do a better job of finding and fixing interference issues in home Wi-Fi networks.

Another problem with Wi-Fi is that there are so many different profiles (B, G, N, AC), and

so much variation in how they are implemented in CPE, with the result being that quality from one CPE device to the next can be wildly uneven.

To that end, CableLabs is now conducting performance tests on access point testing, and is also characterizing Wi-Fi clients. “We invite all of you to submit access points so we, as an industry, can improve Wi-Fi,” Colwell said.

Wi-Fi SON (self optimizing networks) is also evolving as an operational and capital expense play. It provides a visualization of customers’ problems and prioritizes them.

“It’s a mobility play for cable and will help MSOs with their operational and capital expenses by getting the best value from the next access points,” said Ken Roulier, CTO of the broadband,

cable and satellite division at Amdocs.

Hybrid cloud Working both the public and private sides of the Internet looks like a winning strategy not just for Wi-Fi either; it’s looking like the way to go with all cloudbased operations. Experience is showing that cable operators would do well to go with a hybrid cloud model, for a variety of reasons.

Cisco cloud architect Geoff Arnold said the hybrid cloud model would be the norm going forward, but the various cloudbased technologies and applications need to be knitted together.

C o m c a s t ch i e f t e ch n o l ogy officer Tony Werner (who moderated the panel discussion) and fellow Comcast employee

Mark Muehl, senior vice president, product engineering, said Comcast initially went with more of a private cloud several years ago, but switched after finding drawbacks in a homogeneous model. For example, Werner said, one disruptive Linux kernel would propagate itself unchecked across various systems.

Since then, Muehl said, Comcast has gone with a heterogeneous approach for cloud infrastructure, which includes a deal with Amazon that provides Comcast with cloud insurance and a playground for prototyping applications.

Werner asked Arnold what role the cloud would play going forward.

“The disruption is really at both the application and the infrastructure levels,” Arnold said.

“On the application level it’s obvious that we can deploy new apps much more rapidly because we don’t have to go through the lengthy procedures for provisioning and the human processes.

“There’s also disruption at the infrastructure level because we can slide in the new technologies very rapidly without having to negotiate the applications up and down the stack,” Arnold continued. “In both cases that means that we need decision making that can keep up with the technology. Organizational and business decision making and operational decision making so we can move as fast as the cloud allows us to.”

The key to enabling cloudbased rollouts and apps is getting former disparate teams on the same page. In isolation, they have

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19

Retiring Time Warner Cable CTO Mike LaJoie received the SCTE Chairman’s Award. “I always wanted to be the guy that put more wood on the pile than I took off,” he said in an on-stage valedictory interview with Cisco SVP Yvette Kanouff.

different goals, and that creates friction.

“In the dev ops environment one of the things we learned over the past few years is when we really step on the gas for dev ops at Comcast is that when you have an ops team and dev team you have two different groups of teams, at least, with different incentives,” Muehl said. “With the ops team it’s typically focused on keeping it stable, and making sure we have a great experience with our customer. Then we have a dev ops team that is trying to get a feature out.

“By blurring the lines between those two different organizations and two different goals,” he continued, “by uniting the goals, we get a great experience out for the customers that is stable. By getting everyone on the same page we remove that friction.”

Nick Barcet, vice president, products and pre-sales, eNovance/ Red Hat said that before a company comes to him wanting a cloud-based service they first need to figure out what their business needs are.

“I’ve seen many customers that come to us that want a cloud,” he said.

20 CEDnovember/december2014

“I spend a lot of time asking them what their business needs are. If they can’t explain their business needs, I can’t help them. By concentrating on the business outcomes, that’s how the cloud becomes successful.”

Other keys to cloud-based apps and services include building apps with self-resiliency and forcing the apps to fail in order to find software failures, according to Arnold and Barcet.

Werner concluded, “We’re still at the very beginning, and I think the balance between how much freedom you give developers versus how much security are things that are going to continue to ebb and flow as we find different models. It’s an exciting time.

I think it’s not only important to our future but it’s imperative.”

It had to be you Viewing behaviors are changing rapidly as more content is delivered across multiple devices, and for content providers to keep up with those changing behaviors, a series of personalized solutions must be integrated into the viewing experience.

“The Holy Grail is for consumers to watch more content than before. That’s where the business value is – recommending content associated with behaviors,” Christy Martin, chief technology advisor for ThinkAnalytics, explained.

Content, viewing context, viewer preference, and commercial objectives are the four key components to a personalized solution, Martin noted. But first, people must be able to find content.

“Content is the first building block of effective content associations, and that includes metadata – both business and technical – along with user generated data and social media data. The purpose is to follow the natural behavior of viewers,” Martin said.

A phased integ ration of metadata and the addition of key architectural components were strongly recommended by Martin. “Don’t think small and understand the whole problem.

Work on the back end and grow the system around that.”

Growing the system will take increased engagement by view-

ers and streamlining the way they find content, according to panelist Tom Kuppinen, manager of sales engineering for Digitalsmiths.

“Customers are not engaged with content because they can’t find it. We need to let content find the viewer and help them find new ways to find it,” Kuppinen said.

“One way is through “personalized discovery,” he explained.

“People like what’s popular and similar to content that they’ve watched before. The challenge is to have a deep understanding of metadata. But the volume of data has increased and the velocity is changing constantly, and the variety as well.”

Kuppinen pointed to asset metadata as a vital component to content personalization.

Viewers do not want to have to find content in different ways on different platforms. It’s imperative to provide a streamlined user interface that’s consistent across multiple devices, but that continues to be a challenge for service providers.

Piers Lingle, VP of product development for Comcast Cable, said, “We must be able to say here are the one or two products that will fit certain criteria for a modern user interface.”

Easier said than done, of course.

“We ask what customers are doing and use trust-but-verify methods. But there’s never just one right answer. That makes it harder for product developers,” Lingle said.

When Cox Communications was developing its Contour guide, it dove deep to get qualitative and quantitative data to discover what was common about how different types of viewers use their guides. T.S. Balaji, Cox Communications’ senior director of commercial services and user experiences, said Cox broke down the behaviors of several

groups of multiple device video customers and found a wide range of users, which included enthusiasts, parents, young adults, series followers and variety viewers.

“All of these profiles have four objectives,” he said. “Content (access), control over when and where they watch content, finding content quick and easy, and ease.

Don’t make users think or work at finding content.”

The ultimate goal for the modern user interface, Balaji concluded, is reliability, content, navigation.

Data, and big data Improving the customer experience by leveraging a network’s infrastructure and using the data generated by today’s net-

works is proving to be not only a cost-saving model, but enhancing the customer experience.

“The telecom industry spent $68 billion in 2012 in capital expense, and since 1996 has spent $1.2 trillion. That’s far too large a sum to give poor customer experiences,” said Mark Geiger, senior manager of HFC design and support for Cox Communications.

There are challenges such as assessing the large quantity of data being produced, customer demands and expectations and the evolving competitive landscape.

But Geiger believes there are solutions, including GIS (Geographic Information Systems).

“It tells us where to build, how to build, what’s been built and how best to deliver services.

It also allows us to do network

diagnostics to identify things like power outages,” he explained.

“We’ve saved millions of dollars when automating with GIS, especially in our business services segment. It’s a huge game-changer,” Geiger concluded.

“There’s huge cost savings to developing root cause analysis.

Operators are savings truck rolls and reducing customer calls significantly with real-time analysis,” said Brennen Lynch, product manager for Guavus.

Optimizing the customer experience in today’s connected home by using analytics is another huge upside to real-time analysis, according to Alan Marks, senior marketing manager for AlcatelLucent. But there are challenges.

“There’s a whole generation of people using devices in the

home in different ways, so it’s no surprise there are complexities.

For instance, on a weekend day, 40 percent of broadband traffic comes from streaming video. We want to collect and understand the data from these devices and assess the data from those services to better understand a customer’s quality of experience,” he explained.

The process he outlined: raw data is collected, then filtered and normalized against device templates and mapped against use case templates. Events can then be visualized in business intelligence tools or can generate alerts.

The future for big data and analytics, Marks concluded, is predictive analysis. “That’s where we need to go. Correlating all of the information is our ultimate goal.”

Juniper Networks congratulates our friend and partner, Comcast’s Sherita Ceasar, on being named as the winner of the WICT 2014 Women in Technology Award.

A recognized technology leader, Sherita is a driving force for industry innovation. juniper.net

COMMITTED TO EXCELLENCE www.CEDmagazine.comnovember/december2014

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CloudNetworking Maximizing the benefits of cloudbased pay TV strategies

By Andy Salo, vice president, product line management, RGB Networks

W

ith an abundance of cloud-labeled technology solutions vying for pay TV distributors’ attention, it’s more important than ever that operators be able to filter the hype by setting performance benchmarks reflecting the true requirements of a TV-caliber cloud platform.

MVPDs (multichannel video programming distributors) have every reason to aspire to the benefits promised by virtualization of operations in the cloud. The migration of headend and other network components from purpose-built hardware to general-purpose enterprise-class server arrays allows development of software that can treat the network as a logical entity for delivering whatever services and applications are desired. Applications can be dynamically built and torn down with minimum intervention at the facilities level, lowering costs and accelerating response to market needs.

Cloud-based strategies have become far more credible for MVPDs than they were even a couple of years ago in light of how far the enterprise world in general has gone toward making cloud-based technologies a core component of IT operations.

Global spending on cloud-related technologies in all industries is projected to hit $174.2 billion this year, up by 20 percent from the $145.2 billion spent in 2013, according to researcher IHS Technology. By 2017 the total will hit $235.1 billion, IHS predicts.

Just how mainstream cloud-based strategies have become is reflected in the growing role of public cloud facilities. According to International Data Corp., worldwide spending on public IT cloud services reached $47.4 billion in 2013 and

will top $107 billion in 2017. underway, why would you simBy 2017, IDC expects public ply replace one complex, multiIT cloud services will drive 17 box ecosystem, for another? percent of IT product spending Why wouldn’t an operator also and nearly half of all growth virtualize and cloud – enable across five technology categotheir IP video infrastructure to ries: applications, system infratruly realize the benefits of their structure software, platforminvestment? as-a-service (PaaS), servers and In this new environment, basic storage. operators must be able to In pay TV the maturing of ingest live programming and IP video technology means that dynamically apply associated Salo implementation of virtualized metadata and business policies. video processing and service management has Virtualized headends utilizing advanced asset the potential to radically alter both capex and management workflows and low-cost storage opex without sacrificing the quality and manage- must allow operators to eliminate the divisions ment controls that operators are accustomed to between traditional and IP VOD libraries and with traditional infrastructures. Consequently, to manage much larger libraries of VOD and new technology choices allowing operators to time-shifted TV, including use of the data center efficiently scale IP video channel counts and on- facilities to support network DVR services. demand content must take into account the fact With delivery of the entire pay TV product that today’s TV Everywhere service enhance- suite over IP, operators will be able to distribute ments are destined to become the migration path their premium services beyond the home over to all-IP video operations in the future. public Wi-Fi and cellular infrastructures. And with the power of advanced middleware to The MVPD class cloud aggregate whatever OTT content they want to The challenge for MVPDs is to ensure the include as part of the pay TV navigation expericloud-related choices they make today are truly ence, operators will be able to expand the appeal designed to support a service with the robust- of their branded offering as a unified service that ness and reliability of legacy pay TV but with greatly simplifies consumers’ ability to find and all the capabilities that an IP-based platform access content. introduces to the product suite. Moreover, the There are profound implications on the CPE new virtualized cloud operating environment side, as well. With the ability to leverage the growmust be sufficiently expandable and flexible to ing proliferation of IP-enabled devices, includallow MVPDs to shift the processing load in the ing TVs as well as handhelds and computers, legacy TV domain to cloud-based solutions as operators will have to deploy far fewer set-tops opportunities to retire legacy systems arise.

— primarily low-cost IP converter boxes to serve At such times the cloud framework must be older TV sets. Moreover, virtualization reduces able to accommodate the increase at minimum the amount of processing power and the size of costs with minimum disruption to operations. devices required to support pay TV services. For The question is, if the migration to IP video is example, following on the introduction of low-

Email: asalo@rgbnetworks.com 22 CEDnovember/december2014

cost dongles supporting OTT service delivery to TVs through HDMI ports, manufacturers are now bringing to market pay TV-caliber HDMI sticks capable of delivering a full service lineup of protected content from the cloud direct to digital TVs. Leveraging a well-designed cloud foundation, operators will be able to deliver more personalized features and monetization capabilities across IP-connected set-tops, game consoles, smart TVs, tablets and other devices. Notably, the ability to tap best-of-breed solutions for real-time placements of targeted advertising will put MVPDs in a position to capitalize on new CPM models as ad agencies adjust to the new paradigms in IP-based TV. The cloud service management environment will also make it much easier for operators to engage in video commerce, including digital storefront purchases, subscriptions, subscription extras, customer notifications and cross-promotional offers. Operators must be able to quickly configure and take down new kinds of content bundles, season or series purchases and other offers and to convey those directly into the TV user interface.

The seamlessness of experience across multiple devices is another major component of the cloud-supported IP video service. This includes the ability to engage in continuous viewing from one device to the next, move content from live viewing at home to device-based storage for unconnected viewing away from home, pause and rewind content and capture content for later playback in premises-based DVRs or cloud-based storage. By leveraging the scheduling function on the userâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s navigation system in conjunction with interfaces to NAS (networkattached storage) operators will be able to support shared access to stored content, using their streaming packagers to format the content to each userâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s requirements on a per-session basis.

The role of OpenStack in cloud virtualization In order to achieve all these capabilities at maximum cost efficiency MVPDs must be able to operate in a fully virtualized and cloud-enabled multi-vendor environment, which means all operational components must be tailored to the

requirements of dynamic hardware resource sharing. Software platforms simply tied to virtualized or dedicated commodity pizza boxes do not meet the new cloud requirements.

Such solutions are analogous to the era of virtual machines (VM) in the IT world when the proliferation of VMs became so great it was impossible to keep track of which VM was doing what, let alone scale everything at efficiencies that represented an improvement over legacy solutions.

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CloudNetworking A truly “cloud-enabled” virtualized environment with multiple supplier choices requires that everyone be able to access and implement APIs that allow their solutions to comport with a common approach to managing and sharing hardware resources. In other words, there needs to be a software-defined network (SDN) OS control plane that provides open interfaces to the data plane of the commonly shared hardware foundation, thereby supporting dynamic service set-up and programmability across multiple applications.

Over the past two years OpenStack, a global open source collaboration of over 250 companies led by Redhat, Rackspace, HP, IBM and other IT powerhouses, has emerged as the de facto standard cloud OS that does just that. Built with code that’s freely available under the Apache 2.0 license, OpenStack allows administrators to empower users and developers to access and provision pooled compute, storage and networking resources through Web API interfaces to the system.

By avoiding specific hardware or software requirements, the OpenStack environment is designed to maximize efficient use of resources while avoiding vendor lock-in. This means it’s up to developers and their customers to determine how general-purpose and purpose-built hardware resources should be meted out among applications within a given industry segment.

While it’s assumed commodity hardware will dominate as the foundation to the virtualization of IP video, OpenStack developers recognize there are a few needs – such as transcoding in the pay TV industry – which are best met by platforms running on dedicated processors or GPUs. But to fit into the OpenStack environment, such proprietary elements must be open to use by other suppliers’ software systems.

OpenStack is a work in progress, with new major releases coming out every six months, offering new ways to drive efficiency and expand the utility of the SDNoptimized cloud. For example, Icehouse, the latest and ninth release of OpenStack software, adds nearly 400 feature blueprints to support software development, manage data and run applications infrastructures at scale. The release provides a template for automating deployment of 24 CEDnovember/december2014

Cloud architecture for MSOs compute, storage and networking resources for an application and adds improvements to the dashboard UI, workflows and productivity.

The MVPD-optimized OpenStack framework But, as a generic template, OpenStack necessarily cannot be expected to fill all the gaps essential to virtualizing pay TV operations.

Consequently, operators must be sure that vendors claiming to be OpenStack compliant have filled in the API gaps and built the business and application logic around OpenStack that will support multi-vendor participation in all the functions vital to a next-generation cloud-based multiscreen TV service.

For example, while OpenStack is designed to support storage management, the protocol stack is tailored to the needs of Web services. The hierarchical and petabyte volume requirements of storage tied to catchup TV and cloud DVR require very different rules for auto scaling across storage centered in CDN cache points, flash-based real-time access storage and longer-term NAS facilities.

Similarly, the peaks and valleys of demand for events and popular programs require rules specific to dynamic allocation of just-in-time

packagers to accommodate streaming volumes as needs fluctuate.

Such requirements mean that an SDN cloud framework for MVPDs built on the OpenStack environment will have to combine creation tools specific to OpenStack with tools and resource allocation rules that are responsive to all the special needs of MVPDs. In additions, operators must be sure the framework doesn’t sacrifice the benefits of purpose-built hardware out of adherence to a commodity processing agenda. Properly designed, an MVPDoptimized OpenStack-based SDN framework will make sure the right types of processors are incorporated into the workflow without undermining the principles of multi-vendor access.

In summary, a TV-caliber cloud framework must provide a means of reducing redundancies in processes used in legacy and multiscreen service operations. At the same time, it must achieve high scalability without compromising quality while supporting all the benefits of virtualization with respect to handling elastic demand for transcoding, packaging, IP streaming, nDVR storage and all the advanced advertising processes crucial to monetization.

Homenetworking Evolving home networks to enable smart homes

By Duncan Bees, chief technology officer, HGI

A

s Internet and smart-home applications become more widespread and diverse and the number of dataconnected devices in the home leaps, home networks must also evolve. This feature will outline some of the key elements needed to make home networks solutions effective in enabling a truly interconnected smart home.

Most homes now have broadband access, but how does data flow between broadband access networks and “endpoints” – consumer gadgets such as tablets, laptop computers, set-top boxes and an expanding array of smart home devices?

Also, how does data flow among those devices?

The answer is “home networks,” which range from a short chunk of Ethernet Bees cable to a mesh-enabled wireless network.

A large variety of home networks solutions are now offered, which are competing with established solutions. How do service providers choose, particularly for a new class of smart home applications? Of the established home networking solutions, Ethernet and Wi-Fi predominate. Alternative solutions could include data-over-powerline, coaxial cable, in-home phone wiring or wireless (either variants of Wi-Fi or entirely different technologies). Here’s a look at some of the key requirements driving technology selection by service providers, based upon a careful analysis within HGI of

the needs of applications and services, particularly new “smart home services.”

Technology selection: How to begin?

It’s important to recognize that the equipment supporting home networks is often owned by the home/apartment resident. Indeed, consumers often buy and install home networks without involving a service provider. On the other hand, a service provider often recommends, delivers and/or supports one or more home networking solutions as part of their broadband or smart home product, creating a hybrid situation where service providers may need to support technology not under their direct operational control or ownership.

Two broad categories of applications need to be considered: • Those involving delivery of voice, video, web, documents, gaming, music and other media. These need relatively large amounts of data when a connection is active. General purpose home networks such as Wi-Fi, Ethernet, and power-line are established candidates for these applications.

• Those that primarily involve the interchange of device and application status and control – i.e. Internet of Things (IoT) applications, or “smart home” offerings. Often these need fairly low amounts of data, but other factors such as power consumption and reachability become very important. HGI calls home networks for these applications Home Area Networks (HANs). In the case of Wireless Home Area Networks, HGI calls uses WHANs. There is considerable overlap between the application categories. HAN technology solutions may address wider applications; and indeed

general purpose home networks technologies are more and more being “tuned” for HAN applications. But it remains important to analyze requirements specific to the smart home, which are newer and less well understood.

Many service providers currently plan to offer a home gateway (HG) that supports both types of home network. It is already nearly universal for the HG to support Wi-Fi and Ethernet.

Then, many are considering specific needs for smart home HANs, and potentially additional technology to complement existing solutions, as shown in the figure below, where a HG supports Wi-Fi, Ethernet, and WHAN, enabling data to flow among any of these home networks and the broadband access network.

Broadband Access Network

Home Gateway

Wi-Fi Enet WHAN Smart home: Wireless or wired?

HANs designed to support smart home applications – ranging from controlling lights to sophisticated home automation, assisted living

Email: duncan.bees@homegatewayinitiative.org www.CEDmagazine.comnovember/december2014

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Homenetworking and e-health scenarios – could be wired, wireless or a mix.

For wired, technologies that were developed for media applications have now been extended for smart home use. Data over powerline solutions have found wide application for media and, by reusing the silicon in lower power modes, provide a very interesting approach for smart home applications, if existing wiring topologies support the desired applications. Installing new wiring, however, is costly and potentially aesthetically displeasing.

On the wireless side, many WHAN technologies target smart home applications. Not requiring installation of new wires to reach most household locations makes WHANs very compelling candidates for new services.

Consequently, HGI has focussed on requirements for WHANs in its recent document, “HGI-RD039: Requirements for wireless home area networks supporting smart home services.” Many service providers are interested in selecting a WHAN for smart home applications, potentially to be supported in the Home Gateway alongside existing home networks.

WHAN technology selection Although there are many types of WHAN technologies available, they need to be carefully evaluated against user and service provider requirements, for several reasons.

Firstly, the fragmented status of the WHAN market means there is no ubiquitous plug and play wireless technology. The market is far from selecting a winner and this “VHS vs. Betamax” situation obstructs massmarket adoption of smart home services.

Secondly, in the view of HGI Management Committee, none of the current technology offerings perfectly meet the smart home requirements.

A fresh look at the capabilities of WHANs is therefore very timely. The main areas are discussed below, with more detail available in HGI’s RD039.

Installation and configuration of the WHAN should be as easy as possible, including setup functionality and easy maintenance functions. If only specialists can set up the network, then deployment costs will be prohibitive. In order to provide acceptable user experience, a variety of installation methods is needed and any WHAN system must support the following: 26 CEDnovember/december2014

• Pre-configured devices: Devices are configured by the manufacturer or platform operator to automatically connect to the WHAN. Usually such devices can connect only to a pre-configured WHAN coordinator.

• Easy local setup: Devices are configured using an easy-setup mechanism that requires only simple operations. Sometimes, a step-bystep installation and configuration tool will also be needed. The same procedure should apply to all devices.

•Remote setup: Installation and configuration of devices is done remotely by a service provider or a platform operator.

• Labelling: Devices should be sold with appropriate labels, clearly showing compatibility with WHANs, from a certification organization.

WHAN: Reliable Performance To achieve reliable operation of smart home services, service providers need to consider these issues for WHAN technology: • Effective whole-home wireless coverage may be difficult to achieve using a direct connection from each device to the coordinator, meaning some function to extend WHAN coverage is required.

• Devices should be able to indicate where the radio link performance is acceptable, especially during installation. This will require a low level testing mode.

• Effective operation in the presence of common radio interference sources.

• Ensuring the WHAN does not send data to the wrong device or, in the smart home, switch on/off the wrong light or connect to a neighbor’s devices.

• Support for delay-sensitive communication of much less than one second – for example, controlling lights would become very irritating if not instant.

• Ability to reliably transfer significant amounts of data, while operating in a low-power, high-noise environment. Retransmission capability is likely to be needed.

• Reliable operation for many years.

• Support for occasional operation of smart home devices to enable long batterylifetime.

Regarding interference, the 2.4 GHz band is already used widely in the home by Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, while mobile communication services at various frequencies have also become popular. The WHAN needs to coexist with these systems with minimum mutual interference. As many home systems already use the ISM band (2.4 GHz), a less crowded frequency region should be considered, for example, sub 1 gigahertz, in which there are already bands reserved for WHAN use. Use of such frequencies would allow the WHAN to work well even in highly congested Wi-Fi areas.

WHAN: Management and security Management refers to ongoing “supervision” of the WHAN network to provide reliable operation. It may be necessary for all interested parties, including the customer via a user interface, the smart home service provider, and the platform operator, to have some management visibility and control, while avoiding conflicts. Any network failures should be recognized quickly, however most customers are not network experts, so the service provider or platform operator also needs to be able

Cloud Located Application Logic & APls

Remote Access

App1

AppN

App2

HOME GATEWAY PLATFORM

Smart Home Abstraction Layer (SHAL)

D1

D2

D3

D4

D5

Home Area Networks connecting Sensors and Actuators

DM

Interconnect device driver layer

to diagnose the network remotely to confirm it is working properly and, if a failure occurs, to identify the type and location.

Ongoing security of the network must also be considered and, due to their vulnerability to eavesdropping and spoofing, WHANs must support security functions to protect sensitive data such as billing information. This means that the WHAN has to authenticate all devices, protect data integrity and privacy, for example, by encryption, and provide protection against replay attacks.

Such attacks are a particular concern where the WHAN is used to support a security related application, such as for people or property.

Also, “man in the middle attacks” must be prevented especially during the installation procedure.

WHANs should also have an authentication function to maintain their integrity, such as shared keys, unique MAC addresses or a verifiable digital certificate. Whatever method is used, product types must have undergone certification by a recognized

independent authority and carry the appropriate labelling and technology logo. The responsibility of these security measures should be placed on the device manufacturer.

How can applications make use of the WHAN? As we’ve seen, wireless in-home connectivity for the smart home is a major consideration, but currently, neither service provider nor consumers know which technology will become the de facto standard and so are likely to be reluctant to invest. A main facilitator for smart home deployments would be the availability of a wellstructured and accepted abstraction layer that “hides” WHAN details from applications. Such a layer will allow commands to and from devices utilising many different WHANs to be handled in a common way by smart home applications.

HGI is currently defining a template and the key enabling steps for such an abstraction layer, as shown in the figure below, and invites participation from the industry, including WHAN technology groups, to make this a reality.

Tying it all together While this article mainly focused on WHAN technologies that are candidates to support the smart home of the future, it also mentioned that the already deployed home networks technologies are also candidates for smart home services. HGI is also working with its service provider and vendor members to set out clear requirements for the feature and testing needs for home gateways in the areas of Wi-Fi (which is evolving quickly), end-to-end quality of service, multicast support and other areas. These are all meant to provide clear guidance and test procedures for the manufacturers addressing the service provider market.

Moving ahead, home networks will continue to be an area of rapid evolution both on the “media” and “smart home side” and HGI will continue to set out requirements from a service provider/vendor home network ecosystem perspective. Your participation in this important work is welcome.

www.CEDmagazine.comnovember/december2014

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NEWproducts Anritsu bows multi-protocol tester

without the need to reconfigure modules for Anritsu Company recently announced a new added flexibility, and time and cost efficiencies. four-port, multi-protocol transport test platThree dual-port modules are compatible form, which is called the MT1100A Network with the MT1100A platform. The MU110010A Master Flex. is a multi-rate module for up to 2 x 10G The MT1100A Network Master Flex can ports, the MU110011A supports 10M to 100G, be used in the field during installation and and the 40/100G MU110012A module supmaintenance of optical networks, as well as in ports CFP2/CXP for 2 x 100G ports. Up to the R&D lab and on the manufacturing floor two modules can be configured in a single to test transport equipment.

MT1100A mainframe, allowing the tester to The modular platform MT1100A Network accommodate as many as four fully indepenMaster Flex supports bit rates from 1.5M dent ports at all rates, including 100G. to 100G, and allows for easy configuration MT1100A Network Master Flex Anritsu said the 12.1-inch touchscreen disto meet current test requirements as well as the ability to upgrade as measurement needs evolve. It supports testing play was the largest in its class. It also features an intuitive GUI that supof emerging OTN networks, including ODU0, ODU2e, ODU4 and ports various languages such as English, Chinese and Japanese.

The MT1100A Network Master Flex was latest addition to Anritsuâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ODUflex, as well as legacy Ethernet, Fiber Channel, SDH/SONET, and PDH/DSn systems. Anritsu said a variety of interfaces were also supported OTN test solution portfolio that supports 1G, 10G and 40/100G.

CONNECTORS

Clearfield debuts new FTTH connector Clearfield has rolled out a new pushable connector that was designed to simplify fiber deployments at the point where multiple fibers are required.

Clearfield said the fieldassembled FieldShield Pushable Multifiber Push-On (MPO) Connector can reduce installation costs for fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) installations, business class services, cell backhaul or any other small count delivery application.

Unlike stiff, flat drop cables that require pre-engineering, are laborintensive and difficult to slackstore, FieldShield MPO eliminates in-field splicing.

"Our small, flexible, connectorized deployment products simplify fiber installation and maintenance," said Clearfield COO Johnny Hill. "And our new connector is tech friendly and laborlight, resulting in much faster deployment and restoration time while reducing the prohibitive

costs associated with broadband deployment."

When combined with FieldShield Pushable Fiber and FieldShield SmarTerminal, the Clearfield FieldShield MPO Pushable Connec-tor's plug-and-play design lowers operating expenses by reducing the amount of pre-engineering, splicing and slack storage space required which in turn lowers the time, labor and equipment needed for installation. Clearfield said its design also makes it possible for restoration to be achieved more easily and quickly.

After being pushed or pulled through the 14/10 microduct, the smooth wall protective sleeve is removed and an outer housing is snapped into place creating an industry standard connector without mechanical or fusion splicing.

Clearfield said the new connectors meet and exceed Telcordia GR-CORE requirements and are available in singlemode 4, 6, 8 and 12 fiber terminations.

For more New Products, visit www.CEDmagazine.com 28 CEDnovember/december2014

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15. Extent and Nature of Circulation:

Average No. Copies No. Copies of Single Each Issue During Issue Published Preceding 12 Months Nearest to Filing Date

a. Total Number of Copies (Net Press Run) b. Legitimate Paid and/or Requested Distribution (1) Outside County Paid/Requested Mail Subscriptions Stated on PS Form 3541 (2) In-County Paid/Requested Mail Subscriptions Stated on PS Form 3541 (3) Sales Through Dealers and Carriers, Street Vendors, Counter Sales, and Other Paid or Requested Distribution Outside USPS ÂŽ (4) Requested Copies Distributed by Other Mail Classes Throught the USPS (e.g. c. Total Paid and/or Requested Circulation (Sum of 15b. (1), (2), (3) and (4)) d. Nonrequested Distribution (1) Outside County Nonrequested Copies Stated on PS Form 3541 (2) In-CountyNonrequested Copies Stated on PS Form 3541 (3) Non-Requested Copies Distributed Through the USPS by Other Clases of Mail (4) Non-Requested Copies Distributed Outside the Mail e. Total Nonrequested Distribution (Sum of 15d (1), (2), (3) and (4)) f. Total Distribution (Sum of 15c and e) g. Copies Not Distributed h. Total (Sum of 15f and g) i. Percent Paid and/or Requested Circulation (15c divided by f times 100) 16. Publication of Statement of Ownership for a Requestor Publication is required and will be printed in the November/December 2014 issue of this publication.

17. Signature and Title of Editor, Publisher, Business Manager, or Owner Gail Kirberger, Associate Director, Audience Development (signed) ____________________________________________________

11,942

12,109

7,851 0

9,362 0

6

6

0 7,857

0 9,368

3,236 0

1,366 0

0

0

696 3,932 11,789 153 11,942 66.6%

1,250 2,616 11,984 125 12,109 78.2%

Webextras Webinars Winning with DOCSIS 3.1: just add cable modems DOCSIS 3.1 dazzles with its promise to help cable operators get to gigabit broadband without installing fiber to the home, but that goal awaits DOCSIS 3.1-compliant network equipment that is still being developed. Customer premise equipment (CPE) will become available in the relatively near future, however, and MSOs can reap significant benefits from DOCSIS 3.1 technology almost immediately by deploying it. Operators can free up bandwidth, and at the same time vastly expand their capabilities for proactive network maintenance (PNM). With Larry Walcott (Comcast), Mark Geiger (Cox Communications), Tom Williams (CableLabs), and Cyrille Morelle (VeEX).

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WiFi - The Next 15 Years Bring Higher Expectations Justin Colwell, Vice President, network technology, CableLabs.

This year, Wi-Fi celebrates its 15th birthday with a number of important milestones: more than 2 billion chipsets sold per year, exceeding the Gbps milestone with 802.11ac, and the first commercial launch of Passpoint/ HotSpot 2.0. In fact, Cisco estimates by 2015 more than half of the world’s Internet traffic will be carried by Wi-Fi.

Applying DevOps Practices to Pay-TV

By John Maguire, director of strategy and marketing, TV technology, S3 Group Operators around the globe are trying to balance the competing needs to accelerate product development while maintaining service stability by creating tighter synergy between their development and operations teams. Couple this with the industry becoming more differentiated by software innovation, and many are exploring a more agile model of development and continuous product introduction known as “DevOps.”

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Managing the Transition to CCAP and DOCSIS 3.1 As plans are made for the transition to CCAP and DOCSIS 3.1, questions and concerns about how these new technologies will fit into existing financial, architectural, and operational paradigms need to be addressed. With Jorge

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29

capital currents Lip synch revisited Ever since the earliest days of digital television, broadcasters have struggled to deliver a television signal with the sound and picture synchronized. That’s because the end-to-end chain from production to compression to storage to distribution to decompression consists of devices that each introduce some latency.

Plus, the audio part of the program and the video part of the program go through different devices in the chain, and are united finally in the TV receiver.

Early on, the worst offenders (in my experience) were the live news feeds from reporters in the field. But the problem wasn’t limited to broadcast signals. I recall watching a cable video-on-demand movie

by Jeffrey Krauss that had a noticeable lip synch problem. Anyway, things got better as President of the problem became better understood.

More than ten years ago, the Advanced Television Systems Telecommunications Committee issued the following recommendation for synchronizaand Technology tion at the input to the broadcast encoding device: “The sound Policy program should never lead the video program by more than 15 milliseconds, and should never lag the video program by more than 45 jkrauss@krauss.ws milliseconds.”

But that does not include the time delays inherent in the decodSMPTE is ing process at the digital TV receiver. Those decoder delays introduced additional synchronization errors, because some of advocating the earliest DTV receivers did not check the Presentation Time Stamps periodically while a program was being viewed. There was a fingerprint relative drift between the audio and video streams, but the receivers only re-synchronized the audio and video at a channel change. approach Consequently, the Consumer Electronics Association adopted CEB20 (“A/V Synchronization Processing Recommended Practice”) in to synching 2009. Basically, it says that receivers should constantly monitor the Presentation Time Stamps for the audio and video, and should keep audio and them synchronized. CEB-20 is used for TV programs delivered to video TV receivers and cable set top boxes, but not (so far as I know) for over-the-top video such as Netflix.

But those efforts only dealt with specified pieces of the complete end-to-end TV delivery chain.

Ideally, information should be incorporated into the stream at the time the audio and video are captured, and used by the receiver to synchronize the audio and video at the time they are rendered. The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) has been working on just such a project for a number of years, and they recently reported on the status of that work.

SMPTE’s approach derives certain data from the video and audio at a point in the chain where they are known to be in synch and carries that data to the receiver. The receiver compares the known good data with the same data derived from the video and audio at the receiver and correlates that information to re-synchronize the video and audio.

SMPTE considered two approaches for carrying the data, fingerprinting and watermarking.

Watermarking hides the data invisibly within the video and inaudibly within the audio. Fingerprinting carries the data separately. SMPTE chose fingerprinting, for several reasons. Watermarking modifies the content in ways that might not be invisible or inaudible to all users or might impair the content, might not survive all signal processing, and might not coexist well with other watermarks.

30 CEDnovember/december2014

To read past columns, visit www.CEDmagazine.com

The video fingerprint is derived by downsampling a frame to SD resolution, then sampling the luminance of 960 specified points. The data is truncated to 8 bits, and compared with the samples from the previous frame. The number of samples that have changed by more than 32 is divided by 4, and the result is the video fingerprint. Another sampling and truncation scheme is used to derive the audio fingerprint.

That’s all well and good, but in order for the concept to work, the video and audio fingerprints need to be derived at the receiving device (TV receiver or set top box) so that they can be compared with the values derived at the beginning of the chain, and used by the set top box or receiver to correct the synchronization. How many boxes or receivers today have the circuitry needed to do this? None.

Can that capability be added to existing, deployed devices? Probably not. What is the incremental cost to add the circuitry to new devices? Unknown.

There’s another issue. SMPTE has defined the fingerprinting method, but not the methods for delivering it down the chain.

Broadcasters and cable systems today use MPEG Transport Streams to deliver the video and audio elementary streams and the related metadata. ATSC standard A/53 and SCTE standard ANSI/SCTE 54 define the method.

No work has begun to modify those standards to define the carriage of fingerprints.

Similarly, Over-The-Top programmers like Netflix use IP Transport. The next generation television system known as ATSC 3.0 will transport video and audio as files, using a different system than MPEG Transport.

Methods for carrying the fingerprint data needs to be defined and standardized for those transport methods.

Finally, a recent experience. I was watching a cable news channel that had a mosaic on the screen consisting of a base picture showing the moderator and six windows with individual commentators. One of the commentator windows had a noticeable lip synch problem.

So far as I can tell, the SMPTE approach cannot correct that problem in the viewer’s TV or set top box. There will still be a need for good lip synch “hygiene” at every point in the program distribution chain.

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