Driving Carrier Ethernet Access
LOOKING BEYOND HFC
L et’s face it—hybrid fiber coax (HFC) networks have been good
to the cable MSO over the years. But as cable operators have
sought to expand and provide more profitable converged services
for business subscribers, the existing infrastructure has had trouble
keeping up.
To grow their business, cable operators need to look beyond today’s
HFC networks in order to offer increased numbers and types of
services to a wider market. Today’s residential market is the MSO’s
bread and butter. But there is a whole new market waiting to be
tapped—within the small to medium size business (SMB)—that
offers new, margin-rich revenue streams in the area of voice and
data services.
For those who succeed, it will mean accelerated revenues, better
margins, higher profitability and increased long-term viability in the
face of growing market competition.
But tapping into this lucrative market is not without challenges.
The challenges
The delivery of converged data and voice services to businesses is
not an “undiscovered” opportunity. Major telecommunications carriers
already dominate in providing such services to large enterprises
everywhere—offering high levels of reliability, availability and
serviceability to a customer base that expects high uptime to meet
the demands of the 24/7 global markets in which they compete.
Providing similar services to smaller businesses, with 10 to 100
employees, represents the basis of opportunity. To enter this market,
cable operators will have to compete directly with larger, better known
providers with deeper pockets—namely the large carriers, RBOCs
and ILECs who “own” the large networks that serve businesses’ data
and telephony needs today.
And finally, the MSO must address how or whether to make use
of the current HFC infrastructure to bring services to a business
community that remains skeptical of its ability to deliver carrier-class
service levels.
Where to start
There are three options available for deploying the carrier Ethernet
services needed to support converged services, carrier-grade
uptime, performance, and service level guarantees for SMBs. These
options range in cost and complexity from simply reusing the existing
infrastructure—HFC/DOCSIS (Data Over Cable Service Interface
Specification)—to modifying it or even deploying a new, end-to-end
fiber solution to take advantage of “greenfield” opportunities.
The key to all these approaches lies in utilizing carrier Ethernet as
the unifying technology to deliver services and applications. Ethernet
services are increasingly being deployed across metropolitan and
wide-area networks. Ethernet technology is simple, flexible and cost
effective, and fully capable today of delivering carrier-class services,
which require delivery of key service-enabling, traffic management,
and OAM&P (operations, administration, maintenance and
provisioning) features that support business-class applications.
What are the options / trade-offs?
Leveraging the existing HFC/DOCSIS infrastructure
Using the existing HFC plant has an immediate upside: the
infrastructure is already in place. Because of its ubiquity, HFC
www.telco.com
broadband networks are often already deployed in close proximity to
office buildings and commercial centers. By simply adapting Ethernet
services onto the HFC/DOCSIS infrastructure, operators can offer
converged voice/data services to small businesses immediately at
low cost.
The downside lies in the inherent performance issues of a network
that was not designed to deal efficiently with upstream traffic and is
already bandwidth-constrained. The HFC network’s non-symmetrical
design does not enable business class application delivery, even with
the promised improvements of DOCSIS 3.0. Additional disadvantages
include significant equipment swap-outs, upgrades, provisioning
headaches – essentially involving total reengineering of the network,
without gaining any real and sustained benefits.
Shared network capacity/bandwidth and associated performance
issues are not the only disadvantages of the overlaid approach. It
necessitates downsizing the subscriber population to compensate.
And even then, it is difficult to guarantee SLAs and compete effectively
with carriers who are also reaching into the SMB market.
But this “low-hanging” fruit approach has the advantage of making
low-cost, albeit also lower margin services available to those
business subscribers who are willing to settle for less than carrier-
grade performance.
HFC coax bypass strategy
Where HFC is already in close proximity to businesses, there is another
simple solution that makes use of the infrastructure, while overcoming
the DOCSIS-related performance issues. Wavelength multiplexing on
the fiber portion of the HFC plant allows operators to peel off and
dedicate wavelengths to carry Ethernet services to businesses.
With Ethernet services no longer requiring the DOCSIS transport,
operators can support point-to-point Ethernet services, run
independently and in parallel with the existing DOCSIS-based
applications on the same HFC plant.
By partially leveraging the existing fiber plant, operators are able to
control cost and complexity while extending services to the business
community. This HFC coax bypass strategy is a cost-effective way
to overcome performance problems. Overlaying Ethernet data
streams onto a separate fiber portion to bypass the coaxial part of the
HFC network enables cable MSOs to deliver dedicated, symmetric
bandwidth to handle data and voice at carrier-class service levels and
supports equally efficient upstream or downstream communications.
Create an all-fiber Ethernet infrastructure
Migration to all fiber networks offers improved reliability and
performance. This is the ideal solution in terms of scalable, business-
grade services that offer operators increased revenue and margin
opportunities. It is also the most viable option in areas where there is
no existing HFC infrastructure, i.e, in greenfield developments.
In new construction multi-tenant units, MSOs can light the fiber
infrastructure going into new buildings and office parks and deploy
carrier Ethernet services in an optimal environment.
Why Ethernet and why NOW?
The key to SMB market penetration lies Headend
Video
in providing carrier Ethernet services Service Router CMTS Satellite/Local
as defined in the MEF (Metro Ethernet
Metro Area
Forum) specifications, regardless of
Network
which physical plant is used—HFC/
DOCSIS overlays, HFC coax bypass or
Fiber
end-to-end fiber implementations. The
services and the SMB user experience
are essentially the same, with some Fiber Node
cost/performance deltas. T5Compact
Sub-50msec/FRR Ethernet
Telco Systems provides Carrier
Fiber
Ethernet solutions which enable MSOs
to efficiently deliver high-quality voice
and data services to SMBs in support
multiple business models. These Data &
SIP-based
include not only Carrier Ethernet VoIP
but also MPLS, VoIP, and Circuit
Emulation—allowing MSOs to provide Residential Commercial
services
high-quality, competitive services to services
Access500
their customers.

HFC bypass coax network

Circuit Emulation Services (CES)
Telco Systems’ T-Marc 254 demarcation device leverages the
existing T1 infrastructure to deliver circuit emulation technologies
over Carrier Ethernet. This strategy allows customers to maintain
their PBX for voice strategy while integrating their Ethernet data
services. This is accomplished just by replacing existing fiber/
copper media converters with T-Marc demarcation devices.
Migration to SIP-based Voice over IP
The Access 500 Integrated Access Device is capable of concurrently
delivering SIP-based VoIP services and Ethernet data services,
while retaining existing customer equipment. This strategy enables
an easy migration to Voice over IP (VoIP) by mapping the existing
PBX and analog phones onto an IP network.
Multiplexing Ethernet Services
The newly released T-Marc 300 series provides Ethernet
demarcation and extends Ethernet services to the customer
premise using virtual Ethernet, MPLS/H-VPLS or Layer 3/IP
network. The T-Marc 300 Series supports managed converged
services on separate customer interfaces or multiple services on
a single customer interface. Because each service is isolated,
providers can troubleshoot each individual service without
impacting the others. Applications are prioritized over different
traffic-engineered paths, and multi-level OAM is used to measure
and ensure provisioned Service Level Agreements (SLA) are met.
In addition, security controls are embedded to ensure protection
against denial-of-service attacks.

Headend Video
Satellite/Local

Metro Area
Network

Access500

Data & Ethernet/MPLS

SIP-based
Sub-50msec/FRR By being an early MSO
VoIP
adopter of carrier Ethernet
CES
T-Metro solutions—and embracing
integrated access devices
and intelligent demarcation
T-Marc
T5Compact Sub-50msec/FRR capability—operators can take
T1 Ethernet advantage of the emerging
Ethernet market opportunity in servicing
CES the SMB market with a suite
of high-margin converged
services. This is a market that
T1
Commercial Residential Commercial will not only continue to grow,
services services services
Ethernet
but where service opportunities
promise enhanced profitability
All-fiber Ethernet network with subtended rings for the foreseeable future.

For further information: www.telco.com or 1.800.221.2849