TEXAS LONE STAR NETWORK PASSES VIDEO AROUND STATE

Texas Lone Star Network, a statewide consortium owned by 38 independent telcos, and AFC this week will announce completion of a trial in which IP video was sent between two TLSN cooperatives over a 500-mile-long loop.

The trial, which ran from the end of January until mid-March, connected a video headend at Cap Rock Telephone Cooperative in Spur, Texas, with ETEX Telephone Cooperative's headquarters in Gilmer, Texas, using AFC's telco video platform. The test is the first step toward TLSN providing video over its network, which spans 3000 route miles and hits cities across Texas and into New Mexico and Oklahoma. Previously, TLSN had only provided long-haul voice and data transport over its OC-48. Though the consortium hasn't committed to video yet, it's currently looking at a number of economic models, said Richard Adams, senior manager with TLSN.

“We're working together a package as far as the pricing goes,” he said. “This gives [our IOC members] the opportunity for triple play.”

TLSN wouldn't be the first statewide independent group to provide video. Iowa Network Services, owned by more than 100 IOCs in that state, in April announced that it has started offering a video-on-demand service over its network, providing both transport and serving as a kind of master headend for its members.

The Texas test, though, may be the first time that video has been tested over such distances. Typically when video is transported over long fiber loops, jitter can be a significant problem and can degrade quality. TLSN, which has some members that already offer analog video, isn't looking at providing the headend. Instead, it wants to offer the transport piece to IOCs without the resources to build their own headends. TLSN's member companies count a total of more than 400,000 access lines among them.

“We knew the headends were going to work because they already were working,” said Russ McNeill, general manager of TLSN. “We wanted to make sure it worked over that distance.”

During the test, ETEX and CapRock both used AFC Telliant platforms to provide Layer 3 Internet Group Management Protocol functionality and transport. At the ETEX end, the company also delivered video via ADSL to an IP set-top box at the telco's Pine Acres exchange in Gilmer.

Though just a test, the network may serve as a model for other consortia in states with IOCs spread across vast distances.

“If you can keep the signal intact and manage jitter and delay, you can go across the country if you want,” said Sean Blakley, manager of product line management for AFC. “Video is just a data service except that it's a real-time service, so any of those anomalies on the network are very noticeable.”