SureWest's road to perfection goes through IneoQuest

SureWest Communications is in a high-definition race for customers in Northern California and says it's winning. However, it's not just the number of HD channels that matters, it's the quality of the content. And after fine-tuning its network, SureWest is using IneoQuest to help content providers troubleshoot theirs.

SureWest has its own headend and seven primary hubs throughout Roseville, Calif.; off each hub are about 32 remote terminals. James Player, network engineering manager for SureWest, said his company uses IneoQuest test solutions at every point along the way and feels the quality couldn't get much better.

As a result, technicians have been taken off repairs and redirected to installations. SureWest's take rate is high and its customers are champing at the IPTV bit. However, with the network humming along and the number of installs increasing, SureWest has turned its attention toward the one thing it has not been able to control: the content providers themselves.

“We feel the network is top-notch, so our focus is turning to content providers,” Player said. “You never know what they're going to throw on the network, and if they are giving us garbage, there hasn't been much we could do.”

Now there is. SureWest has used IneoQuest Technologies' IQPinPoint Advanced Quality and Service Assurance Solution for IP Video and Cricket probes since its rollout in 2004 — and for every HD introduction along the way as well as for ongoing troubleshooting. IneoQuest can help SureWest discover bad content coming from the content provider.

“Our system allows you to monitor and manage your video everywhere, from the headend to the last mile, and gives service providers a channel perspective of the world,” said Calvin Harrison, vice president of marketing for IneoQuest. “Now they're not looking at a problem with multicast IP address X, Y or Z; they can see that HBO has a problem or The History Channel.”

IneoQuest announced a new feature at TelcoTV last month, which SureWest is still evaluating, that makes this even easier. The IQDVx is a PC-based software application that enables visibility into the structure of IP video by bridging the analysis requirements for both MPEG and IP.

“It's like a single-step debugger,” Harrison said. “For the first time, you can analyze the MPEG world, the IP world and the video picture, and have it all correlated at the same time.”

Until now, identifying and debugging video problems in a mixed MPEG and IP environment required two separate tools. Now, IneoQuest's Video Quality Management System hardware devices such as the Singulus Lite probe and the IQDVx complete the concept of multidimensional analysis.

Along with changing its encryption vendor to Widevine, which encrypts only the IP payload rather than the whole packet, SureWest has used IneoQuest gear to turn the tables on content providers. “We have not added several content packages because we were able to measure the quality of the signal coming from them; we used IneoQuest to capture this data and send it back to them,” Player said. “We even love the fact that IneoQuest is selling this tool to other [independent operating companies], even competitors, because they can help us make our point to content providers that they have a problem.”

The quality issue is especially important to SureWest because it competes against AT&T, Comcast and a couple of other lesser players such as VOOM HD Networks.

“Being in the local area, no matter how much marketing we do, word-of-mouth is the most powerful tool,” Player said. “All we have to do is make one mistake and the entire city knows about it. But if we do something right, well, maybe sometimes they know that, too.”