Convergence Element management gains favor >BY Sandra Guy, News Editor

Cable operators once relied on their customers to call whenever service crashed, but as technology trials proliferate, network operators are seeking increasingly sophisticated management systems to handle voice, data and interactive video.

Industry insiders agree that one answer to keeping tabs on this complex mix of services may lie in creating a network-independent set-top box that relies on an intelligent module designed to interface with specific transmission technologies.

Harmonic Lightwaves Inc., a fiber optic systems company based in Santa Clara, Calif., started integrating element management into its systems four years ago. Convergence has occurred gradually, and as a result, CATV operators now demand the system, said Guy Sucharczuk, product manager for the NetWatch broadband management system.

The NetWatch management system uses microprocessor technologies so cable operators can monitor, manage and control system performance from a central office or remote location. The software continuously and automatically polls network elements and displays the system's status in a Windows format.

Spotting problems is especially important now that cable operators-once accustomed to monthly billing cycles-are relying more on pay-per-view, modem and phone services, which are billed per minute.

The system, which will be demonstrated at the Cable-Tec Expo '96 this week in Nashville, can also talk with higher-level network managers as defined by the telecom management network architecture and can interface with operations support systems that include simple network management protocol (SNMP).

If a fiber is cut, for example, an alarm alerts the operator, a message is sent to the billing system, a truck is dispatched and-eventually-a customer's phone rings to notify him of the situation, Sucharczuk said.

Harmonic Lightwaves last week started shipping a segment of its network solution-the HLR 3830 optical node-to a cable TV operator in Las Vegas.

Network operators can use the HLR 3830 to slightly attenuate the return path coming from each node, enabling them to perform diagnostics on individual feeder lines without interrupting communications. They can shut off the problematic line until a technician is dispatched.

BellSouth, which last week started offering Americast-branded programming and advanced pay-per-view channels in Chamblee, Ga., is finding the return channel very challenging.

The hybrid/fiber coax network uses standard network element monitors for its analog video channels, but the telco is using its own monitors for the set-top boxes used for the digital phase of the trial. That system must ensure that 700 movies start on time, run their full length and are sent to the correct set-top box, said John Prophitt, operations manager with BellSouth Interactive Media Services Inc., Atlanta.

Still to be resolved is the need to use SNMP agents that reside in the set-top box. If interactivity is to succeed, it must run like a computer system, Prophitt said. "A set-top box is a computer. You've got TCP/IP traffic over it. All the rules of a computer network apply. The good news is you can now manage this more like a computer network and take the cost out of the network by proactively dealing with problems. We're trying to apply that to the new technology that we have."

Stellar One, a Seattle designer and maker of interfaces and digital devices, believes it may have the answer to the kind of efficient management Prophitt is talking about. Company officials say they are concentrating on developing an intelligent network interface that would be attached to a set-top box, enabling it to interact with any kind of video transmission system at any location.

The need for such an interface is apparent when microwave, copper wire, coaxial cable, cellular and direct broadcast satellite systems access homes within the same neighborhood, said Steve Voit, vice president of marketing for Stellar One.

The carrier, be it wireless, wireline, cable, satellite or a combination of these, could concentrate on its core competency, and the set-top box would become an affordable consumer item made by consumer electronics companies, Voit said.