GHOSTBUSTING

Any regular voice-over-IP provider could tell you-the technology's got its advantages. It can be cheaper, easier to deploy. It's new. It's certainly a bit sexier than POTS. But for a cable TV company, IP telephony can be even more attractive. It can allow them to provide a new service over infrastructure that they already have, and it can be rolled out quickly. It can allow them to be the multiservice providers they've long longed to be. And it can allow them to not only strongly compete against telcos, but in some cases, bypass them altogether.

That is all good news for cable TV companies, which are still haunted by the expense and complexity that has surrounded past technology options, such as circuit-switched telephony.

"IP telephony is potentially cheaper, and it's much more efficient to have one set of equipment," says Michael Harris, president of Kinetic Strategies Inc., a cable telephony research group.

So why isn't anybody doing it? Actually, a few multiple service operators are testing it, or soon will be-Videotron and Cogeco in Canada, Telia in Denmark. And in the U.S., everyone seems to be planning on doing it. AT&T expects to deploy IP telephony over cable by the end of 1999 through its new purchase of Tele-Communications Inc. And because it now holds so much power over this market, AT&T is serving as IP deployment gauge for many cable TV providers.

"AT&T has a huge impact," Harris says. "Back office and provisioning are major issues, and if AT&T can do it with its new partners, they could be to cable telephony what @Home is to cable Internet."

Harris contends that the industry will see the rollout of IP telephony over cable within the next 12 to 18 months. Different companies will have different goals, he says-some simply want to offer it as a local loop bypass service, and some want to eventually offer long-distance over an IP backbone to avoid all phone companies altogether. Different players will also have different service strategies, he explains. Some, like AT&T, want to offer primary-line service, while others may want to sell second lines for residential users and telecommuters.

But all of this will have to wait. First, and most importantly, back office services such as network management, quality of service, provisioning and billing have to be established. The data over cable service interface specification (DOCSIS) standard for cable modems has to be enhanced to work for IP telephony. And cable companies have to agree on interconnection protocols so they can share traffic. Cable TV companies are not too scared by old ghosts to face these issues head on.

Setting some standards The major movement created to tackle these issues is PacketCable, an initiative by Cable Television Laboratories Inc. (CableLabs), a cable TV industry consortium that has actively participated in past cable telephony works. Started in 1997, PacketCable comprises most major telecom and networking vendors and was created to define the interfaces necessary to provide real-time packet services over cable, explains David Bukovinsky, director of PacketCable.

"Our concerns are the protocols between the integrated device and the head-end, and between the call agent and the gateway," he says.

Nine different teams-each made up of six to eight vendors-have been created to focus on the different specifications needed for the PacketCable architecture (Figure 1). The group expects to establish two specifications by the end of 1999's first quarter, six more in the second quarter and the rest by the third quarter. CableLabs announced in December that several specifications had been drafted and were undergoing review.

Bukovinsky says the project is further divided into two phases. In the first, the interface specifications between the embedded client and the network will be established. That means specifications for things such as quality of service and device provisioning, he explains.

"We want devices to be self-provisioned so they can just be plugged in," he says. "We'll also look at network-based call signaling, which is now based on [media gateway control protocol], codec specifications and media path specifications. All of this will be done by the first half of this year."

In phase two, specifications for network management, provisioning, more advanced quality of service, security and billing will be created, as well as specifications for public network gateway interfaces and distributed call signaling.

All these specifications will help vendors and cable companies use IP to their best advantage, Bukovinsky says. "This was created because operators started to realize, with the deployment of DOCSIS cable modems, that they could leverage an IP infrastructure," he says. He stresses that IP telephony is just one application that will be possible from the PacketCable results.

Making it work Aside from PacketCable, many vendors have started their own efforts to create the technology necessary for IP voice over cable (Figure 2).

When Nokia purchased Vienna Systems in February, its goal was to strengthen its expertise in this area with the well-known IP telephony vendor. At the time, Vienna's IPShuttle product was already being used in an IP telephony-over-cable trial in Denmark by Telia, a Swedish telco. The IPShuttle is a customer premises device that connects between telephones and cable modems. Vienna (turned Nokia) considers the product to be just the start.

"We were first to come out with a product like the IPShuttle," says Dan MacDonald, vice president of marketing for Nokia IP telephony. "But integration is the next logical step."

Cable TV companies, he explains, are looking for one piece of equipment that can be put into the home-most likely a cable modem with IP telephony capability. "Although you can accomplish it with separate boxes, the market requires that they be combined," he says.

He says the "pitch" to a cable company should be the chance to become a multiservice provider. "If they're going to compete with a telco, they need more than just the same service," he says.

But these companies have several concerns, he adds. Keeping the price points low is one. They want to offer a product customers can simply go to the store and buy, without a truck roll. Also, they want to know what will happen when a customer's power goes out and their only phone line is in their cable.

The Telia trial has helped Nokia gain experience in all of these areas, MacDonald explains.

Other vendors and MSOs are addressing these issues as well. Harris, of Kinetic Research, says that many companies are creating battery backups for power outages. "The goal is to get power efficiency by the time IP telephony is ready to be rolled out," he says. He cites an example of an Omaha ice storm. "U S West's lines were down for two days," he says. "Customers of Cox [Communications], which has battery backup, didn't miss a beat."

Netspeak is addressing another worry of cable companies-that it will be a long time before this technology is readily available. In February, the company put its call agent technology on the Internet, so other vendors could test its interoperability.

"This will accelerate the delivery of products because it shows a live working technology that MSOs can see," says Jim Kwock, vice president of marketing for Netspeak.

A very active player in this arena has been Cisco Systems, which has made a series of agreements with other companies to advance the technology. In October, Cisco and Bellcore were chosen to provide an IP telephony-over-cable solution for Videotron, Canada's second-largest cable company. In November, Cisco announced an alliance with ADC Telecommunications to develop cable-based IP telephony products. The goal is to create a lifeline service-tomaintain power in the event of an outage-and to develop value-added applications such as call forwarding and caller ID. In January, the company announced plans with General Instrument to work with AT&T to develop a trial of end-to-end IP telephony over the hybrid fiber/coax network being deployed by AT&T and TCI.

"We're focused on deploying practical MGCP/[simple gateway control protocol] compliant products for early trials," says Paul Bosco, general manager of cable product solutions at Cisco. "Our longer term plan is to enable broadband convergence even further."

He says all of the recent agreements have been steps in a wide-ranging plan. "Our agreement with ADC is an example of how we're partnering with the leading providers of consumer products in the world," he says. "That will complete our puzzle."

Bringing it home Because so few MSOs have tested this type of service, there isn't yet a complete picture of what it would really look like. But Videotron, in Montreal, has high hopes for not only a trial, but full-fledged service by the end of this year.

"We felt there was value in joining high-speed Internet and telephony, and the access method could very well be IP," says Michel Deschjnes, Videotron's director of product marketing for telephony.

The company believed it would be much more cost-efficient to use one integrated box in the home, rather than two pieces of equipment, he explains. Another key cost advantage, he says, is bypassing the local telco. "We're bypassing their loop, so we're saving money on a monthly basis."

Once you have a low-cost infrastructure, he explains, you can be more efficient. You can offer service variety and lower prices to customers.

Videotron will have to "prove ourselves on the telephony side," Deschjnes says, which may mean having to subcontract some customer service operations. But he is confident that a "progressive rollout" will be successful.

However, most cable TV companies in the U.S. are wary to spell out their IP voice-over-cable plans. A little spooked, maybe?

"We will have a trial this year," says a MediaOne spokeswoman, although she could not disclose where and when. The company's strategic plans will continue to be under wraps while it is being acquired by Comcast. "Our network is designed to add IP when the technology is robust."

Even AT&T, the role model in this area, is sticking with circuit-switched telephony for now.

"IP is not yet ready. We can demonstrate it, but it doesn't meet customers' expectations," says Gerry DeFrancisco, executive vice president of wireline telephony for AT&T Broadband & Internet. "We're working with the standards bodies and select vendors to get it ready, but right now it's not ready for prime time."

Will Strauss, president of research group Forward Concepts, agrees that this service is at least a year off and that MSOs will follow AT&T's lead. "They're looking for leadership, and they don't have the deep pocketbooks that AT&T has," he says.

Still, once the service is out there, it will spread quickly, he says. "We'll see a huge ramp up," he says. "Once we all know how to do it and we can offer it, there will be a real feeding frenzy."