Video starts to flicker-again

Perhaps its was just a marketing decision made by both the U.S. Telephone Association and the Telecommunications Industry Association, but placing a television prominently in the Supercomm '99 literature could turn out to be more accurate than anyone ever thought.

What a difference a year makes. After being relegated to an afterthought for the past 12 months, telco (or copper)-based video is slowly making a recovery. And although it's a far cry from the convergence cheer of earlier this decade, there are increasing indications that reports of video's death in the telco world were indeed premature.

Evidence of such a recovery should be on full display to Supercomm attendees in Atlanta when a handful of traditional cable vendors and copper video proponents hit the floor with demonstration systems.

The box is back on top Instead of the interactive television demonstrations of years past, which for the most part turned out to be far beyond the pocketbooks of even the most cash-rich telcos, the current crop of systems appear to take advantage of telcos' existing networks.

Scientific-Atlanta, for instance, will make a big showing in its hometown for the first time in two years. The traditional cable powerhouse will have the latest version of its Explorer 2000 set-top box. The digital set-top, which Cox Communications has agreed to deploy in Las Vegas, Oklahoma City, Phoenix and San Diego, lets cable operators deploy a new set of digital channels and offer interactive services such as Web browsing and e-mail. Farther down the road as content is developed, the same box will be able to handle home shopping or act as the hub of a home network.

Key to the box handling advanced services is the integration of an Internet protocol interface. In fact, that integration is what's driving much of the renewed interest.

"If you look at it from the standpoint of IP and the classical [hybrid fiber/coax] network, it's certainly going down the path of letting you converge all your services," said Lee Johnson, vice president of systems marketing in SA's new business development group. "If you look at where SA is going, it's obviously going after the converged space."

In addition to the set-top box, SA also will have its digital reverse technology at the show, which lets carriers deploy more interactive services and moves them closer to symmetrical transmission from the home. "What that starts to do is take the access platform and make it a more digital platform in the reverse direction," said Johnson. SA also will display its Prisma DT, a system that allows video service providers to run OC-48 (2.4 Gb/s) Sonet rings and offer varying degrees of quality to different network nodes. "We're seeing more of the multiple system operators moving to this," he said. "They're going to be a bit demanding on the video business cases. They don't have enough money to go out and build a bunch of separate networks."

In addition to the booth displays, SA will hold what it is calling the Exploration Theater (Wednesday, June 9, between 10:20 and 10:55) with Paul Connelly, vice president of marketing and architecture. The company will demonstrate different network architectures.

Also expanding its presence at Supercomm this year is NextLevel Communications. The former General Instrument business unit has been something of a bellwether for the telco video marketplace. At this year's show, the company will have most of its Nlevel3 residential video system in operation, including applications that show how carriers can integrate content for both PCs and TVs. The system, which is being deployed by U S West in Arizona and Hutchinson Tel in Minnesota, is built around an in-home residential gateway that separates video, data and voice signals as they enter on a single copper line (Figure 1).

NextLevel also will have a digital subscriber line (DSL) interoperability demonstration.

And while the U S West deployment at DC Ranch in the Phoenix area is the current showcase for a big telco, the company is finding interest from a number of smaller U.S. carriers in addition to European operators. "We're finding a huge amount of interest among independents," said Pat Pucinski, vice president of marketing at NextLevel. "We have a system in Bell Canada in their Montreal Lab, which is a real plant environment."

Part of the credit for the resuscitation of copper-based video can be given to the aggressive moves of AT&T, which is forcing telcos to take a second and third look at their video business cases, said several vendors. By acquiring Tele-Communications Inc. and MediaOne, striking alliances with Time Warner and Comcast, AT&T has found a way to circumvent local telcos. And while previous attempts by cable operators to offer telephony have been limited geographically or laughed off by incumbents, the specter of AT&T competing head-to-head in the local market is forcing a change of heart toward new potential revenue streams.

"The telcos are all of sudden realizing that they have a serious competitor that knows their domain," said SA's Johnson. "They're going to get much more offensive in terms of competing with AT&T ala TCI and Time Warner. They're going to come out with much better packages."

"The market has definitely changed for us," added Pucinski. "The technology has matured enough now. In the last six to nine months we've had enough in the field in trial situations and we're pretty far up the learning curve to point that our customers are starting to make business commitments."

Let's get digital Also making an appearance on the show floor will be iMagic, which will display the first version of its digital TV software. The one-year-old joint venture of Newbridge Networks and NBTel is using the show to highlight its ability to control everything in a video network down to channel changes from centralized locations in the network.

DTV Manager, which (not surprisingly) is being used by NBTel, is specifically geared for telcos and lets them offer digital television and other interactive services such as Internet and e-mail over existing telephone lines. DTV Manager, while naturally designed for set-top boxes, also could be run on a PC environment.

"The kind of capability we provide is something very powerful because everything is switched and controlled in the network," said Marcel LeBrun, president and CEO of iMagic. "We're very focused on helping telcos operate the business of digital TV."

LeBrun also gives some credit for the "resurgence" of integrated networks-particularly among small telcos-to AT&T's move into the broadband market.

"In the next 12 months you'll see some very serious deployment," he said. "The cheapest way to get broadband to the home is to work with what you've got. There's not a business case that makes money for any one service, but what does work is multiple services on broadband."

Following a similar path is mPhase, which will make its second consecutive Supercomm appearance with a new version of its Traverser digital video and data delivery system. Using DSL, the systems can deliver four channels of digital video simultaneously with 1 Mb/s Internet access and voice service directly over an existing telephone wire (Figure 2).

With its latest innovation, a multiuser and multichannel system to be unveiled in Atlanta, the company is making steps toward giving telcos an 80-channel system.

And while competitive moves in the market can account for some of the revived interested in copper-based video systems, many vendors claim improvements in the underlying technologies-specifically DSL-should get just as much credit.

"DSL was not really on the map four years ago," said LeBrun. "Now telcos have real world experience deploying high-speed Internet service. Now they're starting to deal with the business cases again and finding out ways to make it work."

"We're anticipating that [telcos will] be much more aggressive with looking at video and reopening the business cases," added SA's Johnson. "The advanced access platforms that can handle data, video and voice are a prerequisite in the very near future.