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Our mission is to identify and explain the technologies and applications that allow television services to be provided through Internet Protocol (IP) data networks.  Readers learn the options and the system to implement IPTV along with new features and applications and business opportunities that are available in the IPTV industry today.

          

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Profitable IPTV with DSL Rings

 

DSL Ring technology makes IPTV profitable in many otherwise unprofitable markets. IPTV is costly to deploy and the generation of addition revenue to cover this additional expense is often slow to materialize. In most markets outside of North America, pay-TV is in its infancy, while in most markets in North America, IPTV is the third entrant in a mature pay-TV market. Either way, minimizing IPTV deployment costs is essential for service provider success.

The cost of the broadband infrastructure is the greatest capital cost when deploying IPTV. DSL Rings from Genesis Technical Systems, (www.genesistechsys.com), is a new type of broadband infrastructure that provides a better value than other access technologies. DSL Rings, by its name, uses DSL technology over a Ring Architecture.

Normally, DSL networks use a tree architecture, where all data is processed through a central switch, or DSLAM. DSL Rings distributes this central switching function to the individual ring nodes, which are the modems at each of the homes on the ring. 

DSL Rings

Figure 1 shows how the ring is constructed over the existing telephone cable network. 

Telephone drop cables were installed with two twisted pairs to allow for the offering of second lines in homes. The drop cables between the pedestal and each home have one of their two twisted pairs connected to two other drop cable pairs to form a daisy chain interconnecting the modems at the houses. A twisted pair to the first house and the last house are each connected to VDSL2 ports on the "Convergence Node" at the pedestal to complete the ring. 

The "Convergence Node", which replaces the DSLAM, also terminates the feeder cable link from the Central office. This link may be an optical Ethernet link, or it may be a number of DSL links bonded together to form a single logical high bandwidth connection.

Figure 1: Typical DSL Ring Installation

Table 1: Convergence Node Characteristics for Bonded DSL and Fiber Ethernet Feeder Links

IPTV data flows to and from the pedestal over the feeder cable. At the feeder cable it is transmitted onto the first or last drop cable by the VDSL2 ports. If the cables interconnecting the modems at the homes are less than 250m, (800') long, then two 125 Mbps counter rotating data paths are formed. This provides enough bandwidth for 80 SDTV signals or 25 HDTV signals to be shared amongst the homes on the ring.

DSL Ring Advantages

DSL Rings have a number of advantages which help enhance an IPTV business case. Most importantly, DSL Rings reuse the existing twisted pair telephone network cable infrastructure. Bonded DSL Rings require no new cable installation, while fiber feeder DSL Rings avoid the majority of FTTH costs, which is the installation of fiber drop cables. At a price of $9.50/m for a single fiber cable, this is a tremendous savings.

Secondly there are no stranded equipment costs. Unlike with a DSLAM, all ports on the Convergence Node are used. There are no excess ports to be paid for and powered up until subscriber growth requires their use. As subscribers are subtended off of it, the utilization rate of the Convergence Node ports climb until maximum efficiency is reached. DSL Rings truly are a pay-as-you-grow technology.

The fewer ports at the remote node of a DSL ring also mean minimal electronics. This results in low power consumption, reducing operating costs and the need for an environmentally controlled cabinet with heat exchangers. The lower power consumption also improves the hardware reliability and makes remote powering easier.

The fewer electronics, lack of heat exchanger requirements, and remote powering makes the DSL Ring remote node footprint small. This makes it cheaper and easier to install and because it is less obtrusive, it is more readily welcomed by planning boards and home owners.

DSL Rings Convergence Node

The physical characteristics and price of DSL Rings Convergence nodes are listed in Table 1.

There are two basic types of Convergence nodes, one which use a bonded DSL feeder link and one which uses a fiber Ethernet feeder link. The bonded DSL link can use as many as 32 DSL links. This avoids the cost of installing a fiber cable between the Central Office and the remote pedestal. The fiber Ethernet link uses an optical cable connection from the central office to the remote pedestal, but results in a smaller, lower cost remote installation. 

Table 2: DSL Rings Installation Costs for 16 Subscribers

DSL Rings Cost

The bonded DSL standard allows for a maximum of 32 bonded DSL Links. This provides the maximum 200 Mbps bidirectional feeder cable link to 16 subscribers at a distance of 2.5 km, (1.5 Miles). Each house has an average bandwidth available to it of 12.5 Mbps. The cost of providing this is presented in Table 2 for this bonded DSL link and a fiber link.

For neighborhoods of single family dwelling units, which are less than 2 miles from a Central Office, DSL Rings infrastructure for IPTV delivery is the best solution and costs less than $300 per subscriber, especially if CO DSL ports are reused saving that expense. Shorter feeder cables require fewer bonded DSL links, decreasing the cost even more. For greater distances fiber becomes necessary.

However, if the number of subscribers is higher, such as in a multi-dwelling unit, then fiber becomes more economical. Table 3 compares the cost of DSL Rings for an apartment unit located 1 km from the Central Office with 100 households using a Gigabit Ethernet Feeder Cable and multiple bonded cables.

This shows that the actual choice between bonded DSL feeder links and Fiber Ethernet feeder links depends on the length of the feeder cable and the number of subscribers subtended off of the feeder cable. Nonetheless, DSL Rings is a broadband infrastructure which reduces the cost of providing IPTV by over $200 per subscriber.

Table 3: DSL Rings Installation Costs for 100 Subscribers

 
 
 

                                                       

 
   
   
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