Cable Telephony Performance Over Dwdm Networks
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CABLE TELEPHONY PERFORMANCE OVER DWDM NETWORKS Ricardo A. Villa, Senior Engineer, DWDM Systems Engineering Sudhesh Mysore, PhD., Director, DWDM Systems Engineering Oleh Sniezko, Vice President, Engineering AT&T Broadband, 188 Inverness Drive West, 3rd Floor, Englewood, Colorado, 80112 Abstract This paper presents the requirements formulated for all interactive service In the last two decades, a trend platforms operating in the HFC network toward metro market clustering under a with consolidated signal-processing single operator led to changes in metro facilities. It also presents and discusses the market architecture. This trend allowed for results of tests performed on several significant headend consolidation and for proprietary digital telephony platforms to lowering the number of signal processing verify these requirements. facilities to the level dictated by local programming requirements and operational INTRODUCTION issues. A side effect of this benefit was an increase in distances between the processing The major system clustering and facilities and the customers. This had not headend consolidation activity occurred been an issue for traditional broadcast between 1990 and 1997. It brought a services that did not require two-way significant benefit in operational savings, communication. However, with the improved signal quality and network introduction of interactive services with reliability. In 1994 and 95, a deployment of their strict requirements for proper timing highly interactive services began. Initially, and synchronization, the absolute distance for high-speed Internet access services, the from the processing centers and the differential distance between the devices segmentation requirements were low enough transmitting on the upstream path became to allow for a cost-effective use of 1310 nm critical. technology for short distances and 1550 nm externally modulated laser transmitters for Additionally, requirements for longer distances. However, with the increased network availability on long fiber deployment of digital telephony services and routes made it necessary to deploy optical increased segmentation requirements, switching to reduce the network downtime to expensive 1550 nm externally modulated a minimum. Optical switching activation laser transmitters dedicated to a small results in an instantaneous change in number of customers could not be justified. distance that causes a change in delay between the terminal devices affected by the Additionally, increased requirements switch and the processing facilities. It also for network availability made it necessary to affects differential distances between the deploy self-healing rings deeper into the terminal devices. Therefore, a reliable and network. This goal could be achieved only timely recovery from these changes became after a reduction in fiber count in these crucial to achieve network availability targets. rings. The topology of the network meeting located at customer homes. The HFC these requirements is presented in Figure 1. network consisted of short fiber links (10-25 This topology has been deployed by km) from the secondary hub (SH) to the virtually all hybrid fiber-coax (HFC) optical node (usually unprotected) followed network operators providing telephony by a tree and branch coaxial cable run of a services and by many other operators who few miles. This meant a typical distance opted for increased network availability. from HDT to NIU of between 12 km and 30 km 8 dB link at 1550 nm 5 dB link at 1550 nm PH HEADEND HUB SH 13 dB link at 1310 nm 7 dB link at 1310 nm Add Insert Primary Remux- PH Mapper for Ring MPEG Voice, HS SH Data, SS Voice PH Data, SONET SONET Bandwidth / Splitter Combiner PPV Bay Bay Manager orders and From 10,000 - Modems Nodes Data File 60,000 - 40,000 Server 200,000 Homes Passed Homes Passed CWDM Data Demod Codec Combiner / Splitter Headend Modems &Router Node PH Single Rx Primary Hub Broadband Node Figure 1: Generic Configuration of a) SONET SH Rings Modern Metro Market HFC Network 5 dB link at 1550 nm HEADEND HUB 7 dB link at 1310 nm Initially, due to the lack of other cost-effective transport technology choices, 8 dB link at 1550 nm 13 dB link at 1310 nm Combiner / Splitter Combiner signal processing equipment for high-speed 100 100 BaseT BaseT From Nodes Data Internet access services (cable modem Modems &Router termination systems — CMTSs) and for CWDM Combiner / Splitter Combiner Node digital telephony (host digital terminals — Single Rx HDTs) was deployed in secondary hubs and Broadband interconnected with the primary hub rings 1 with SONET and ATM transport systems . b) Point-to-Point Fast Ethernet SH Link In many cases, point-to-point Ethernet transport systems were deployed in place of Figure 2: Hybrid Analog and Digital ATM systems to support high-speed Internet In 1998, dense wavelength division access equipment. This solution is depicted multiplexing (DWDM) technology reached in Figure 2. Although this negated the trend a level of performance adequate for carrying toward, and hence the benefits of, multiple QAM signals over long distances. processing facility consolidation, it was the Moreover, it reached the price points to only viable solution at that time. In this become a cost effective alternative to the arrangement, redundancy switching or SONET transport system in secondary hub routing was taking place on the network side rings2. It also eliminated the need for of the processing equipment with well- different transport systems dedicated to defined timing performance of the SONET, different services. A DWDM network ATM or Ethernet transport systems. The configuration is presented in Figure 3. CMTSs and HDTs were connected over an HFC network to their corresponding cable modems and network interface units (NIUs) increased distances, it also became HEADEND HUB necessary to introduce diverse fiber path routing between CMTSs and HDTs and their 1 x8 DWDM 1 x 8 DWDM respective cable modems and NIUs, both in the forward (FWD) and reverse (REV) 4 x 8 DWDM paths. The DWDM optical links between 1 x 2 WDM PH and SHs were configured as self-healing 1 x 4 Splitter rings. Each SH was connected with its respective PH via automatic optical Broadband protection switches (AOPSs) selecting a) Forward between principal and backup fiber routes, LOCAL HEADEND SECONDARY HUB OPTICAL NODES often significantly different in length (and 8 dB link at 1550 nm 13 dB link at 1310 nm hence in transit delay). These differences could result in instantaneous changes in 1 x 4 DWDM 1 x 4 DWDM delay and/or optical power levels as a result of the switchover. The latter can be 1 x 4 DWDM 1 x 4 DWDM addressed by a judicious use of optical amplifier and attenuators for level 1 x 4 DWDM 1 x 4 DWDM equalization in principal and backup paths RF Routing Circuitry Combiner/Splitter after redundancy switching. However, the 1 x 4 DWDM 1 x 4 DWDM instantaneous changes in delay caused by 5 dB link at 1550 nm AOPS activation require cable modems and 7 dB link at 1310 nm NIUs to adapt to such changes with minimal b) Reverse loss in service availability. Figure 3: DWDM in Secondary Hub The DOCSIS standard addressed the Links long absolute and differential distances The most important benefit of this likely to exist between CMTSs and cable technology was the fact that the operators modems, and DOCSIS-compliant high- could continue the consolidation of signal speed Internet access platforms can operate processing facilities. The CMTSs and at these long distances (transit delay from HDTs could again be concentrated in a few headend to most distant customer can be primary hubs (PHs) and headends. This ≤0.800 ms). However, the proprietary resulted in cost savings in hub buildings, digital telephony platforms could not improved reliability due to faster mean time initially meet similar requirements for to repair (MTTR), and operational absolute and differential distances. efficiencies due to having highly Moreover, neither DOCSIS standards nor sophisticated and environmentally sensitive proprietary digital telephony platform equipment placed in fewer, well-designed specifications directly addressed the locations. recovery issues related to the instantaneous This desirable change increased the changes in these distances. distances to the cable modems and NIUs This situation necessitated the from the typical 12-30 km to much greater definition of new requirements for the distances of 70-100 km and, in a few interactive service platform capabilities for extreme cases in backup routes in secondary both distance requirements and recovery hub rings, to 150 km. Due to these requirements in case of the instantaneous in either direction (i.e., from the change in these distances. maximal distance to zero distance and from zero distance to the maximal REQUIREMENTS FOR INTERACTIVE distance): SERVICE PLATFORMS • Requirement: Within 4 minutes, • Objective: Within 2 minutes. AT&T Broadband Requirements (Note: The additional objective is not to terminate a call in progress upon the change Based on the considerations presented in distance described above). above, AT&T Broadband defined the 4. Terminal units operating on the same following architectural requirements for the modem as the units subjected to the interactive service platforms: change in distance (optical path 1. Absolute maximal distance between redundancy switch activation) shall not signal processing equipment and require re-ranging or re-registration or terminal equipment at which the be affected in any way. terminal equipment can range and register shall be as specified below. All Statistical Analysis of PH to Home terminal devices must register Distances – Requirement 1 automatically for the entire absolute range without reconfiguration of the Approximately 500 SHs are designed headend/primary hub equipment. or scheduled for design and construction in • Requirement: 70 miles, AT&T Broadband markets with interactive • Objective: 90 miles. services. Approximately 5% of these hubs (Note: DOCSIS requirement approximates (25 locations) are located far from a primary to 110 miles of optical fiber) hub and either a principal or backup route or 2.