JDSU catalyst projects work to overcome NFV and video service deployment challenges

TM Forum Catalyst Projects are a useful way to evaluate how proposed base concepts can be used to solve critical CSP industry challenges. Here, Ronnie Neil explains how JDSU is working with CSPs and vendors on four projects that address NFV and video service deployment.

JDSU value-add test and visibility is now enabling communications service providers (CSPs) to optimise and differentiate customer quality of experience (QoE) for their mobile and wireline broadband data services.

This change is powered by three key elements:

• End-to-end visibility across entire service paths

• Faster speed to the required insight

• Scalability and low total cost of ownership

JDSU solutions are enhancing the business results of our CSP customers with higher revenues, reduced churn and lower costs. The telecoms world, however, never stands still, new network technologies and services are frequently introduced, and JDSU is continuously evolving our test and visibility portfolio to address these new service provider requirements.

The author, Ronnie Neil, is Customer Experience Assurance product marketing manager for Network and Service Enablement at JDSU
The author, Ronnie Neil, is Customer Experience
Assurance product
marketing manager for Network and Service Enablement at JDSU

TM Forum Catalyst Projects typically run for approximately six months and culminate in a demonstration at one of the TM Forum massattendance events. JDSU is currently participating in four TM Forum Catalyst Projects, all of which will have demonstrations at the TM Forum Live! event being held in Nice, France, on 1-4 June 2015. The objectives and activities associated with each of these four projects are described below.

Network functions virtualisation (NFV) catalyst projects

The first two current catalyst projects involving JDSU are associated with NFV, a significant new, wireline and wireless, network technology where network functions are moved off dedicated hardware and onto standard IT hardware – servers, switches and storage. The benefits of NFV are a significant improvement to flexibility, making services and networks more responsive to customer needs, with an infrastructure that is more elastic and provided at much lower costs.

chart-1

Maximising profitability with NFV

To fully harness the benefits of NFV requires networks that are self-configuring, able to self-determine the optimum network configuration for the current situation and subsequently orchestrating this defined configuration. The mission of this catalyst project is to demonstrate an operational environment – including the required real-time analytics and supporting data – where the orchestration of virtualised network functions is performed in accordance with policies that will optimise both business value, in terms of minimising costs and maximising profitability, and customer experience. The project is championed by AT&T and NTT working in cooperation with JDSU, Aria Networks, Microsoft and Ericsson.

Operations transformation and simplifications enabled by virtual customer-premises equipment (vCPE)

One of the areas being considered for early roll-out of virtualised network functions is customer premises equipment. The objective of this catalyst project is to demonstrate how a virtual residential gateway supporting triple play services can be automatically setup, configured and managed – including performance tested – in real-time without the need for manual intervention or specialised equipment. Such ability would enable service providers to massively roll out, or reconfigure, this type of NFV capability much quicker than is currently possible with physical equipment. This project is championed by AT&T and Orange working in cooperation with JDSU, Alcatel Lucent, Cisco and Ericsson.

Video service delivery catalyst projects

The final two current catalyst projects involving JDSU are associated with video services. Revenues from online TV and video revenues today are huge and still growing fast. They are estimated to be US$19.3 billion in 2014, growing to over US$42 billion in 2020 according to a recent report from Digital TV Research. Multi-screen/adaptive bit rate (ABR) video services have now achieved the first level of market introduction – technical feasibility and consumer adoption – with such services now available over a multitude of access networks such as copper such as vDSL, FTTx, HFC, public Wi-Fi and LTE. The next level of market evolution is for service providers to scale delivery of these multi-screen/ABR video services, and in a profitable way. The objectives of the following two catalyst projects are to demonstrate how video service providers can significantly improve customer retention and profitability.

Ensuring the best multi-screen customer experience

chart-2

This objective of this catalyst project is to demonstrate how multi-screen/ABR video service providers can improve customer satisfaction and reduce operational costs through proactive real-time analytics, correlation of KPIs measured in end-user devices, and enhanced quality of experience functionality across multiple devices and platforms. The project showcases a complete solution for optimising customer experience and associated operational costs when delivering premium ABR video services with demonstration of how ABR services can be turned-up and pro-actively monitored. Orange and Microsoft are the champions for this project working in cooperation with JDSU, Thomson Video Networks and Broadpeak.

Analytics Big Data Repository

This objective of this catalyst project is to demonstrate how an innovative Analytics Big Data Repository (ABDR) approach can be used to provide video multiscreen providers with value-add visibility and speed to insight on video quality of experience (QoE). This project is being championed by Orange, China Mobile and MTS Allstream working in cooperation with JDSU and ParStream.

Network functions virtualisation and multi-screen video service delivery are two of the hottest trends right now in the telecoms industry. They are, however, technology and service trends with significant implementation challenges to overcome in order for them to become service provider business successes. The four catalyst projects described above are all targeting proof-of-concepts to help overcome some of the critical implementation challenges associated with these technology and service trends. Experts from JDSU, the project champions, and other participating companies will be present at TM Forum Live! in Nice to discuss and demonstrate the learnings from all of these projects.

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