A Remote PHY fairy tale came true in the hometown of author H.C. Andersen

Glenten, one of the largest independent private Cable TV Operators in Denmark, have been looking at multiple ways to upgrade their Cable TV infrastructure to be able to provide Gigabit services as well as the current Digital TV offering.

Customer need

 Located in Odense, the hometown of the famous author H. C. Andersen, the purpose was not only to serve the local subscribers but also to have a future-proof platform for expansion outside of the local community. The target is to offer Gigabit broadband and TV services to other private networks in the rest of Denmark as well, based on their central platform in the centre of the country.

With their existing DOCSIS® 3.0 CMTS from Cisco, Glenten already had a successful and well-integrated platform serving its subscribers. Their vision was to utilise the current investment and achieve operational, technical and subscriber benefits in upgrading to DOCSIS 3.1.

Solution to customer’s need

To provide Glenten with a future-proof solution to higher network capacity and efficiency, Conscia, a long time Cisco Gold partner and systems integrator for Glenten, suggested an implementation of DOCSIS 3.1 based Remote PHY technology in Glenten’s network. This would essentially mean “moving” the PHY part of the CMTS into the network being handled by the R-PHY node. Teleste’s DAN300 R-PHY node was the obvious choice for the implementation as it has already reached a mature and market ready level together with the Cisco cBR8 CCAP core.

Apart from the Remote PHY implementation, Glenten also decided to upgrade their RF network with Teleste’s AC3010 and AC3210 amplifiers. This allows them to take full advantage of the entire downstream spectrum up to 1.2 GHz and upstream to 204 MHz.

In addition, Glenten chose Teleste’s CATVisor Argus platform for the management of their network. The Argus system gives them full remote control of the amplifiers, having opted for DOCSIS transponders inside with intelligent features and full monitoring capabilities.

Benefits achieved

The Remote PHY infrastructure allows Glenten to replace their existing analogue nodes and transmitters with an IP infrastructure called CIN that interfaces the Cisco CCAP core and DAN300 Remote PHY node. The CIN (Converged Interconnect Network) can expand access throughout entire Denmark connecting R-PHY nodes to the centrally located CCAP core, providing true nationwide coverage and easy access for potential new customers for Glenten.

Replacing the analogue transmission and node with an R-PHY node like DAN300 greatly improves the SNR in the access network and the MER values.

This allows for designing a network with higher OFDM modulation schemes and, consequently, higher subscriber Internet speeds, reaching into the Gigabit/s range both downstream and upstream. At the same time, utilising the OFDM modulation will make the network very robust to ingress noise providing higher consistent speeds and improved quality of service for subscribers.

Glenten have chosen to make full use of the digital CCAP core/R-PHY node infrastructure and have implemented all the TV and Data services on IP between the CCAP core and R-PHY. One additional option available on the DAN300 node is to handle an RF overlay feed if a specific implementation would ask for this. This could come to question in case of, for example, a legacy RF based TV service, a second TV and data service provider or if a certain transition period requires services to be delivered via an RF overlay. In any case, Glenten is well prepared for such possibility in any of the opportunities they come across.

Using a CableLabs specified open network structure gives Glenten a very flexible environment in which services can be implemented and added as needed. If, for example, future implementations call for multiple video cores to be accessed, or local channel setups to be provided, the R-PHY node can just be told to receive video feed directly even from a distant auxiliary video core without routing the video feed through the CCAP core. There is no need to route the video feeds through the CCAP core. An example of such TV video core/engine is the Teleste Luminato platform that implements the needed L2TP tunnelling and GCP protocol layer to provide the easy access for the DAN300 R-PHY node.

Conscia have, together with Glenten, integrated the new Cisco CCAP core and Teleste R-PHY into Glenten’s current operating environment, securing continuous and seamless operation even in the transition phase. This provides Glenten with a very modern and future-proof CATV infrastructure for many years to come and gives the operator the ability to provide Gigabit services at a fraction of the cost of a pure fibre infrastructure.

Are you interested in learning more about the implementation and benefits? Click to the Conscia blog to read more.

We are pleased to see that the interoperable Remote PHY technology from Teleste and Cisco is able to provide us with a future-proof and tested platform for carrying out gigabit services for our subscribers in the coming years.

Claus Olsen, Project manager, Glenten

Getting the Teleste RPD working with the Cisco cBR8 was easy in my opinion. The interop is great (thanks to CableLabs standards!) and both Teleste and Cisco are eager to help, if needed. The guys at Teleste deserve a lot of credit for their level of commitment. They clearly want the customer experience to be as good as possible. They are a pleasure to work with.

Thomas Bützau, System Engineer, Conscia