By Joe McGarvey, Marketing Director |

The secret of great comedy, the saying goes, is timing. But that’s true of most things, including technology. It’s not uncommon for innovative products or solutions to miss making an impact because they were ahead of their time — arriving in advance of market demand or before adjacent or complementary technologies were fully baked.

This was basically the case with adding advanced intelligence to HFC network actives. Despite being around for a couple of decades, this idea didn’t gain traction or investment primarily for the reasons cited above. But all of that is changing, as evidenced by the positive reception that two-way communications enabled by next-gen HFC amplifiers with low-cost transponders received at last month’s SCTE TechExpo.

A major reason for the uptick in interest around transponders and advanced amplifier intelligence is the recent escalation in the importance of network reliability and operational efficiency. That’s hardly a surprise, given that breakthroughs in extending the bandwidth of DOCSIS 3.1 and the availability of 1.8GHz-capable equipment have essentially evened the playing field with FTTH offerings in terms of speed.

High Availability

Now that they can offer service tiers that are comparable to competitive offerings, MSOs are logically focusing on strengthening subscriber loyalty by providing a network that is almost always available and by significantly reducing the degree of disruption in the rare times when it is not.

Operational efficiency is at the heart of network reliability. The faster and easier it is to diagnose and fix a network disruption — ideally before the subscriber is even aware of the problem — the better the overall reliability of the network.

And that’s where HFC amplifiers equipped with standards-based transponders come in. The two-way nature of these communications devices enables amplifiers to send technicians and network operators a ton of telemetry and other data that can be used to remotely gather information to proactively address network issues, pinpoint performance problems through ingress detection, capture a quick and accurate inventory of network assets and automate time-consuming tasks, such as firmware updates.

Also capable of receiving information, transponders enable many of the tasks that traditionally required a technician and a truck on site to now be done remotely, including configuring or tuning an amplifier or node, as well as making possible the bulk delivery of software, like firmware updates.

Upping Operational Efficiency

Not only does the ability to easily send and receive information and instructions improve network reliability, but it also significantly increases the operational efficiency of the MSO’s technical staff. Technician time, which is arguably an MSO’s most precious commodity — given the shortage of skilled labor — can be fully optimized in an era of intelligent HFC equipment, while at the same time reducing the number of truck rolls.

The ability to pinpoint a network disruption remotely, eliminating the need to send a truck to multiple locations to track down the source of the problem, essentially multiplies the effectiveness of technical staff by several factors. Given that even a modest-sized MSO could have hundreds of amps in its network, the ability to install firmware and other software upgrades without dispatching a technician to each amp will also deliver substantial savings.

All in the Timing

Considering the performance and operational efficiency impact of intelligent actives and two-way communications, why has it taken so long to implement the technology?

In a word — timing. (Note to reader: Insert sound of rimshot here.) Market timing is now optimal for two major reasons. The first is that the technology, in addition to being on a standardization path, is now affordable. Technology suppliers, such as ATX, have made significant strides recently in reducing the cost of embedding transponders into actives. But the major reason advanced intelligence has yet to really catch on until now is that MSOs have lacked the backend infrastructure that’s needed to process all this information, as well as act on it.

And that’s where the availability of adjacent or complementary technology comes in. MSOs in the past couple of years have made major strides in integrating AI and ML, powerful tools that make it possible to process incoming network health information, into their network operations in near real-time. After getting familiar with AI and ML, as well as other proactive network maintenance capabilities, MSOs are starting to bring online sophisticated backend systems that are capable of interpreting and acting on all this incoming telemetry.

In other words, a perfect storm of market need and enabling technology has put network intelligence at the top of MSOs’ priority lists, as well as initiating what can best be described as the Era of the Intelligent HFC Network.