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Cable MSO

With access directly to the home, Cable-TV operators are in a position only shared with Incumbent Local Exchange Carriers; that is, they can offer advanced services without having to acquire new customers.  These advanced services serve as a new growth medium for Cable operators, and most are now offering at least Internet access service to their subscribers.  As these new services grow, however, the Cable operator, commonly referred to as a Multi-Service Operator (MSO), must scale the back-end network to generate enough bandwidth capacity.  Additionally, some operators allow 3rd party Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to provide value-added service to their customers as yet another source of revenue.  All of this must be accomplished quickly and inexpensively, otherwise the MSO runs the risk of increasing operations costs by more than revenue, and turning the network into a cost center rather than a profit center.

To solve this problem of increasing bandwidth for low cost, MSOs turn to Ethernet technology.  Ethernet provides the lowest cost-to-bandwidth solution for internetworking and is the most widely deployed networking protocol in the world.  MRV’s OptiSwitch™ line of Ethernet switching products provides a full solution to interconnect the network, from a few ports of 10Mbps Ethernet to hundreds of Gigabits of Ethernet switching.  The OptiSwitch™ family also provides full IP routing and MPLS (OS-Z and OS-M) capabilities to allow 3rd party ISP connections for the customers without wasting bandwidth or overhead.

To connect these growing back-end networks, MRV’s FiberDriver™ product line offers a vast array of fiber-optic interconnect products, from repeaters and converters to large Wave-Division Multiplexing (WDM) systems.  Repeaters and converters allow legacy equipment to be kept in place while taking advantage of the latest in fiber-optic technology, including single-fiber and fiber-optic redundancy.  WDM systems allow many streams of data to co-exist on the same fiber at the same time without interference.  MRV products allow up to 48 channels of Gigabit Ethernet to operate on a single fiber-pair, and the cost scales down to very inexpensive, 4-channel WDM solutions.

In some cases, it is difficult or impractical to run fiber-optic cabling from building to building, and digging trenches can cause long delays.  When this is the case, the MRV TereScope™ line of Free-Space Optics (FSO) products provides a quick and easy solution for delivering huge bandwidth quickly, at very attractive prices, between buildings.  With only line-of-site as a requirement, FSO technology creates a high-speed network interconnect (up to Gigabit Ethernet speeds), providing exactly the same service as physical fiber-optic cabling but without the cable, providing connectivity for buildings as far as a few kilometers apart.

Most MSO networks are spread out over a large geographic region.  In this case, the network management process can be complicated and cumbersome.  MRV provides the MegaVision Web™ Network Management System, together with the In-Reach™ and LX Remote Presence Management solutions.  Using MegaVision and In-Reach, the task of operations support is centralized and simplified.  Remote Presence technology allows the administrator to securely access any part of the network either in-band (through the network itself) or out-of-band (through the telephony network) for management purposes.  MRV’s solution even includes the ability to manage the power connections of remote network infrastructure equipment, so that an administrator can force an unresponsive machine to power-cycle without ever leaving the office.


To find out more about MRV solutions for Cable-TV MSOs, contact your MRV sales representative, at sales@mrv.com.
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