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veex_1 27/02/2015 16:12 Page 1 Nitish Khullar, product manager at test and measurement solutions specialist VeEX, shares his thoughts on how adopting the best monitoring practices are a step towards better subscriber QoE. s the cable plant evolves in technology and complexity, the monitoring needs have become pivotal. Cable industry experts are preaching a sage truth: proactive network maintenance simply saves time and money. The proactive identification and resolution of potential, serviceaffecting issues yield more reliable services, which in turn improve overall A significant enough to start impacting their a DOCSIS Burst Demodulator. The basic subscribers; process is as follows: 2. Correlate an identified issue to a l Capture all available Upstream physical location, Channel Descriptors so that they can (UCD) provided by the dispatch a field CMTS from a specific VeSion technician to the downstream DOCSIS site with some level channel l Cloud based – one system of confidence, platform l Triggered alarms instead of being automatically initiate a l Monitor RF, MPEG Analysis, blind-sided by a test on the relevant Ethernet subscriber-initiated Upstream channel; l True Return Path QAM analyser trouble call. With captures and decodes and tracer with Bursty QAM ongoing proactive burst cable modem Demodulator maintenance, the signals l Mapping and integration with success rate of MSO's billing system l Report key metrics for the Upstream technicians sent to l Upstream testing qualification Channel: Upstream the field goes up and troubleshooting unequalised MER, and ultimately, the l Workforce and asset burst constellations, overall rate of truck management, data enrichment and equaliser taps, and a rolls goes down. mapping list of associated cable For the RF l Sweep (Forward and Return) modem MAC upstream, Proactive l Web, tablet or field meter access addresses Network Maintenance has never been more achievable, mainly due to the increasing ‘ubiquity’ of DOCSIS capable devices in MSO networks. As cable networks evolve, increasingly, intelligent end devices such as digital set-top boxes (STBs), multimedia terminal adapters (MTAs), embedded MTAs and high-end television sets are DOCSIS capable, resulting in DOCSIS ubiquity. The subscriber’s DOCSIS cable modems can provide a wealth of diagnostic measurements. This available data can be utilised in various ways to achieve the goals of MSO's Network Operations and Maintenance staff. The latest innovations in Cable test monitoring systems can play a pivotal role for an MSO's ongoing network maintenance needs. The increasing ‘ubiquity’ of DOCSIS cable modems actually represents