Services to Enhance Cable Access Value Propositions

Demand for your cable access services just keeps growing. Global IP traffic is expected to triple between 2015 and 2020. Of that, video will account for 82 percent. Driving this are technologies such as virtual reality, whose traffic will increase 61 times between 2015 and 2020, and wearables, whose numbers will increase five-fold by 2020 (Source: Cisco VNI Complete Forecast, June 2016).

And while digitization is delivering business transformation for leaders in many other sectors, up to now, service providers have been dealing with this growth using solutions which are complex, silo-based, and unwieldy.

Services such as linear video, video-on-demand, and IP traffic, often have their own overlay networks and dedicated equipment. If you’ve acquired other service providers, the complications are multiplied.

And it’s expensive to run. Power, cooling, and maintenance across the access network all must be paid for, adding to operating expenses. With the constant demand for ever-faster services, those costs will continue to grow. Scaling up is also a big challenge when services are dependent on distinct physical networks.

Making a full, evolutionary transformation is key for the survival of your business. You’re probably already starting down that path, or at least taking your first steps. When you’re considering what route to consider, you’re likely to be thinking about how it could drive down network complexity and operating costs.

In addition, key considerations will be how your evolved network will unlock profitable growth by delivering a broader mix of services to your customers. And how it will address the need to bring innovative, differentiated new experiences to users, faster.

You need to ask yourself how your business is going to get the solution it needs—quickly and painlessly.

Cisco Services Benefits for Cable Access Providers

Based on Cisco products, our service capabilities can help your business evolve to an open network architecture platform. This architecture consists of key functional layers that are tightly integrated with security, policy, and analytics.

Our deep understanding of the open network architecture means we are best placed to help you migrate to it without risk.

We can give you access to end-to-end Cisco network expertise across the full range of Converged Cable Access Platform (CCAP), Remote PHY, cloud-native cable modem termination system (CMTS), and other cable access technologies, as well as next-generation virtualization and orchestration platforms. That all results in greater simplicity, greater automation, greater agility.

Access to Cisco intellectual capital, tools, and experience can help you build a solution which allows you to:

• Simplify implementations and operations to drive down costs and complexity
• Design, deliver, and update services more quickly
• Automate more effectively to roll out new services in days, not months
• Refine and enhance services more easily
• Deploy and move workloads wherever they are most efficient, anywhere across the network
• Elastically scale resources to meet demand
• Become agile enough to support new business models wherever and whenever opportunities arise
• Compete with over-the-top video services and emerging cloud competitors

Transform Your Cable Access Operations

Cisco has a service to help you with every step of your cable access network transformation.

Advisory Services

Cisco Advisory Services help your organization to discover what it can do, and what it needs to do to easily manage the business transition. Specific services provided for cable access include:

• Customer requirements definition
• Inside Plant Survey and Design Services
• Plant assessment
• RF/node combining build-out
• Fiber-node optimization design
• Software strategy and support

Implementation Services

Our implementation experts are there to augment your team and will quickly gain an understanding of your requirements. They then validate, test, and install complex solutions with little-to-no disruption. Individual services for cable access include:

• Onsite/remote deployment support
• Method of procedure development
• Network implementation planning
• Migration plan development and support
• Lab design validation

Business Critical Services

Cisco Business Critical Services ensure your technology is delivering all that it can, and enhancing the value of your network investment. Cable access-specific services include:

• Analytics & Insights
• Software Compliance & Remediation
• Operations Risk Management Assessments
• Knowledge Transfer and Mentoring
• Critical Escalation Engineering Support
• Ongoing Design & Change Support
• Validation Testing & Automation
• Migration Planning & Implementation Support
• Validation Test Cycle (typically 30-45 weeks)

Technical Services

Technical Services for Cable Access can provide your business with Cisco product and solution-level support for comprehensive care with:

• Problem resolution and proactive recommendations
• Reduced impacts to network traffic with 24x7 support
• Full network coverage with fast incident resolution by Cisco experts
• End-to-end coverage and support, including:
  • Third-party vendors
  • Open-source software
• Virtualization support for software-defined networks and software solutions

Cisco Cable Access Services in Action

When one major cable operator wanted to integrate MPEG video, DOCSIS, and voice on a single platform, while expanding access network capacity, we achieved all its objectives with a move to Cisco cBR-8s Converged Broadband Routers, assisted by Cisco Services.

The Services supported speeded product certification and commercial deployment, with 112 routers being installed within 40 weeks. On the back of the project, the company is now looking to deploy cBR-8s across additional markets.

The Service Provider Journey

What you need to do:

• Mitigate risk when migrating to new technologies and responding to the increase in security threats
• Improve efficiencies by decreasing operational costs
• Accelerate growth by identifying new revenue streams
• Increase speed to market with new services

How you’re going to do it:

• Transform the customer experience
• Transform the architecture
• Transform the business

What needs to happen to your network:

You need an open network architecture that provides the framework for:

• Simplification
• Automation
• Virtualization

Why Cisco?

We know the network and our products better than anyone. And we have the experience and track record it takes to deploy products and solutions effectively and to integrate them into your network.

Cisco can call on the expertise of more than 12,000 engineers and technicians, including more than 2,500 CCIEs. Our intellectual capital goes deep: our team has been granted more than 1,100 patents since 1998. In addition, we manage more than 100,000 devices for customers in 75 countries.

We use proven methodologies and best practices derived from our experience with service providers all over the world supporting complex networks for over 30 years. That depth and breadth of experience with other service providers is unique, and we can put it to work for you. You’ll be in safe hands.