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“GoBackTV’s RetroVue
products offer us the best
migration strategy for the
transition to IP infrastructure,
all-digital video, and streambased
services. In addition to
their cutting-edge technology,
their people are responsive,
knowledgeable, and friendly.”
--JP Sother,
Director of Numericable
Case Study: Numéricable Leads the Way
The Organization
NC Numéricable
12-16 Rue Guynemer
92445 Issy Les Moulineaux
France
4.2 million households passed and 1.8 million subscribers in France
The Challenge
Add broadcast QAM capacity for over 20 new digital channels in all of their networks, on an aggressive time schedule. Accommodate consolidation of QAMs, move to IP transport, and support broadcast-to-unicast roadmap transition.
The GoBackTV Solution
Numéricable deployed GoBackTV’s GigaQAM™ 24-channel QAM-RF modulator in multiple sites, as well as the ASI-to-Gigabit Ethernet demultiplexing gateway.
Results
Additional digital channels were successfully activated on June 8, 2005.
Numéricable (www.numericable.fr) is a leading provider in the French pay-TV cable market, and was formed from the merger of France Telecom Cable and NC Numéricable in 2005. They have a 45% share of the French cable market and cover seventeen out of twenty of the largest French urban areas, including Paris and its surroundings. Numéricable offers analog and digital pay TV, broadband Internet, and telephony.
As with many cable operators, Numéricable is in the process of centralizing content in order to take advantage of lower transport costs. They are also building out a distributed IP infrastructure with local edge QAMs and CMTSs.
Numéricable prides itself on offering quality services, and turned to GoBackTV to help support the expansion of their broadcast lineup with the launch of the many new channels.
In addition to their immediate needs, they also wanted to consolidate QAMs into a more compact footprint, begin the transition to IP/Gigabit Ethernet transport, and take into account their plans for future unicast/multicast services.
GoBackTV proposed two products from the RetroVue™ platform: the GQ1000 GigaQAM dense QAM-RF synthesizer and the AG4404 ASI-to-Gigabit Ethernet Demultiplexing Gateway.
GigaQAM combines Gigabit Ethernet inputs, a versatile MPEG-2 multiplexer, an optional DVB SimulCrypt scrambler, and 24 DOCSIS-quality QAM-RF channels in a compact 1RU chassis.
The ASI-GbE gateway converts MPEG-2 MPTSs into native Gigabit Ethernet or IP-encapsulated multicast or unicast flows. MPTSs can be passed through or demultiplexed into SPTSs.
Scalable Solutions Allow Flexibility and Growth
Numéricable likes the fact that GoBackTV’s products are designed to support both current and next-generation IP and stream-based television services, and include the flexibility to accommodate different migration strategies.
GoBackTV’s products come in modular, 1RU chassis, and can be combined with inexpensive copper Gigabit Ethernet switches, so that equipment can be added easily as demand grows.
In addition, GigaQAM’s QAM cards can be added in increments of four channels (two pairs) at a time, and each pair of channels is completely independent and frequency agile; each channel can also be muted. This means that Numéricable has complete control over their digital channel placement, accommodating existing analog channel plans across multiple nodes. In the future, they can also re-purpose individual QAMs for multicast and unicast services. This flexibility allows Numéricable to deploy broadcast and future on-demand services gradually and cost-efficiently.
Another benefit of the GigaQAM’s small 1RU form factor and integrated functionality is that space and power requirements are reduced, as are spares requirements.
Numéricable Plans for the Future with GoBackTV EdgeQAMs
One feature that especially appeals to Numéricable is the fact that the GigaQAM can handle both VBR and CBR streams, as well as high-definition (HD) and standard definition (SD) video. It also offers the option of IP-encapsulated input, or native Ethernet.
Another feature that Numéricable appreciates is the option to apply conditional access scrambling on a stream-by-stream basis, allowing for the needs of future stream-based services as well as today’s broadcast requirements.
All these features give Numéricable the freedom to experiment with their delivery infrastructure, without risking their capital investment.