By Guy Sucharczuk, Harmonic Lightwaves Inc.
The emerging technologies that place greater and greater demands on our present day CATV Networks must also provide easier and more cost-effective ways to manage and control them. As CATV companies derive more of their income from PPV and other transactional services, network reliability grows from merely important to imperative. Historically, Network Management Systems (NMS) were not cost effective and provided no control of the CATV system.
Fortunately as fiber moves closer to the home newer architecture's and Network Management Strategies become much more viable. In the new networks based on new architectures, Network Management Strategies become an integral part of the overall system design. By using sophisticated Network Management software and hardware in these new system architectures, network down-time can be virtually eliminated and system maintenance costs dramatically reduced. This paper will discuss the implementations and advantages of state of the art CATV Network Management Systems.