By Colin Howlett, Rex Coldren & Douglas Johnson, Vecima; Jeff Finkelstein, Cox Communications
In this paper we address how we can progress towards a DAA and minimize the risk along the way. Major upgrades are never easy, but with careful planning and training they can be accomplished. One of the biggest challenges in the brave new world of DAA is how to manage new devices without forcing significant changes to OSS/BSS/EMS/NMS software that has been used for decades. To stand up to the challenge, we have been working for the past 8+ years on Remote PHY and the 3+ years on the Flexible MAC Architecture (FMA), which includes Remote MACPHY. Remote PHY and FMA provide standard interfaces both north and southbound of their respective Core network functions to manage DAA devices, removing OSS/BSS/EMS/NMS roadblocks and allowing the journey to DAA to begin.