Interview with Bob Howard-Anderson, CEO, Occam Networks
With reference to VoIP, your product allows Class 5 switching via GR.303, which has been one of the ways carriers were migrating to VoIP. Why have they instead gone for over-the-top VoIP option instead of migrating Class 5 voice infrastructure to IP? And what impact has that had on your business?
Occam’s customers have varying business models and service migration strategies. While it is true some have leveraged an ‘over-the-top’ VoIP approach to primary and/or secondary voice service, many of our wireline service provider customers are actively migrating from traditional circuit based class 5 infrastructure to a softswitch model. There is still a noticeable majority of network operators that utilize GR303 but even those operators have an eye towards a pure packet softswitch model in the foreseeable future. But anyway, our BLC 6000 system can support both models from a common service-aware, Ethernet based system.
You also enable another type of Class 5 VoIP migration which is by use of access gateway in the BLC. Carriers like BT have implemented that type of migration option. Are you aware of any others that have followed this migration model?
We have numerous customers employing this approach with initial deployments ranging in size from hundreds to tens of thousands of voice lines served from our line access gateways. We have shipped well over 1 million POTS ports with our BLC systems – each of these capable of native VoIP support. In fact, every one of our POTS interface modules is in fact a native IP line access gateway – a unique differentiating feature of our access solution.
Will carriers at some point bridge their narrowband and broadband infrastructures? What about countries like France where operators do not feel such need (since broadband VoIP lines are quickly replacing pots lines)?
An excellent question. There is evidence that many carriers are doing this now. It’s arguable that one of the world’s largest networks – Verizon – has started this process by deploying FTTP with their FiOS initiative. FTTP by definition is a broadband connection. While the traffic types have not yet converged in that network, the infrastructure is being put in place to support that kind of convergence. To a smaller scale, Occam sees many Tier 2/3 service providers that are embracing a converged infrastructure and a converged traffic approach. Those operators that have migrated to IP based softswitches and are also delivering IPTV are also likely to embrace a pure packet access and aggregation infrastructure. When these two service and infrastructure strategies intersect, you have effectively bridged the narrowband and broadband domains. Occam counts many of its over 300 Tier 2/3 customers in this arena.
Large vendors or a mid-sized vendor such as UTStarcom may have advantages in that they bring in end-to-end solutions for triple play (broadband+VoIP+IPTV). Do you find it difficult to compete with them?
It is always difficult for a smaller technology supplier to compete with established, larger suppliers if you compete on their terms. Occam has a competitive advantage that large suppliers are often challenged with – innovative products. Occam has been recognized as an industry innovator developing the world’s first fully integrated, distributed intelligence, IP over Ethernet multi service access platform (MSAP). While we do not offer the portfolio of products that large suppliers offer, we can enable a service provider with best-of-breed access solutions that leverage industry standards while also simplifying network and service management. In short, we leverage value added software intelligence to differentiate our solutions in a market where industry giants make every effort to commoditize bandwidth. As any network operator with an eye on Quality of Experience will tell you, there’s more to delivering broadband services than a low cost bandwidth pipe.
What is the development roadmap for ONT for the industry in general? Are we going to have voice ATA ports and IPTV STB capability integrated into this box? What percentage of ONTs out in the market, for instance, have voice capability integrated?
We see a generic two box approach in the future of customer premise equipment. There are already signs of this happening with Microsoft, Sony and Apple getting into the mix with their Xbox, PS3 and iTV systems, respectively. Each of these devices is in effect a residential gateway. Each capable of becoming a service portal for consumers while the ONT is relegated to layer 2 service management – with service provider OAM of course. Voice, depending on your service evolution strategy, may still be part of the ONT in the form of integrated ATA ports. This, of course, may also end up in the consumer electronics domain but Occam feels this is still a number of years away based on speed of technology adoption. There is some momentum in the industry to integrate STBs directly into the television set but again, that remains a longer term roadmap. How often do you buy a new television?
How many VoIP and IPTV subs are being served off your BLC products right now?
Occam has shipped in excess of 1.1 million VoIP ports from our BLC systems. Each of which is controlled by either MGCP or SIP VoIP protocols. We do not have an exact number of IPTV subscribers deployed to date but expect the number to be greater than 10,000 and less than 100,000 subscribers.
How far does your BLC support different QoS for specific content type? What sort of differentiation can you offer here?
Occam’s BLC 6000 supports a number of QoS features including 802.1p/q, Access Control Lists (ACLs) based on Layer 2 through Layer 4 attributes and others. One area of differentiation we offer is a dynamic suite of software features that collectively work to prevent DOS attacks, virus proliferation and unauthorized content access. Our IP Security Management (IPSM) suite of features is employed by network operators to ensure users have the highest Quality of Experience and is implemented by default. It’s our way of ensuring we address network QoS and security concerns before they become issues.
There are lots of issues with the video delivery. In IPTV for instance there has to be fast channel changes etc and that has to be supported all the way to the access infrastructure. Are you having to spend resources to support such app types? Any performance metrics etc?
From our inception, we’ve leveraged the industry standards such as IGMP with ‘fast joins and leaves’ to optimize the channel change time experience by end users served from our BLCs. Since we leverage an innovative distributed intelligence architecture, each of our BLCs nodes is able to process IGMP multicast requests and access content from neighboring equipment at wire speed rates. This ensures our channel change time is minimized and the end user experience is maximized.
What has been your observation regarding the difference between deployment of Ethernet PON and GPON?
GPON is gaining significant market momentum – which is different than technology deployment. We expect GPON to gain traction in carrier networks worldwide starting in 2008 with significant growth over the next few years. The key differences with current technology is obviously bandwidth. GPON technology offers a 2x increase in usable bandwidth over EPON based on readily available technology. New advancements in EPON will eliminate that advantage but that may not be enough to offset other benefits. This includes support for native TDM transport – though that benefit may be trivialized with pure packet service models. Other benefits include a native ONT management control protocol – OMCI - and FSAN recognition.
