Cable operators have struggled in the market to beat their competition (primarily telephone companies and digital broadcast satellite companies) to market dominance for high-speed Internet connections. The fastest company to secure subscribers, by deploying and provisioning their interface solution to the network, wins the race. However, carriers are facing decreased margins and increased competitive pressures that limit them from spending money on additional resources they need to achieve market dominance, speed subscriber rates, and improve customer satisfaction.

As the cable industry in general "matures" in its approach to integrated operations, network operators are seeking operational support systems (OSS) to focus less on cost and more on customer growth. In particular, MSOs deploying large-scale next generation Internet services and other advances services such as interactive TV (ITV), voice over IP (VoIP) and high speed data services (HSDS), are often held-back by the amount of manual intervention needed for installation, provisioning and activation of their systems.

Acterna's new Vision360 OSS Platform addresses these needs by providing a comprehensive platform approach that improves bottom line performance and generates cost-saving efficiencies. Vision360 is designed to address the issues related to customer facing requirements such as Service Assurance, Reduced Time to Repair, Proactive and Preventative Test and Performance of network devices and elements. Specifically, these applications will create and provide for "root cause analysis" in real time while providing a suite of applications to test, isolate and provide proactive testing and maintenance recommendations that will avoid network outages.

The Vision360 platform will automate and integrate network management systems in an effort to reduce costs, speed time to market, avoid costly mistakes and increase customer satisfaction. The increased speed in which new services are brought to market means that operators/MSOs can leverage their existing network infrastructure for installing new services, and have the ability to enforce service level agreements (SLA) and provide for longer Term QoS testing and monitoring.

In addition, Vision360 provides an infrastructure by which the operator can develop and create their own applications and maintenance routines, or choose to use the vast knowledge base of Acterna and its partners to build applications for them using the powerful modeling tools in the platform.

Acterna's Cable Networks division brings a wealth of solutions experience and proven leadership skills in the test and management industry that will help establish and strengthen Acterna's position in the OSS industry. The establishment of the new OSS Solutions business unit, and the Vision360 platform, coincides with Acterna's expansion into the overall software marketplace in the cable and telecommunications arenas. The OSS Solutions business is focused on delivering integrated software solutions that help operators customize how they deploy, operate and monitor new communications technology effectively in order to realize greater communications network management cost and production efficiency.

Look for more information about Vision360 in our next issue, and be sure to see a demo at the upcoming SCTE Cable-Tec Expo!