There were several business drivers that convinced Cox to migrate to a Utilization Statistics Collection interface-based solution. These business drivers are not unique to Cox, because there are overarching problems which plague the communications industry.

One of the most significant challenges was to find a mechanism to collect data from various network elements using a push model, which pushes utilization data to a collector for processing, opposed to employing a traditional polling mechanism. Without such a mechanism, Cox experienced lack of access to key data measurements, such as:

• Lack of knowledge of the peak and average data consumption of key data customers
• Lack of knowledge of the number of active voice calls per interface
• Lack of knowledge of peak voice consumption
• Lack of knowledge of residential, voice, and CBS resource consumption

Other problems included:

Less effective management and planning of the DOCSIS Network due to the inability to understand how DOCSIS resources were utilized

Inability to actively monitor and gauge the Quality of Service/Experience of the Data and/or Voice Traffic (Cox could tell that there were issues, but couldn’t tell what happened to the packets in the DOCSIS network)

Inability to accurately predict resource requirements more efficiently as new products were launched (C1, Group Hug, Gaming, CBS and SIP based Telephony – as examples)

Cox tried several remedies, such as SNMP, on their road to an ipdr.org-based solution. Ultimately, the ipdr.org-base solution was identified as one of the most efficient mechanisms, because it has the ability to stream out data at certain intervals when the CMTS has the available resources.

Furthermore, Cox played a significant role in getting the ipdr.org specification through Cablelabs, and ultimately with the adoption of this specification into vendor products.

Measured Benefits:

The Resource Usage Data Collection Solution Package standard has provided the cable broadband industry with an efficient way of delivering subscriber/service statistics at a much more granular level. Having implemented the Resource Data Collection interface standard, Cox expects to:

Reduce Cost of CMTS Ports for next 5 yrs

    o Expect to reduce cost by at least 5-10% and increase efficiency of CMTS interface

Reduce Cost of Node splits for the next 5 Yrs

    o Expect to reduce Node Split by 20-30% by using load balancing based on statistics obtained from IPDR

Generate more revenue from existing infrastructure

    o Provide additional 10-20% more services or subscribers

A substantial benefit resulting from this deployment is the ability to do LPR budgeting based on actual service consumption statistics (per system) – opposed to a qualitative guess. This alone has profound implications to Cox’s business.

“Managing our resources efficiently and intelligently is key to improving customer experience and generating more revenue. The Resource Data Collection standard interface is the foundation.”

Ben Bekele
Principal Architect
DOCSIS Technology
Cox Communications

Additional information can be found in the Cox Communications Case Study