Flexible COM — based software solution for HFC Network Performance monitoring

Abstract

Emerging HFC (hybrid fiber coaxial) networks with activated return path for data communications requires careful performance monitoring and preventative maintenance over the entire network. Return path is especially problematic due to the noise funneling effects that can strongly affect digital services. Besides, the HFC networks which base on existing CATV infrastructures require many considerations. The special characteristics of HFC network lead to the needs of taking into account many issues related to software, hardware, measurements, etc. This article focuses on the designing issues of HFC network monitoring software to deal with the noise problem in the physical layer, in respect to the trends of measurement software, and describes a performance monitoring software framework, which applies the Component Object Model (COM) approach. The software has been developed in the CEDETEL Lab — ESTI, University of Valladolid, in collaboration with RETECAL — Spain. The article is organized as follows: the first section addresses the general problems of HFC performances. The second section presents the typical issues of monitoring the performance of HFC physical layer. In the third section, the key issues of designing software for HFC network monitoring, and the COM approach will be discussed. In the fourth section, an HFC performance monitoring application, which has been developed in respect to the issues mentioned on the previous sections will be described. Finally, the last section presents conclusions and future works.

The original version of this chapter was revised: The copyright line was incorrect. This has been corrected. The Erratum to this chapter is available at DOI: 10.1007/978-0-387-35522-1_37