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Broadband Access
DSL Loop Diagnosis
Ikanos Debuts VDSL2 Loop Qualification Platform
by Sean Buckley
To capitalize on their well-entrenched footprint in the VDSL2 silicon market, Ikanos has debuted its new LoopNostics software-based diagnostics, analysis and measurement tool to give service providers the ability to more efficiently roll out VDSL2 services to businesses and residential users.
Available on all of Ikanos’ VDSL2 chipsets, LoopNostics can support standards-based VDSL2 profiles (8.5 to 30 MHz) in addition to traditional ADSLx standards, LoopNostics can correlate loop metrics pre-qualify a customer for DSL service.
With the opportunity to utilize their existing copper plant to offer a suite of multimedia residential services and tiered business services to enterprises, the ability to understand loop conditions prior to rolling any trucks is essential way to offset the customer acquisition cost.
“Service providers now have to offer tiered pricing levels because there’s a market for higher bandwidth services, and if they’re going into triple play services then they have to get more accurate estimates of what the bandwidth can be on the loop,” said Piyush Sevalia, VP of Marketing for Ikanos’ Access Product Group. “That’s the biggest problem driving loop qualification.”
Given the diversity of copper in a service provider’s network, LoopNostics can collect information on the both the physical (loop length and topology) and capacity aspects (SNR, interference) by performing two types of DSL loop testing on the copper lines:
- Single Ended Loop Testing (SELT): enables a service provider to perform measurement and analysis of a copper loop from either DSLAM or DLC without the need for a CPE at the other end prior to deploying the service;
- Dual Ended Loop Testing (DELT): Already part of the existing ITU-T’s VDSL2 standard, DELT is utilized to provide testing on a loop after CPE has been deployed at the customer premise to either troubleshoot issues or capture baseline metrics when a service is installed.
So how does Ikanos achieve this?
Incorporating a mixture of Time Domain Reflectrometry (TDR), Frequency Domain Reflectrometry (FDR), and DSP techniques, the LoopNostics collection and analysis software engine allows service providers to remotely—all without the need for CPE or additional hardware at the CO line card.
This means that the service provider does not have to dispatch a technician to a potential service site.
All of these features tie into one common goal, say analysts: time to market. “By offering LoopNostics software for its multi-mode VDSL2 platforms, Ikanos is providing yet another advanced feature that can help carriers deploy VDSL2 faster,” said Jag Bolaria, senior analyst at Linley Group in a company release. “Service providers can use LoopNostics to pre-qualify the effective bandwidth available to a consumer and then offer tiered services, thus reducing operating expenses.”
But the buck does not stop at VDSL2, alone.
In addition to the traditional VDSL/DSL qualification, LoopNostics offers a path to pre-qualify advance DSL techniques including noise mitigation techniques such as DSM (Dynamic Spectrum Management) (see ASSIA Casts Wide Net For DSM).
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