Scientific Atlanta's Universal Session and Resource Management Platform Raises Performance of Switched Digital Video

ATLANTA, Ga. and ORLANDO, Fla. - CABLE-TEC EXPO 2007 - June 20, 2007 - Scientific Atlanta, a Cisco company, today announced its Universal Session and Resource Manager^TM (USRM^TM) is available as a software download and upgrade to existing Switched Digital Video (SDV) servers. The USRM now has the ability to integrate modules such as video-on-demand (VOD) and SDV, delivering a new level of performance and features such as more efficient quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) sharing, policy-based bandwidth assignment across services, and improved addressable advertising. The USRM will continue to be modular and will support all standard interfaces.

As announced earlier this year, the USRM extends and distributes management of the video and data network control plane all the way to the edge. It allows applications to access the network and then delivers the requested content to edge devices under its control. The USRM can be used as a standalone system, or can be integrated with the Cisco Content Delivery System (CDS) or Scientific Atlanta SDV servers.

"Over the last year, Scientific Atlanta has aggressively deployed its SDV system in multiple customer sites, with 3.5 million committed homes passed in total," said Greg Hardy, vice president of Business Development, Transmission Network Systems, Scientific Atlanta. "With USRM, we have really collaborated with our customers to take SDV to the next level. Scientific Atlanta has gone beyond just SDV to now incorporate total edge resource management offering an increased return on investment. Our open IP-architecture enables cable operators to reclaim valuable bandwidth that can be redeployed towards expansion of critical HD and on-demand services."

Scientific Atlanta's open, end-to-end SDV solution encompasses the full set of components necessary for SDV, including the Digital Network Control System (DNCS), SDV server, Digital Content Manager (DCM), Netcrypt^TM for bulk encryption, Cisco edge, routing and switching products, edge QAMs and set-tops.

Scientific Atlanta also features SDV service and support tools, addressing integration complexities and taking operators from pre- to post-deployment for an efficient system.

Scientific Atlanta SciCare SDV Service and Support

Scientific Atlanta's SciCare SDV Services and Support Tools benefit operators at multiple, crucial SDV deployment points, from capacity planning to detailed viewership to automatically detecting network issues.

• SDV Readiness Service - Scientific Atlanta consultants use field-proven tools to provide SDV network readiness support and analyze customer viewership patterns to help determine switched digital candidates and the associated budgetary elements.
• Viewership Analysis - This enables the operator to capture important viewership patterns prior to deployment. The data assists with decisions regarding which channels to switch, the amount of bandwidth that can be reclaimed and budget allocations.
• Set-Top Monitoring and Status Application - This helps identify chronic non-responders to the HFC element and provides a minute-by-minute understanding of a site's entire set-top population, with automatic detection and location of outages for reduced mean-time-to-repair.
• SDV Capacity Planning and Viewership - After SDV deployment, these applications now assist the operator in understanding capacity utilization and viewership patterns to the service group. Easily configured thresholds provide operators with early detection of capacity issues that can impact customers and help plan for network expansions as switched channel usage increases.

These technologies will be on display at the Cisco/Scientific Atlanta booth 865 at the SCTE Cable-Tec Expo 2007 in Orlando, Fla., June 20-22 in the West Hall at the Orange County Convention Center. To arrange an interview or booth visit with Cisco and Scientific Atlanta executives contact Sara Stutzenstein at sara.stutzenstein@sciatl.com, or Kevin Petschow, Cisco, 408.527.4743, kpetscho@cisco.com.

*Watch it! Tune in to a Video Podcast featuring a discussion on Switched Digital Video with Scientific Atlanta's Greg Hardy and Jeff Taylor. Click here.