USER REPORT REPRISE ///
Monitoring Investment Pays Off
/// By Jeppe Schäfer
E A/S (formerly known as Syd Energi A/S) is Denmark’s third largest energy and utility company, co- operatively owned bits customers
and with an impressive commitment to environmentally responsible operations. But it’s also a provider of entertainment and telephony via a major partnership role in Denmark’s WAOO! project. WAOO! is a collaboration between thirteen independent fibre optic networks designed to facilitate high quality IPTV and VOD services to subscribers. It negotiates distribution rights,
In addition to its IPTV and VOD services, SE
operates cable services from nine headends, delivering 66 DVB-C channels, 43 analogue channels, and 36 FM channels. Cable monitoring capability is provided by SE’s monitoring installations at 28 sites, where a combination of VB120, VB220, and VB262 units are used. Combined with portable VB12-RF units for in-field diagnosis, these units provide rapid and exact isolation of problems that may arise due to faulty wiring, or unshielded connectors in older installations at customer premises.
stages as we build the infrastructure, to create a comprehensive monitoring structure. Meanwhile, the Stofa people have plenty
of expertise with cable, but are out of their comfort zone with fibre and IP. This is when having a top quality monitoring system really helps. While our IP and fibre network is rock solid, rolling out new cable infrastructure is a different thing. We can’t be everywhere all the time, so we need ‘eyes’ out in the network – and this is what the Bridge system provides. I need at
runs the IPTV middleware, hosts and delivers content, and markets the video services nationally.
With the headend, transit, and encryption
stages of the delivery chain operated by other WAOO! partners, the Bridge Technologies (Bridge) monitoring system deployed by SE is critical in ensuring that all services meet quality standards at the handover point. To achieve this, SE uses a combination of Bridge Technologies VB120, VB220, and VB330 probes throughout the chain to provide instant diagnosis and analysis of any errors in the stream. The installed base of WAOO! users has
grown rapidly. In order to gain better operating economies that can be passed on to the subscriber, SE recently purchased Stofa, the country’s second-largest TV distribution network, adding a 400 percent increase in customer numbers. Stofa also uses Bridge Technologies monitoring equipment but reaches its subscribers mainly via cable, while SE’s customers are mainly served through IP- over-fibre. This means there’s a complementary base of expertise between the two companies: because we both use Bridge systems, there’s good potential for sharing knowledge and new ways to use the technology.
////////////////20 TV Technology Europe I December 2013/January 2014
While SE is mainly focused on IP/fibre, we
are nevertheless rolling out cable infrastructure at a rapid rate. It’s a steep learning curve with technology we are not so familiar with, unlike the fibre and IP world where we are much more comfortable. So it’s important, especially in the early
all times to be able to access and interact with the system to interrogate any point in the network, and to keep a comprehensive overview. IP is very straightforward because you can trace where the signal is coming from by interrogating the routers, looking at routing tables, and so on. But with cable it’s
SE A/S’s headquarters in Esbjerg, Denmark
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28