| The Care and Feeding of Open Access |
Now that four of the top seven operators - AT&T Broadband, Comcast Corp., Cox Communications and Time Warner Cable -- are resolving ways to link outside ISPs to their plant, it seems a plausible time to run through the mechanics of this pariah-turned-priority known as "open access."
For starters, the descriptor. Two years ago, cable called this whole matter "forced access," and regarded it, conversationally and technically, like the south end of a north-facing skunk. Accompanied by unanimously wrinkled noses, the "forced access" phase produced one dominant sentiment: "Somebody make this thing go away!"
But now that Time Warner must do it, in order to get AOL onto its plant; and AT&T Broadband wants to do it, because it drives overall data subscribers; and Cox and Comcast plan to do it, to see what it takes; open access is decidedly less unpleasant - perceptually, at least.
Nowadays, the nomenclature is mixed. Time Warner calls it "multiple ISP," or "MISP' (spoken as an acronym, not pronounced as a word.) AT&T Broadband invented a catchier label, "Broadband Choice," but they're protecting it with a trademark. Regulators still call it "open access." So do Cox and Comcast. Three out of five wins, for the purposes of this column.
Doing open access requires new stuff, and stuff that grows as quickly as the projects themselves grow - without being greedy about physical space, taking too much time, costing too much, or goofing up. (All of those things together, by the way, are what's meant when somebody says, "yes, but does it scale?")
In fact, there are at least five categories of stuff that needed to be concocted for today's open access work in Boulder, Colo. (AT&T) and Columbus, Ohio (Time Warner). Most is software, with the exception of a new type of packet routing.
First: A way for consumers to pick among ISPs. AT&T uses home-grown "client software," meaning it gets installed on the PC. It calls this software a "service agent." Time Warner doesn't call it anything - so far, it's choosing not to use a service agent approach. The different reasoning ties back to different corporate motivations: AT&T Corp. knows wholesale economics, and it knows that volume is the name of that game. More ISPs bring more data subscribers to AT&T Broadband; more customers, more volume.
AOL, on the other hand, has plenty of reasons to steer away from a mentality of "go ahead and switch, you're still mine." It, after all, is an ISP. Encouraging a switch to another ISP is like Coke pouring cups of complimentary Pepsi.
Second, there's the traffic cop - the software that tracks which ISP is using how much bandwidth (speed and bit consumption). Technologists call this a "mediation engine," and view it as a way for MSOs and ISPs to color within the lines of the service agreements they forge with one another.
Third, there's those always-tricky billing links. From a logistics perspective, 10 ISPs could mean 10 different billing systems; 10 different billing systems means 10 different required interfaces. MSOs will need to take the information tracked by the mediation engine (the traffic cop), and mete it out in an electronic format that can be used by the various ISPs.
Fourth, there's trouble-shooting and conflict resolution. Say a Time Warner customer, using Earthlink's service, can't access mail. Is it Time Warner's network, or Earthlink's mail server? Who fields the call? Who fixes it? Who lets that end customer know what's wrong, and when it'll be corrected?
And lastly, there's a specific equipment need. It's known interchangeably known in technical circles as a "source-based router" and a "policy-based router." The terms aren't synonymous. In general, the "policy" of the router is to examine the "source" information of a bit stream. This is necessary because today's cable modem traffic only knows one thing: Where it's going, or the destination. But, in order for MSOs to know which customer is connected to which ISP, the source of the packet becomes a necessity. This router sits near the Internet-end of the CMTS (cable modem termination system, the headend piece of cable modem networks).
Cable's work to pry open their own networks, without donning a "common carrier" label, is perhaps the year's most significant bit of technical pioneering. You'll hear a lot about it as the Spring convention season unfolds, particularly from makers of "next-gen" CMTS gear, and from providers of operational support/back office support software.
This column originally appeared in the Broadband Week section of Multichannel News.