The Resurgence of Mediation for Cable Operators

Gary Gibbs

Digital RouteUser

ConferenceOctober 2008

Cable Industry History with Mediation

Historically focused on subscription based services HSD, even VoIP service has been “all you can eat” Event-based PPV was traditionally collected by

provisioning and activation layer Simple payment models – little or no pre-paid (NA

especially) Silo’ed, point solutions – no strategic view of

mediation

What’s Changed

Service model changing to on-demand, event based Bandwidth needs driving a tiered pricing model for

HSD Need to collect customer internet usage

CableLabs DOCSIS IPDR-based collection from CMTS Many options possible, some real-time based

VoD usage, evolution to “XoD”

Adding Wireless to the bundle (either facilities-based or MVNO) Time-based charging Emergence of pre-paid and balance management

models

What’s Changed…continued

Data use outside of revenue management/billing Service usage off CMTS drives capacity

management Same IPDR-based collection for tiered HSD can be

used

Advanced/targeted advertising Ability to track success of campaigns Ability to use subscriber viewing/behaviour to more

accurately target users CableLabs Tru2Way defines IPDR-based collection of

events from settop

IPDR IPDR is a record format driving the need for a re-think of mediation solutions for cable

operators

IPDR is used in : Docsis

Better than SNMP for CMTS collection flow information

Valuable for capacity planning, usage based pricing

OCAP/Tru2Way To describe customer viewing/usage

patterns Valuable for enriching subscriber

profiles for advanced applications such as advertising

Why Fulfillment & Mediation?

This common model is the logical progression of the services layer Logical extension of service catalog and service definition to

include how events are processed Logical extension of network element interaction Logical extension of the subscriber service profile

Adding traditional and active mediation allows Sigma to bring together the subscription and on-demand environments in a single unified set of models and architecture

TeleManagement Forum Catalyst in Content Encounter

An end-to-end targeted advertising solution, inter-operating multiple industry standards/specifications: TMF IPDR and OSS/J, SCTE 130, CableLabs tru2way

Demonstrates: Flow-through provisioning of tru2way Set-Top Box and

applications Collection of viewing and application usage events via

IPDR records Using demographic, subscriber and usage information

to drive a multi-platform targeted advertising campaign VoD pre-roll and

advanced application ads

Catalyst Overview

Mediation used: To

collect/aggregate customer viewing and application usage information using IPDR

To retrieve and load large demographic data set files and match to existing subscriber base

Fulfillment

Conditional Access Server

Mediation

VoD Server

Set-Top Box 1

TV 1

OSS/J APIs

IPDR Records

CSR

Viewer 1

Ad DecisionManager

Subscriber Information

Service

Application Server

Ad Decision Manager

Set-Top Box 2

TV 2Viewer 2

Ad Decision Server

ApplicationsApplications

DemographicData

Placement Opportunity Information

Service

Thank you !

Gary Gibbsgary.gibbs@sigma-

systems.com+44 (0) 7917 886113