TeleSciences RKS™ collects PacketCable™ event messages for Cable VoIP and multimedia services. The application correlates information from real-time events to facilitate billing and performance monitoring.
The Cable Multiple Service Operators are locked in combat with the satellite companies to maintain their market share and grow their revenues. The cable companies have invested in infrastructure to transition their networks from Analog to Digital. This transition to Digital over Cable allows them to provide high-speed internet access to their subscribers.
In 1988, several MSOs joined together to found Cable Television Laboratories, Inc. (CableLabs®) and “PacketCable is a CableLabs-led initiative aimed at developing interoperable interface specifications for delivering advanced, real-time multimedia services over two-way cable plant.”
The need to differentiate cable service offerings has led to the introduction of innovative products such as Video on Demand and Voice over IP.
CableLabs define and certify how network vendors’ products work and interact. The recipient of all the Event Messages (EMs) that vendors’ products generate on the cable network is the Record Keeping Server (RKS).
TeleSciences RKS™ collects the EMs that are generated in real time. It stores them safely using redundant, self-synchronizing technology, and correlates the information to provide records for billing, network analysis, performance monitoring, fraud and customer care.
TeleSciences RKS™ is the hub of the PacketCable network for communication to the OSS/BBS infrastructure that will maintain the cable industry’s lead in services. IP telephony, multimedia conferencing, interactive gaming, and general multimedia applications are all made possible using RKS.
TeleSciences RKS™ collects the EMs over the RADIUS protocol in real-time on a high-availability, fault tolerant platform. Event Messages are correlated and transmitted using a variety of XML, ASCII, CSV, BAF, and EMI formats. TeleSciences RKS™ is unique in being to process the high volume of EMs and to transpose these into formats that the existing, and planned, infrastructure can receive and process.
TeleSciences RKS™ is supplied as a stand alone product for use in any PacketCable network as well as being supplied by Call Management Server vendors.
Auditing the data flow is important to every operator, and in support of PacketCable multimedia applications, the RKS collects additional event messages from the Policy Server and the CMTS to track policy decisions, QoS requests and usage. These events may also be correlated with network resource usage records.
TeleSciences RKS™ provides a real-time event management interface with a Web based view of all Event Messages (EMs). All EMs are displayed in a usable, readable format. Calls-in-progress can be monitored and reported.
TeleSciences RKS™ allows for flexible distribution of the CDRs exactly as configured by the operator. All collection and distribution schedules are easily accessed from the web-based Graphical User Interface.
TeleSciences RKS™ will generate an alarm if any required event message is not received (indicating a network fault). Non-correlated EMs are stored and audited and a dashboard is provided for trending analysis.
TeleSciences RKS™ can be used to monitor the set-up and tear-down of a call to help troubleshoot the network. Using a special query, the Record Viewer can display all the constituent parts of a call (the event messages) while the call is still in progress.
After competitive analysis several leading US Cable MSOs and Network Equipment Providers have chosen TeleSciences RKS™ as their preferred solution for next generation cable networks.
