Triple play (telecommunications)
Encyclopedia
In telecommunication
s, triple play service is a marketing term for the provisioning
of two bandwidth-intensive services, high-speed Internet access
and television, and a less bandwidth-demanding (but more latency-sensitive) service, telephone
, over a single broadband
connection. Triple play focuses on a combined business model
rather than solving technical issues or a common standard. However, single standards like G.hn
do exist to deliver all these services on a common platform
.
service integrates mobility as well, often by supporting dual mode mobile
plus WiFi phones that shift from GSM to WiFi
when they come in range of a home wired for the triple play service. Typical services of this kind, such as Rogers Home Calling Zone, allow the caller to enter and leave the range of their home WiFi network, and only pay GSM rates for the time they spend outside the range. Calls at home are routed over the IP network and paid at a flat rate per month. No interruption or authorization for the shift is required - soft handoff takes place automatically as many times as the caller enters or leaves the range.
imposed by physical laws on a geosynchronous satellite
- sometimes up to one full second of delay between speaking and being heard. Cable's main competition for voice and Internet access came from telcos
, which couldn't yet compete for television in most markets because DSL over most local loop
s could not provide enough bandwidth.
As an interim marketing move while they installed fiber closer to the customer, telcos such as AT&T
did co-promotion deals with satellite TV providers to sell television, telephone, and Internet access services bundled
for billing purposes although the services provided through a satellite link and the services provided through a phone line are not technically related. Telcos that own wireless phone networks also included those as part of such billing-only bundles because most cable companies do not own wireless networks
network. This approach, known as Point-to-Point Protocol over Ethernet
. This FTTH architecture brought the operator the best ARPU in the industry for a number of consecutive years.
As of 2008, US triple play services are offered by cable television
operators as well as by telecommunication
operators, who directly compete with one another. Providers expect that an integrated solution will increase opportunity costs for customers who may want to choose between service providers, permit more cross-selling
, and hold off the power companies deploying G.hn
and IEEE P1901
technology with its radically superior service and deployment characteristics for at least another decade or so.
Outside the US, notably in Ecuador
, Pakistan
, India
, Japan
and China
, power companies have generally been more successful in leapfrogging legacy technologies. In Switzerland
and Sweden
, dark fiber
is available reliably to homes at tariffed rates (in Switzerland four dark fibres are deployed to each home) supporting speeds in excess of 40Gbps - only to the local caches, however, as backhaul cannot typically support more than 10Mbps connections to global services.
Since 2007, access providers in Italy have been participating in an initiative called Fiber for Italy, which aims to build an infrastructure that can deliver 100MB symmetrical bandwidth to consumers, in order to enable the delivery of triple and quad play services.
Other notable triple play deployments are Deutsche Telekom
, Telecom Italia
, Swisscom
, Telekom Austria
and Telus
.
The total VoIP traffic originating from IP represents 17.695 billions minutes a year (63% of the total phone traffic): 62% for national calls, 84% for international calls and 55% to national mobile calls. Note that VoIP traffic to mobile phones was only 29% as of Q4 2010 and jumped to 55% in only 6 months after the "troublemaker" ISP Free announced its new set-top box, named Freebox Revolution
, would allow free calls to any mobile phone in France on December, 14th 2010.. Other ISPs immediately reacted by proposing an equivalent offer: Orange on 01/25/2011, SFR
on 01/11/2011, Bouygues Telecom
.
has long been as much a core competency for them as have been prices and terms of service. Cable providers want to compete with telcos for local voice service, but want to discourage telcos from competing with them for television service. Incumbent telcos want to deliver television service but want to block competition for voice service from cable operators. Both industries cloak their demands for favorable regulatory treatment in claims that their positions favor the public interests. In March 2007 cable operators scored a major victory when the FCC overruled two state public service commissions by ruling that incumbent local exchange carriers must connect to VoIP services http://news.yahoo.com/s/pcworld/20070304/tc_pcworld/129580. Regulators in South Carolina and Nebraska had been allowing local telcos to block Time Warner Cable
from offering local phone service in their states. In the other direction, also in March 2007 the FCC limited the powers of municipalities and states over telcos that want to compete with cable TV companies http://www.informationweek.com/shared/printableArticle.jhtml?articleID=197800544; consumer groups expressed displeasure with this FCC ruling because they fear telcos will only offer service to the richest neighborhoods (a major bone of contention between telcos wanting to offer television service and local governments is that local governments typically impose "build-out" and community access requirements so a cable provider is forced to wire the entire town within a specified period of time). All three Republican members of the FCC voted for this decision, while both Democratic members voted against it and one predicted either Congress or the courts would overturn it. In October 2007, The Hartford Courant reported that Connecticut regulators have ordered AT&T to stop signing up new customers for its IPTV service until they got a cable license; AT&T said they would fight this decision in court http://www.courant.com/business/hc-att-1015,0,7352347.story?coll=hc_tab01_layout.
s (LEC), triple play is delivered using a combination of optical fiber
and digital subscriber line
(DSL) technologies (called fiber in the loop
) to its residential base. This configuration uses fiber communications to reach distant locations and uses DSL over an existing POTS
twisted pair
cable as last mile
access to the subscriber's home. Cable television operators use a similar architecture called hybrid fibre coaxial (HFC) to provide subscriber homes with broadband, but use the available coaxial cable
rather than a twisted pair
for the last mile transmission standard. Subscriber homes can be in a residential environment, multi-dwelling units, or even in business offices.
Using DSL over twisted pair, television content is delivered using IPTV
where the content is streamed to the subscriber in an MPEG-2
transport format. On an HFC network, television may be a mixture of analog
and digital
television signals. A set-top box
(STB) is used at the subscriber's home to allow the susbcriber to control viewing and order new video services such as movies on demand. Access to the Internet is provided through ATM
or DOCSIS
, typically provided as an Ethernet
port to the subscriber. Voice service can be provided using a traditional plain old telephone service
(POTS) interface as part of the legacy telephone network or can be delivered using voice over IP
(VoIP). In an HFC network, voice is delivered using VoIP.
Some service providers are also rolling out Ethernet
to the home networks and fiber to the home, which support triple play services and bypass the disadvantages of adapting broadband transmission to a legacy network. This is particularly common in green field developments where the capital expenditure
is reduced by deploying one network to deliver all services.
For existing multiple-dwelling-unit
(MDU) buildings, where running fiber to each unit may not be feasible, telcos often use VDSL to connect individual units over existing copper through a central optical network terminal located in the existing telco closet http://news.thomasnet.com/companystory/477946 http://www.ospmag.com/issues/article/?articleid=00000407. Over such a short distance DSL can deliver much higher bitrates than is possible running DSL over the local loop from the nearest central office as is common with basic DSL.
, 4G
or UMTS allows the service operators to enter into quadruple play and gain competitive advantage against other providers. The grouping together of services (as triple or quadruple play) is called multi-play.
Other advanced technologies such as WiMax
or 802.16
has allowed new market entrants to achieve triple play. Many speculate that this means serious, new competition for established providers of bundled telecommunications services.
/G.hn
. Since the devices all rely on AC power (or DC power via 802.3af or 802.3at which rely on AC power at the PoE hub), connecting them with only one cable each for both power and gigabit data cuts wiring costs, and most rooms are already wired for power.
In addition to the challenges mentioned above, there are a number of technical challenges with regards to the rollout of triple play services. Voice, video and high speed data all have different characteristics and place different burdens on the network that provides access to these services. Voice services are greatly affected by jitter
, whereas packet loss
has a greater effect on video and data services. In order to use a shared network resource such as cable or DSL, the service provider may use network equipment that employs quality-of-service
mechanisms to adjust to the requirements of the different services.
Telecommunication
Telecommunication is the transmission of information over significant distances to communicate. In earlier times, telecommunications involved the use of visual signals, such as beacons, smoke signals, semaphore telegraphs, signal flags, and optical heliographs, or audio messages via coded...
s, triple play service is a marketing term for the provisioning
Provisioning
In telecommunication, provisioning is the process of preparing and equipping a network to allow it to provide services to its users. In NS/EP telecommunications services, "provisioning" equates to "initiation" and includes altering the state of an existing priority service or capability.In a...
of two bandwidth-intensive services, high-speed Internet access
Broadband Internet access
Broadband Internet access, often shortened to just "broadband", is a high data rate, low-latency connection to the Internet— typically contrasted with dial-up access using a 56 kbit/s modem or satellite Internet with inherently high latency....
and television, and a less bandwidth-demanding (but more latency-sensitive) service, telephone
Telephone
The telephone , colloquially referred to as a phone, is a telecommunications device that transmits and receives sounds, usually the human voice. Telephones are a point-to-point communication system whose most basic function is to allow two people separated by large distances to talk to each other...
, over a single broadband
Broadband
The term broadband refers to a telecommunications signal or device of greater bandwidth, in some sense, than another standard or usual signal or device . Different criteria for "broad" have been applied in different contexts and at different times...
connection. Triple play focuses on a combined business model
Supplier Convergence
Supplier convergence is a business model in which a company offers a combination of services or products that were previously supplied by separate companies...
rather than solving technical issues or a common standard. However, single standards like G.hn
G.hn
G.hn is the common name for a home network technology family of standards developed under the International Telecommunication Union's Standardization arm and promoted by the HomeGrid Forum...
do exist to deliver all these services on a common platform
Platform technology
Platform technology is a term for technology that enables the creation of products and processes that support present or future development. It establishes the long-term capabilities of research & development institutes....
.
Quadruple play / mobility
A so-called quadruple playQuadruple play
In telecommunications, quadruple play is a marketing term combining the triple play service of broadband Internet access, television and telephone with wireless service provisions...
service integrates mobility as well, often by supporting dual mode mobile
Dual mode mobile
Dual mode mobiles refer to mobile phones that are compatible with more than one form of data transmission or network.-Dual-Mode Phone:A dual-mode phone is a telephone which uses more than one technique for sending and receiving voice and data...
plus WiFi phones that shift from GSM to WiFi
WIFI
WIFI is a radio station broadcasting a brokered format. Licensed to Florence, New Jersey, USA, the station is currently operated by Florence Broadcasting Partners, LLC.This station was previously owned by Real Life Broadcasting...
when they come in range of a home wired for the triple play service. Typical services of this kind, such as Rogers Home Calling Zone, allow the caller to enter and leave the range of their home WiFi network, and only pay GSM rates for the time they spend outside the range. Calls at home are routed over the IP network and paid at a flat rate per month. No interruption or authorization for the shift is required - soft handoff takes place automatically as many times as the caller enters or leaves the range.
CATV
At the turn of the century, cable TV companies were in a technical position to offer triple play over one physical medium to a large number of their customers, as their networks already have sufficient bandwidth to carry hundreds of video channels. Cable's main competition for television in North America came from satellites, which cannot compete for voice and interactive broadband due to the latencyLatency (engineering)
Latency is a measure of time delay experienced in a system, the precise definition of which depends on the system and the time being measured. Latencies may have different meaning in different contexts.-Packet-switched networks:...
imposed by physical laws on a geosynchronous satellite
Geosynchronous satellite
A geosynchronous Satellite is a satellite whose orbit on the Earth repeats regularly over points on the Earth over time. If such a satellite's orbit lies over the equator, the orbit is circular and its angular velocity is the same as the earth's, then it is called a geostationary satellite...
- sometimes up to one full second of delay between speaking and being heard. Cable's main competition for voice and Internet access came from telcos
Telephone company
A telephone company is a service provider of telecommunications services such as telephony and data communications access. Many were at one time nationalized or state-regulated monopolies...
, which couldn't yet compete for television in most markets because DSL over most local loop
Local loop
In telephony, the local loop is the physical link or circuit that connects from the demarcation point of the customer premises to the edge of the carrier or telecommunications service provider's network...
s could not provide enough bandwidth.
As an interim marketing move while they installed fiber closer to the customer, telcos such as AT&T
AT&T
AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications corporation headquartered in Whitacre Tower, Dallas, Texas, United States. It is the largest provider of mobile telephony and fixed telephony in the United States, and is also a provider of broadband and subscription television services...
did co-promotion deals with satellite TV providers to sell television, telephone, and Internet access services bundled
Product bundling
Product bundling is a marketing strategy that involves offering several products for sale as one combined product. This strategy is very common in the software business , in the cable television industry Product bundling is a marketing strategy that involves offering several products for sale as...
for billing purposes although the services provided through a satellite link and the services provided through a phone line are not technically related. Telcos that own wireless phone networks also included those as part of such billing-only bundles because most cable companies do not own wireless networks
Deployments
The first triple-play deployment was by Italian operator Fastweb in 2001, using fibre to the home service and one of the first triple play home gateway devices with embedded fibre termination. This enabled the operator to deliver voice, video and data services to subscribers’ homes via its 10 MB SDSLSDSL
SDSL may refer to:*Symmetric digital subscriber line*Site-directed spin labeling...
network. This approach, known as Point-to-Point Protocol over Ethernet
Point-to-Point Protocol over Ethernet
The Point-to-Point Protocol over Ethernet is a network protocol for encapsulating Point-to-Point Protocol frames inside Ethernet frames. It is used mainly with DSL services where individual users connect to the DSL modem over Ethernet and in plain Metro Ethernet networks...
. This FTTH architecture brought the operator the best ARPU in the industry for a number of consecutive years.
As of 2008, US triple play services are offered by cable television
Cable television
Cable television is a system of providing television programs to consumers via radio frequency signals transmitted to televisions through coaxial cables or digital light pulses through fixed optical fibers located on the subscriber's property, much like the over-the-air method used in traditional...
operators as well as by telecommunication
Telecommunication
Telecommunication is the transmission of information over significant distances to communicate. In earlier times, telecommunications involved the use of visual signals, such as beacons, smoke signals, semaphore telegraphs, signal flags, and optical heliographs, or audio messages via coded...
operators, who directly compete with one another. Providers expect that an integrated solution will increase opportunity costs for customers who may want to choose between service providers, permit more cross-selling
Cross-selling
Cross-selling is the action or practice of selling among or between established clients, markets, traders, etc. or the action or practice of selling an additional product or service to an existing customer. This article deals exclusively with the latter meaning. In practice, businesses define...
, and hold off the power companies deploying G.hn
G.hn
G.hn is the common name for a home network technology family of standards developed under the International Telecommunication Union's Standardization arm and promoted by the HomeGrid Forum...
and IEEE P1901
IEEE P1901
The IEEE 1901 working group of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers develops standards for high speed power line communications....
technology with its radically superior service and deployment characteristics for at least another decade or so.
Outside the US, notably in Ecuador
Ecuador
Ecuador , officially the Republic of Ecuador is a representative democratic republic in South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and by the Pacific Ocean to the west. It is one of only two countries in South America, along with Chile, that do not have a border...
, Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
, India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
and China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
, power companies have generally been more successful in leapfrogging legacy technologies. In Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
and Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
, dark fiber
Dark fiber
A dark fiber or unlit fiber is an unused Optical fiber, available for use in fiber-optic communication.The term dark fiber was originally used when referring to the potential network capacity of telecommunication infrastructure, but now also refers to the increasingly common practice of leasing...
is available reliably to homes at tariffed rates (in Switzerland four dark fibres are deployed to each home) supporting speeds in excess of 40Gbps - only to the local caches, however, as backhaul cannot typically support more than 10Mbps connections to global services.
Since 2007, access providers in Italy have been participating in an initiative called Fiber for Italy, which aims to build an infrastructure that can deliver 100MB symmetrical bandwidth to consumers, in order to enable the delivery of triple and quad play services.
Other notable triple play deployments are Deutsche Telekom
Deutsche Telekom
Deutsche Telekom AG is a telecommunications company headquartered in Bonn, Germany. It is the largest telecommunications company in Europe....
, Telecom Italia
Telecom Italia
Telecom Italia is the largest Italian telecommunications company, also active in the media and manufacturing industries. Now a private concern listed on the Borsa Italiana, it was founded in 1994 by the merger of several state-owned telecommunications companies, the most important of which was...
, Swisscom
Swisscom
Swisscom AG is a major telecommunications provider in Switzerland. Along with Swiss Post, it is a successor company to the former state-owned PTT. Its headquarters are located at Worblaufen near Bern...
, Telekom Austria
Telekom Austria
Telekom Austria is a provider of a range of fixed line, mobile, data, and Internet communications services. The company has a 100 per cent share in telecommunications provider A1 Telekom Austria....
and Telus
TELUS
Telus is a national telecommunications company in Canada that provides a wide range of telecommunications products and services including internet access, voice, entertainment, video, and satellite television. The company is based in Burnaby, British Columbia, part of Greater Vancouver...
.
In France
The triple play offers in France are 95% based on ADSL and only 5% on cable/optical fiber connections. As of Q2 2011, there are 11.311 millions subscribers of a triple play services over DSL which represents 55.3% of all the DSL subscriptions (20.455 millions). For comparison, the number of households in France is estimated to ca. 25.5 millions for a total population of ca. 63 millions.The total VoIP traffic originating from IP represents 17.695 billions minutes a year (63% of the total phone traffic): 62% for national calls, 84% for international calls and 55% to national mobile calls. Note that VoIP traffic to mobile phones was only 29% as of Q4 2010 and jumped to 55% in only 6 months after the "troublemaker" ISP Free announced its new set-top box, named Freebox Revolution
Freebox
The Freebox is an ADSL modem that the French internet service provider named Free provides to its ADSL subscribers.Its main use is as a high-end wireless modem , but it also allows Free to offer added services using ADSL as support, like HD television , video recording with timeshifting...
, would allow free calls to any mobile phone in France on December, 14th 2010.. Other ISPs immediately reacted by proposing an equivalent offer: Orange on 01/25/2011, SFR
SFR
SFR is a French mobile phone company. It has over 20 million customers, and provides over 4.6 million households with high-speed internet access...
on 01/11/2011, Bouygues Telecom
Bouygues Telecom
Bouygues Telecom is a French mobile phone and Internet service provider company, part of the Bouygues group. Its headquarters, designed by Arquitectonica, are located at the border of Paris and Issy-les-Moulineaux near the River Seine....
.
Regulation
There are multiple and intense regulatory battles over triple play services as incumbent telcos and incumbent cable operators attempt to keep out new competitors—since both industries historically have been regulated monopolies, regulatory captureRegulatory capture
In economics, regulatory capture occurs when a state regulatory agency created to act in the public interest instead advances the commercial or special interests that dominate the industry or sector it is charged with regulating. Regulatory capture is a form of government failure, as it can act as...
has long been as much a core competency for them as have been prices and terms of service. Cable providers want to compete with telcos for local voice service, but want to discourage telcos from competing with them for television service. Incumbent telcos want to deliver television service but want to block competition for voice service from cable operators. Both industries cloak their demands for favorable regulatory treatment in claims that their positions favor the public interests. In March 2007 cable operators scored a major victory when the FCC overruled two state public service commissions by ruling that incumbent local exchange carriers must connect to VoIP services http://news.yahoo.com/s/pcworld/20070304/tc_pcworld/129580. Regulators in South Carolina and Nebraska had been allowing local telcos to block Time Warner Cable
Time Warner Cable
Time Warner Cable is an American cable television company that operates in 28 states and has 31 operating divisions...
from offering local phone service in their states. In the other direction, also in March 2007 the FCC limited the powers of municipalities and states over telcos that want to compete with cable TV companies http://www.informationweek.com/shared/printableArticle.jhtml?articleID=197800544; consumer groups expressed displeasure with this FCC ruling because they fear telcos will only offer service to the richest neighborhoods (a major bone of contention between telcos wanting to offer television service and local governments is that local governments typically impose "build-out" and community access requirements so a cable provider is forced to wire the entire town within a specified period of time). All three Republican members of the FCC voted for this decision, while both Democratic members voted against it and one predicted either Congress or the courts would overturn it. In October 2007, The Hartford Courant reported that Connecticut regulators have ordered AT&T to stop signing up new customers for its IPTV service until they got a cable license; AT&T said they would fight this decision in court http://www.courant.com/business/hc-att-1015,0,7352347.story?coll=hc_tab01_layout.
Telco
For telephone local exchange carrierLocal exchange carrier
Local Exchange Carrier is a regulatory term in telecommunications for the local telephone company.In the United States, wireline telephone companies are divided into two large categories: long distance and local...
s (LEC), triple play is delivered using a combination of optical fiber
Optical fiber
An optical fiber is a flexible, transparent fiber made of a pure glass not much wider than a human hair. It functions as a waveguide, or "light pipe", to transmit light between the two ends of the fiber. The field of applied science and engineering concerned with the design and application of...
and digital subscriber line
Digital Subscriber Line
Digital subscriber line is a family of technologies that provides digital data transmission over the wires of a local telephone network. DSL originally stood for digital subscriber loop. In telecommunications marketing, the term DSL is widely understood to mean Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line ,...
(DSL) technologies (called fiber in the loop
Fiber in the loop
Fiber In The Loop is a system implementing or upgrading portions of the POTS local loop with fiber optic technology from the central office of a telephone carrier to a remote Serving area interface located in a neighborhood or to an Optical Network Unit located at the customer premises...
) to its residential base. This configuration uses fiber communications to reach distant locations and uses DSL over an existing POTS
Plain old telephone service
Plain old telephone service is the voice-grade telephone service that remains the basic form of residential and small business service connection to the telephone network in many parts of the world....
twisted pair
Twisted pair
Twisted pair cabling is a type of wiring in which two conductors are twisted together for the purposes of canceling out electromagnetic interference from external sources; for instance, electromagnetic radiation from unshielded twisted pair cables, and crosstalk between neighboring pairs...
cable as last mile
Last mile
The "last mile" or "last kilometer" is the final leg of delivering connectivity from a communications provider to a customer. The phrase is therefore often used by the telecommunications and cable television industries. The actual distance of this leg may be considerably more than a mile,...
access to the subscriber's home. Cable television operators use a similar architecture called hybrid fibre coaxial (HFC) to provide subscriber homes with broadband, but use the available coaxial cable
Coaxial cable
Coaxial cable, or coax, has an inner conductor surrounded by a flexible, tubular insulating layer, surrounded by a tubular conducting shield. The term coaxial comes from the inner conductor and the outer shield sharing the same geometric axis...
rather than a twisted pair
Twisted pair
Twisted pair cabling is a type of wiring in which two conductors are twisted together for the purposes of canceling out electromagnetic interference from external sources; for instance, electromagnetic radiation from unshielded twisted pair cables, and crosstalk between neighboring pairs...
for the last mile transmission standard. Subscriber homes can be in a residential environment, multi-dwelling units, or even in business offices.
Using DSL over twisted pair, television content is delivered using IPTV
IPTV
Internet Protocol television is a system through which television services are delivered using the Internet protocol suite over a packet-switched network such as the Internet, instead of being delivered through traditional terrestrial, satellite signal, and cable television formats.IPTV services...
where the content is streamed to the subscriber in an MPEG-2
MPEG-2
MPEG-2 is a standard for "the generic coding of moving pictures and associated audio information". It describes a combination of lossy video compression and lossy audio data compression methods which permit storage and transmission of movies using currently available storage media and transmission...
transport format. On an HFC network, television may be a mixture of analog
Analog television
Analog television is the analog transmission that involves the broadcasting of encoded analog audio and analog video signal: one in which the message conveyed by the broadcast signal is a function of deliberate variations in the amplitude and/or frequency of the signal...
and digital
Digital
A digital system is a data technology that uses discrete values. By contrast, non-digital systems use a continuous range of values to represent information...
television signals. A set-top box
Set-top box
A set-top box or set-top unit is an information appliance device that generally contains a tuner and connects to a television set and an external source of signal, turning the signal into content which is then displayed on the television screen or other display device.-History:Before the...
(STB) is used at the subscriber's home to allow the susbcriber to control viewing and order new video services such as movies on demand. Access to the Internet is provided through ATM
Asynchronous Transfer Mode
Asynchronous Transfer Mode is a standard switching technique designed to unify telecommunication and computer networks. It uses asynchronous time-division multiplexing, and it encodes data into small, fixed-sized cells. This differs from approaches such as the Internet Protocol or Ethernet that...
or DOCSIS
DOCSIS
Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification is an international telecommunications standard that permits the addition of high-speed data transfer to an existing cable TV system...
, typically provided as an Ethernet
Ethernet
Ethernet is a family of computer networking technologies for local area networks commercially introduced in 1980. Standardized in IEEE 802.3, Ethernet has largely replaced competing wired LAN technologies....
port to the subscriber. Voice service can be provided using a traditional plain old telephone service
Plain old telephone service
Plain old telephone service is the voice-grade telephone service that remains the basic form of residential and small business service connection to the telephone network in many parts of the world....
(POTS) interface as part of the legacy telephone network or can be delivered using voice over IP
Voice over IP
Voice over Internet Protocol is a family of technologies, methodologies, communication protocols, and transmission techniques for the delivery of voice communications and multimedia sessions over Internet Protocol networks, such as the Internet...
(VoIP). In an HFC network, voice is delivered using VoIP.
Some service providers are also rolling out Ethernet
Ethernet
Ethernet is a family of computer networking technologies for local area networks commercially introduced in 1980. Standardized in IEEE 802.3, Ethernet has largely replaced competing wired LAN technologies....
to the home networks and fiber to the home, which support triple play services and bypass the disadvantages of adapting broadband transmission to a legacy network. This is particularly common in green field developments where the capital expenditure
Capital expenditure
Capital expenditures are expenditures creating future benefits. A capital expenditure is incurred when a business spends money either to buy fixed assets or to add to the value of an existing fixed asset with a useful life extending beyond the taxable year...
is reduced by deploying one network to deliver all services.
For existing multiple-dwelling-unit
Multi-family residential
Multi-family residential is a classification of housing where multiple separate housing units for residential inhabitants are contained within one building or several buildings within one complex. A common form is an apartment building...
(MDU) buildings, where running fiber to each unit may not be feasible, telcos often use VDSL to connect individual units over existing copper through a central optical network terminal located in the existing telco closet http://news.thomasnet.com/companystory/477946 http://www.ospmag.com/issues/article/?articleid=00000407. Over such a short distance DSL can deliver much higher bitrates than is possible running DSL over the local loop from the nearest central office as is common with basic DSL.
Wireless
Triple play has led to the term "quadruple play" where wireless communications is introduced as another medium to deliver video, Internet access, and voice telephone service. Advances in both CDMA and GSM standards, utilizing 3G3G
3G or 3rd generation mobile telecommunications is a generation of standards for mobile phones and mobile telecommunication services fulfilling the International Mobile Telecommunications-2000 specifications by the International Telecommunication Union...
, 4G
4G
In telecommunications, 4G is the fourth generation of cellular wireless standards. It is a successor to the 3G and 2G families of standards. In 2009, the ITU-R organization specified the IMT-Advanced requirements for 4G standards, setting peak speed requirements for 4G service at 100 Mbit/s...
or UMTS allows the service operators to enter into quadruple play and gain competitive advantage against other providers. The grouping together of services (as triple or quadruple play) is called multi-play.
Other advanced technologies such as WiMax
WiMAX
WiMAX is a communication technology for wirelessly delivering high-speed Internet service to large geographical areas. The 2005 WiMAX revision provided bit rates up to 40 Mbit/s with the 2011 update up to 1 Gbit/s for fixed stations...
or 802.16
IEEE 802.16
IEEE 802.16 is a series of Wireless Broadband standards authored by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers . The IEEE Standards Board in established a working group in 1999 to develop standards for broadband Wireless Metropolitan Area Networks...
has allowed new market entrants to achieve triple play. Many speculate that this means serious, new competition for established providers of bundled telecommunications services.
Power integration
These services can be delivered with a BPL network using technologies such as IEEE P1901IEEE P1901
The IEEE 1901 working group of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers develops standards for high speed power line communications....
/G.hn
G.hn
G.hn is the common name for a home network technology family of standards developed under the International Telecommunication Union's Standardization arm and promoted by the HomeGrid Forum...
. Since the devices all rely on AC power (or DC power via 802.3af or 802.3at which rely on AC power at the PoE hub), connecting them with only one cable each for both power and gigabit data cuts wiring costs, and most rooms are already wired for power.
Business
The challenges in offering triple play are mostly associated with determining the right business model, backend processes, customer care support and economic environment rather than technology. For example, using the right billing platform to address a variety of subscriber demographics or having the appropriate subscriber density to financially justify introduction of the service are a few factors that affect decisions to offer triple play service.In addition to the challenges mentioned above, there are a number of technical challenges with regards to the rollout of triple play services. Voice, video and high speed data all have different characteristics and place different burdens on the network that provides access to these services. Voice services are greatly affected by jitter
Jitter
Jitter is the undesired deviation from true periodicity of an assumed periodic signal in electronics and telecommunications, often in relation to a reference clock source. Jitter may be observed in characteristics such as the frequency of successive pulses, the signal amplitude, or phase of...
, whereas packet loss
Packet loss
Packet loss occurs when one or more packets of data travelling across a computer network fail to reach their destination. Packet loss is distinguished as one of the three main error types encountered in digital communications; the other two being bit error and spurious packets caused due to noise.-...
has a greater effect on video and data services. In order to use a shared network resource such as cable or DSL, the service provider may use network equipment that employs quality-of-service
Quality of service
The quality of service refers to several related aspects of telephony and computer networks that allow the transport of traffic with special requirements...
mechanisms to adjust to the requirements of the different services.
See also
- Technological convergenceTechnological convergenceTechnological convergence is the tendency for different technological systems to evolve towards performing similar tasks. Convergence can refer to previously separate technologies such as voice , data , and video that now share resources and interact with each other synergistically.The rise of...
- IPTVIPTVInternet Protocol television is a system through which television services are delivered using the Internet protocol suite over a packet-switched network such as the Internet, instead of being delivered through traditional terrestrial, satellite signal, and cable television formats.IPTV services...
- Voice over IPVoice over IPVoice over Internet Protocol is a family of technologies, methodologies, communication protocols, and transmission techniques for the delivery of voice communications and multimedia sessions over Internet Protocol networks, such as the Internet...
- Billing Mediation PlatformBilling Mediation PlatformA billing mediation platform is a system used to convert data of certain datatypes to other datatypes, usually for billing purposes. Billing Mediation Platforms are used mostly by telephone companies, who typically need to process UDRs...
- Telecommunication convergence
- Mimax - European project to enhance WLAN
- Cable television in the United StatesCable television in the United StatesCable television in the United States is a common form of television delivery, generally by subscription. Cable television first became available in the United States in 1948, with subscription services in 1949. Data by SNL Kagan shows that as of 2006 about 58.4% of all American homes subscribe to...
- Triple playTriple PlayA triple play is a baseball play in which three outs are made as a result of continuous action without any intervening errors between outs.Triple play may also refer to:...