Network management is more complex and challenging today than ever before for cable operators. As the deployment of revenue generating IP services over the HFC network grows, the challenge of managing the HFC network operations becomes mission-critical. Cable operators are challenged because the HFC network is vulnerable to constantly changing RF conditions that are difficult to monitor. Compared to the IP network—where faults occur most often during early deployment stages, affecting large numbers of customers—the HFC issues that affect smaller numbers of customers are difficult to isolate and typically result in time consuming and costly truck rolls. The growth of HSD and VoIP subscribers within the cable industry brings even greater challenges to HFC network operations. Cable operators estimate that over 75% of their trouble tickets are problems within the HFC network (from headend to end-of-line).

The CheetahXD software helps operators consolidate HFC network operations by integrating event data between multi-vendor network elements and management systems. Providing end-to-end visibility across the HFC operations environment, CheetahXD enables NOC personnel to proactively isolate network and service problems, trace their root causes, assess potential impacts and prioritize truck rolls. CheetahXD’s realtime, fault and performance framework helps pinpoint HFC network performance problems by providing a consolidated fault view, as well as multiple domain-specific relational views. The powerful web-based interface allows users to navigate and drill down to determine root causes of network issues. With CheetahXD software, HFC network assurance is simplified, operational costs are reduced, and network performance is improved, resulting in enhanced customer satisfaction.