RAD's Interface Converters Run Next Generation Digital Cable Services over Existing SONET Infrastructure

Oceanic Time Warner Cable of Hawaii is riding the latest wave: digital cable television. This allows cable content to be delivered in digital format via a fiber optic broadband infrastructure to provide viewers with crystal-clear pictures, CD-quality sound, greater channel choices and more control over how they watch television. And RAD's RIC-T3/ETH interface converter allows Oceanic to offer this new technology without investing in new infrastructure.

Oceanic's digital cable TV service first resided on an ATM network, but the equipment selected proved unsuitable for its needs. Therefore, Oceanic explored the option of transferring the service to a lower cost SONET network that had been installed two years earlier but remained largely unused. "When we built the network, we never imagined it would be used to transport Oahu's digital TV," says Boonthai Chantavy, Oceanic's Communications Engineer responsible for the design and development of the SONET network.

RAD's T3-to-Ethernet interface converter transmits the Ethernet/IP traffic over the SONET network at T3 speed, thereby enabling Oceanic to take advantage of the legacy network. "I expect that within a few years my group will begin plans on building a new, higher capacity, faster digital TV network. But in the meantime, we appreciate that the RIC-T3/ETH let us get up and running quickly and start generating revenue from next generation services over our existing backbone," states Debbie Wong, IS Technical Manager at Oceanic responsible for the transition of digital cable TV to the SONET network.

RIC-T3/ETH converters translate the digital TV traffic from Ethernet into T3 protocol, enabling the SONET network to transport it across the island. On the other side of the SONET network, RIC-T3/ETH units convert the traffic back to Ethernet. Oceanic Cable has installed 30 RIC-T3/ETH units, one on each side of the 15 T3 links that connect digital TV to 15 Oahu cities. "The real end result is that interactive services between video-on-demand servers and over 120,000 subscribers are very fast and work in parallel, with no single point of failure," affirms Chantavy.