Robb Balsdon:

The economic benefits driving the consolidation of Rogers headends existed before Rogers started the installation of fiber cable. Until 1989, they were accoplished by a network of microwave links. Rogers Cablesystems started installing backbone fiber in 1989 to connect both existing headends and planned primary fiber hubs to a regional fiber hub. Fiber offered a cost effective method to interconnect headends and overcome existing microwave problems that included rain fades, increasing spectrum congestion and so on.

We have gained several benefits from interconnecting headends by fiber and centralizing as many headend functions as possible with a regional fiber hub. The benefits include; a reduction in the amount of capital required to upgrade multiple independent headends; lower opereating system costs resulting from a reduced number of headends and less complexity needed in the remaining headends; the ability to eliminate independent backup facilities by means of shared back up of signals; and simplification of expansion of channels for new services.

In 1989 when system fiber interconnection began, Rogers selected an FM optical transport system since, at the time, it proved more economical for the distances involved than a digital transport system The network of 12 microwave hubs within the greater Toronto area was replaced by a regional fiber hub and five primary hubs ( signal drop off points for the FM optical transport system) as shown in Exhibit 1. The FM transport system allows signals to be repeated only once between the regional hub and the destination primary hub.

The fiber ring around the Toronto Area incorporates approximately 100 miles of 72 fiber cable. About 25% of the capacity is dedicayed to CATV backbone interconnects. 50% is dedicated to the interconnection of secondary fiber hubs to the parent primary hub. The remaining 25%provides alternate access services and connects cellular telephone antenna sites to a central switch. Exhibit 2 illustrates the topology and subscriber service capacity of the two levels of fiber hubs - the primary hubs feeding the secondary. By connecting the regional fiber hub and the primary fiber hubs in a ring, Rogers developed a self healing fiber ring.

Rogers Cablesystems expanded its regional hub fiber network to reach other headend facilities including Ottawa, 275 route miles (five repeaters) East of the regional fiber hub, and London, 178 route miles (four repeaters) to the West of the regional hub. (See Exhibit 3.) This intercity network contains approximately 727 route miles of backbone fiber and 16 proposed primary fiber hubs. To date the network is 90% complete. Because of the geographic extent of this network, it is not practical to interlink every system with every other via fiber rings. Instead microwave is generally used to backup principal signal feeds, although, in some cases, back up facilities are integrated with those of interexchange carriers.

Currently the regional fiber hub provides a number of services to the 15 completed Rogers primary hubs and to other CATV operators. These include: pay-per-view playbacj and service feeds; broadcast feeds; importation distribution of distant signals - for example Buffalo and Rochester signals to Toronto; interconnection and distribution of studio feeds; back up signal sourcing; data and intracompany voice traffic and consolidation of customer calls for extended service hours.

Rogers typically leases regional hub services to other cable operators, and the fiber network is generally shared, using a joint ownership agreement with other service providers or cable TV operators.

Rogers is using the regional hub and supporting network to test the IBM PARIS technology and SONET equipment. In the future the regional fiber hub will become a test location for transcoding and encoding of video signals using digital video compression technology.

To summarize: Rogers Cablesystems has realized significant economic benefits by consolidating and sharing services at its regional hub. In order to maximize the benefits of the regional hub, Rogers has developed interlinked rings within a large city and an inter city fiber network. To develop these fiber rings, Rogers has used fiber owned exclusively by Rogers, fiber cable installed by a consortium of companies, and has swappedexisting fiber capacity or acquired existing fiber facilities from other companies.

Where it is not possible to establish a fiber ring, microwave can provide signal backup. The provision of backup facilities to the regional hub becomes essential as more services are consolidated at the regional hub. A disaster there will affect significantly more subscribers than would a failure at one of the independent headends.