Dutch VULA consumer market services over Cable

Transcription

1 TNO report 2015 R11198 Dutch VULA consumer market services over Cable Anna van Buerenplein DA Den Haag P.O. Box JE The Hague The Netherlands T Date 14 September 2015 Customer KPN All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced and/or published by print, photoprint, microfilm or any other means without the previous written consent of TNO. In case this report was drafted on instructions, the rights and obligations of contracting parties are subject to either the General Terms and Conditions for commissions to TNO, or the relevant agreement concluded between the contracting parties. Submitting the report for inspection to parties who have a direct interest is permitted TNO

2 TNO report Dutch VULA consumer market services over Cable 2 / 16 Contents Management summary Introduction The Dutch VULA wholesale service Interconnection Network architecture Connection model Customer Premises Equipment Network services Service profiles The consumer retail services The cable infrastructure The hybrid fibre coax network The EuroDOCSIS platform Ethernet Transparent LAN Services Consumer services Capacity management The Dutch VULA wholesale service from the Cable Interconnection Network architecture Connection model Customer Premises Equipment Network services Consumer services Analysis and discussion Conclusion References ANNEX Resale premium radio, television and VoD services from Cable... 15

3 TNO report Dutch VULA consumer market services over Cable 3 / 16 Management summary Situation Request KPN Research questions In the Netherlands there are currently two fixed broadband infrastructures for the delivery of consumer broadband services with an almost national coverage: DSL and cable. In its analysis of the Dutch broadband market, the regulator (ACM) indicates that third parties should have access to KPN s DSL network. To offer such an access, KPN has developed a reference offer for a virtual unbundled local access (VULA) specifically scoped for the Dutch market and its wholesale customers. For the cable networks, the ACM states that these cannot offer the same access for third parties. KPN has approached TNO with the request to assess the technical feasibility of a wholesale VULA service for consumer market services over the Dutch cable networks equivalent to the one offered by KPN. KPN s main question is broken down into three subquestions: What are the essential components and characteristics of KPN s wholesale VULA service 1 that are needed to offer consumer services? What is the technical status of the current cable networks in The Netherlands and of cable technology? Considering the two above issues, can the Dutch cable networks provide an equivalent wholesale VULA service to deliver equivalent consumer services as those from VULA from DSL? Approach and sources In order to address these questions, TNO has performed desk research of publicly available sources, such as technical standards, reports of industry meetings and press releases. TNO has combined this information with its own expertise in cable and DSL networks and networking technologies. TNO has not performed on site study of the specific cable assets of Dutch cable companies. Results To deliver consumer services, VULA from KPN encompasses two virtual network connections per customer from the local wholesale access point to the customer premises equipment: One VLAN with an asymmetric best effort broadband service with the maximum line bit rate, 1 Technische specificaties VULA/Wholesale Broadband Access, KPN, 1 September 2015.

4 TNO report Dutch VULA consumer market services over Cable 4 / 16 One VLAN with a Premium service and a bit rate of up to 2 Mbps symmetrical 2. With the EuroDOCSIS platform in combination with metro and core networks, the cable providers can provide an asymmetric best effort broadband connection with a high bit rate and a premium symmetrical connection with a bit rate sufficient to serve the current consumer market. As a result of the cable network technical design, the bit rate of the best effort service of the cable is generally characterized by a lower upstream bit rate and a higher downstream bit rate as compared to the best effort VDSL2 connection from KPN s VULA. The wholesale access points that the cable can offer are located at either a local or a regional level. KPN s VULA offer does not include a third VLAN for IPTV services. To offer wholesale customers the possibility to deliver a market conform triple play retail service, KPN has developed a separate IPTV resale offer RTV Broadcast Streams 3. Since the scope of this analysis is limited to KPN s VULA service, this IPTV resale offer and the technical feasibility of a similar offer from the cable is not included in the main body of this report, but briefly analysed in the ANNEX. To offer the described wholesale services, extra cable broadband capacity has to be added, however, this will not cause unmanageable problems. The Dutch cable providers have implemented capacity management processes and the foreseen extra capacity is limited considering the annual capacity increase of 30-40% to keep up with the broadband demand. Moreover, a large upfront investment in cable capacity to serve the first customers of a wholesale customer is not needed because of the scalability of cable capacity. Conclusion TNO concludes that from the technical viewpoint, cable can deliver a VULA wholesale service that is equivalent to the VULA offered by KPN. The main differentiating features are the lower upstream and higher downstream bit rates as compared to those of VDSL2 based VULA from KPN. This difference in up and downstream bitrate is associated with the current technical design of the cable networks. 2 A Premium VLAN with a bit rate of up to 2 Mbps symmetrical is offered free of charge in combination with the best effort VLAN. 3 Wholesale Multi-Play Broadcast Streams, Service description V1.9, KPN, 24 July 2015

5 TNO report Dutch VULA consumer market services over Cable 5 / 16 1 Introduction In the Netherlands there are two fixed broadband infrastructures with almost national coverage providing consumer broadband services, DSL and cable. The question arises whether from a regulatory viewpoint, the fixed consumer broadband market includes both infrastructures or not. To include both infrastructures in the same market, they must be able to deliver equivalent services. Stated differently, the services of the one infrastructure should provide a market-conform substitute for those of the other infrastructure. Recently, KPN and the main third party providers in the Dutch fixed broadband market (Tele2, Online and Vodafone) have reached an agreement on the virtual unbundled local access (VULA) wholesale service that KPN will provide via its DSL network. This Dutch VULA wholesale service has been specified and published [1]. The agreement has been accepted by the Authority Consumer Market (ACM). Using Dutch VULA, third parties have the intention to deliver consumer services. Conceivably, third parties can deliver equivalent consumer services via Dutch cable infrastructures. To do so, the cable operators would have to offer a cable VULA wholesale product equivalent to Dutch VULA. In this paper we present an analysis of the possibility to deliver a cable wholesale service equivalent to Dutch VULA, which could be used by third parties to deliver the same market-conform consumer services as delivered via KPN s Dutch VULA. KPN s Dutch VULA does not include a layer 2 network service that can be used to deliver premium radio, television, video-on-demand and catch-up television enduser services. To enable wholesale customers to offer a triple play service including market-conform radio and television, KPN has developed a separate resale offer of its live radio and television signals. This offer is not a one-to-one resale as it allows the wholesale customers to develop an end-user service that differs to some degree from KPN s end-user service in terms of packaging of the channels, arranging own content rights and the use of an own customer premises equipment (CPE) and an own branded electric program guide (EPG) [3]. As briefly discussed in the ANNEX of this report, it can be expected that cable providers can deliver a similar resale plus offer. In this paper we focus on the analysis of the KPN VULA service. In the following we first provide a description of essential components and characteristics of the Dutch VULA wholesale service. Next, in section 3, we present a brief summary of the Dutch cable infrastructures and the network services they can offer. In section 4 we match the cable network services and the essential components and features of Dutch VULA, to assess the capability of the Dutch cable infrastructures to deliver an equivalent VULA service.

6 TNO report Dutch VULA consumer market services over Cable 6 / 16 2 The Dutch VULA wholesale service A full specification of the Dutch VULA wholesale service can be found in KPN s reference offer [1]. In the following paragraphs, we provide a brief summary of the essential technical features of the Dutch VULA wholesale service targeted at consumer services. 2.1 Interconnection Network interconnection is offered at the local wholesale access point (WAP). In the Netherlands KPN offers around 160 local WAPs. 2.2 Network architecture The network consists of a DSL-based access network between the customer premises equipment (CPE) and DSLAM and a transport network interconnecting the DSLAM and local WAP. Both parts of the network offer an Ethernet service with support of VLANs and prioritization. 2.3 Connection model In the access network, different VLANs can be specified for services with different QoS requirements. In the transport network traffic with the same or similar QoS requirements of all downstream customers is multiplexed into a single VLAN. 2.4 Customer Premises Equipment The wholesale customer can choose and deliver an own CPE provided that it is compliant with the standards and or requirements for CPE as specified in the Dutch VULA reference offer. The market is served by various vendors with a variety of products that are compliant to the CPE standards and requirements. Table 1: QoS target values of the transport network QoS parameter Target value Premium Throughput 99,98% Delay < 10 ms Jitter < 10 ms Loss < 0,01 % Best Effort Throughput No target Delay No target Jitter No target Loss < 1 %

7 TNO report Dutch VULA consumer market services over Cable 7 / Network services The offer comprises two E2E services, a best effort and a premium service. These services are delivered using different VLANs. In the access network, prioritization is offered (P=1 for best effort (BE) and P=5 for Premium). In the transport network, the reference offer specifies target QoS parameters. Table 1 is copied from the reference offer [1]. 2.6 Service profiles Dutch VULA offers a range of service profiles for both best effort and premium services from DSL, with a maximum of 200 and 60 Mbps respectively for the downstream and upstream. Not every service profile can be delivered to all customers due to the limited DSL line rate of longer lines. Table 2 provides an indication of the bit rates that Dutch VULA can deliver in practice. KPN offers a zip code check (post code check) to assess the maximum bit rate that can be delivered via a specific customer line. Table 2 Indications of VDSL2 bit rates in operational networks, with and without vectoring. Reference: [2] DSL Downstream (Mbps) Upstream (Mbps) Short loop (~100 m) VDSL2 Vectored VDSL2 Majority of market Long loop (~1km) 20 4 Short loop (~100 m) Majority of market For consumer services, the Dutch VULA offers two VLANs: One VLAN with a BE service with the maximum line bit rate, One VLAN with Premium service and a bit rate of up to 2 Mbps symmetrical The consumer retail services Using Dutch VULA, third parties can offer the following consumer retail services: Best effort internet access with a bit rate up to the maximum of the customer DSL line, Premium VoIP-based telephony service for one or two telephone lines, using the premium connection. 4 Market in Majority of the market refers to the market covered by VDSL2 services, excluding ADSL and fibre services 5 The Premium VLAN is offered free of charge in combination with the best effort VLAN.

8 TNO report Dutch VULA consumer market services over Cable 8 / 16 3 The cable infrastructure This section gives a concise description of the Dutch cable infrastructure to deliver broadband services. For a more extensive and detailed description, the reader is referred to [4] and [5]. 3.1 The hybrid fibre coax network The Dutch hybrid fibre coax network (HFC) consists of geographically nonoverlapping coaxial point-to-multipoint network segments serving typically between several hundred and up to a thousand customers. These coaxial segments are connected with an analogue optical fibre connection to a higher level network concentration point called HUB or SuperHUB. The HFC network carries radio frequency (RF) signals. The MHz band is used for upstream signals and the MHz band is used for downstream signals. Most of the downstream spectrum is used for the delivery of analogue and digital broadcast television services. The amount of spectrum in the downstream band for the broadband services is not known as this is company confidential information but as an indication, the operators can be expected to use about MHz, which corresponds to channels of 8 MHz each. The full upstream channel is used for upstream signals of the cable broadband services. Assuming 4 upstream channels and 12 downstream channels, EuroDOCSIS offers a capacity of 600 Mbps downstream paired to an upstream capacity of Mbps. Currently, Ziggo offers a 40/4 Start, a 120/12 Complete and a 200/20 Mbps MAX internet service for consumers. For the small and home office market, Ziggo respectively offers a 60/10, 130/30 and 200/40 Mbps service. Delta offers similar cable services in Zeeland. Although these bit rates of the current cable services do not prove the assumption on the spectrum use, they do show that the assumption of MHz for downstream is realistic. Commonly, the CMTS is placed in the HUB or the SuperHUB. A HUB typically serves some homes passed (HP) whereas SuperHUBs serve about s HP, but possibly more [6]. 3.2 The EuroDOCSIS platform For the delivery of broadband and premium telephony services over a HFC access network, the cable providers use primarily EuroDOCSIS 3.0 technology. The platform consists of a Cable Modem Termination System (CMTS) serving a single HFC network segment and a number of Cable Modems (CMs) all connected to the same HFC network segment.

9 TNO report Dutch VULA consumer market services over Cable 9 / 16 Figure 1. The EuroDOCSIS cable broadband network The EuroDOCSIS 3.0 provides the following main functionalities: A flexible up- and downstream capacity. By adding RF channels, the downstream and upstream capacity can be increased. These channels can be bonded, thus effectively creating a single channel. Because the upstream spectrum is currently fully used, the upstream capacity per cable segment has already reached its maximum value of Mbps. In the future though, this capacity can be further increased [4]. Between the CMTS and each of the CM one or more virtual connections called service flows (SFs) can be created to transfer the customer data. The use of scheduling mechanisms in combination with the SFs, offers the possibility to deliver connections with different quality of service (QoS). Cable providers can offer: o SFs with a best effort QoS o SFs with a real-time variable bit rate scheduling service EuroDOCSIS provides a layer 3 IP service between the network side interface and the CM customer side interface. CableLabs has developed a certification program to warrant the compliancy and interoperability of the CMTSs and CMs of different manufacturers. The current market offers a large choice of approved equipment. The core and metro networks of the cable providers are Layer 2/3 6 (likely MPLS) based, and provide the interconnection between the HUBs, head ends and national network centres. Provided these networks are properly managed by timely adding extra capacity, these networks can be used to provide practically uncontended (virtual) connections. 3.3 Ethernet Transparent LAN Services Since DOCSIS has not been developed to support layer 2 Ethernet services, CableLabs has developed and specified a Layer 2 Virtual Private Network (L2VPN) implementation for the CMTS and CM [7] in This solution offers the cable operator the possibility to provide Business Services over DOCSIS (BSoD) or more specifically formulated Ethernet Transparent LAN Services. These can be used for, for instance: 6 A Layer 2 network service is delivered over a layer 3 network.

10 TNO report Dutch VULA consumer market services over Cable 10 / 16 Interconnection of enterprise LANs. L2VPN includes IEEE 802.1Q, thus supporting Virtual Local Area Networks (VLANs) and prioritization. To support multiple ISPs. Each ISP has an own L2VPN, thus allowing them to use their own IP address ranges. To deliver IP Multicast and IPTV services [8]. Current CMTSs like the C4c (Arris) and ubr10000 (Cisco) support the BSoC L2VPN service. 3.4 Consumer services Using their EuroDOCSIS platforms, the Dutch cable operators offer a best effort internet service and a premium telephony service. The internet and telephony services are delivered with different service flows. For the internet service a service flow with best effort scheduling is used, and for telephony a service flow with realtime variable bit rate scheduling. 3.5 Capacity management In the current Dutch cable networks, the capacity of the EuroDOCSIS platform is managed on a weekly/monthly basis. The upstream and downstream capacity is monitored, and once the load of a cable segment surpasses a specific threshold (or so-called key performance indicator), the network capacity is expanded by: Either splitting the coaxial segment or adding frequency channels And adding extra EuroDOCSIS CMTS capacity to feed the newly created segment or frequency channels. In reference [4], a more detailed description of cable capacity management can be found. 4 The Dutch VULA wholesale service from the Cable In section 2 we have described the main features of the Dutch VULA wholesale service. Here in this section we make an analysis whether a cable infrastructure as described in the preceding section, can provide an equivalent cable implementation for each of the features. 4.1 Interconnection KPN offers access at its 160 MetroCore locations, serving some HP as a minimum, some as a maximum, and about on average. The cable providers can provide interconnection at the HUBs (typically HP) or SuperHUB ( HP or possibly more) where the CMTSs are located. To create a more comparable size distribution of the wholesale interconnection points, the cable could aggregate the traffic of a number of HUBs at a next hierarchical network level.

11 TNO report Dutch VULA consumer market services over Cable 11 / Network architecture Like in Dutch VULA, in the cable infrastructure a distinction can be made between an access and transport network between the customer CPE and a local WAP. Both parts of the network can offer an Ethernet service with support of VLANs and prioritization, see subsection Connection model With an BSoD/L2VPN implementation, the cable provider can offer each ISP an own VLAN or multiple VLANs with QoS support. The CMTS can aggregate all traffic with the same guaranteed QoS of all customers connected to a specific cable segment into a single VLAN. Thus, the cable infrastructure can provide an Point-to- Multipoint service equivalent to the consumer market Point-to-Multipoint service of Dutch VULA. 4.4 Customer Premises Equipment In principle, the wholesale customer can choose and deliver an own EuroDOCSIS certified CPE, similar to the case of a DSL modem. However, in practice interoperability issues could be foreseen because EuroDOCSIS only specifies the set of EuroDOCSIS management parameters. In addition, vendors may have specified own more specific EuroDOCSIS management parameters, which could limit the vendor choice of a wholesale customer. 4.5 Network services Dutch VULA offers comprises a best effort and a premium end-to-end service using separate VLANs. In the transport network, the reference offer specifies target QoS parameters, whereas prioritization is offered in the access network. Today s cable and DSL infrastructures use the same technology (Ethernet/MPLS), and therefore cable is able to deliver the same services with the same target QoS parameters. Although, cable access network is based on EuroDOCSIS technology and not DSL, cable can deliver an Ethernet service with prioritization (IEEE 802.1Q) using the BSoD/L2VPN service. However, alternatively, cable could provide a best effort and a premium access service using Service Flows respectively with best effort and real time variable bit rate scheduling. For VDSL2 based consumer services, the Dutch VULA offers two VLANs, one with a BE service and one with a premium service. The VLAN with a BE service is configured wide open, and offers the maximum bit rate of the customer line of 40/8 (non-vectored) or 80/16 (vectored) Mbps for most customers, but on very short lines a somewhat higher bit rate, see paragraph 2.6. Ziggo currently offers a 40/4, 120/12 an 200/20 Mbps consumer internet service and 60/10, 130/30 and 200/40 Mbps service for the SOHO market. These bit rates demonstrate that the Dutch cable infrastructures can deliver best effort services with a similar service profile as from VDSL2 with vectoring (up to 130/30 Mbps), albeit with somewhat lower upstream and higher downstream bit rate.

12 TNO report Dutch VULA consumer market services over Cable 12 / 16 Dutch VULA from DSL comprises a second VLAN with Premium service and a bit rate of up to 2 Mbps symmetrical. Using the premium access and transport connections from the cable infrastructure, the cable providers can deliver a premium service. In the consumer market, Ziggo offers two telephone lines, one is included in the default Alles-in-Een offer, the second line can be ordered as an add on. According to figures of the Q market monitor of the ACM, Ziggo already serves percent of the market for dual telephone lines. This demonstrates that cable can deliver two telephony services, however the bit rate of the premium connection that currently is delivered cannot be deduced from this information. Besides, the market for consumer telephony services has not progressed so far that a 2 Mbps symmetrical network connection is needed to enable further progression. Therefore, a bit rate of less than 2 Mbps appears sufficient to deliver a telephony service in conformity with the current market. 4.6 Consumer services Cable providers offer: A best effort internet access services with, as compared to VDSL2 consumer services, an equal or higher downstream bit rate and a somewhat smaller upstream bit rate. A single VoIP-based premium telephony service. Optionally a customer can have a second premium telephony service. Clearly, the premium telephony offer is equivalent to the offer from a DSL infrastructure. 4.7 Analysis and discussion The above paragraphs show that from the perspective of network connection and services, cable and DSL based infrastructures can deliver the same best effort and premium connections from a customer premises to a local wholesale access point. Moreover, roughly speaking, cable could offer wholesale access at a comparable number of local and regional locations as KPN. TNO therefore concludes that from these viewpoints, the Dutch cable infrastructures can offer a Dutch VULA wholesale service. However, from the perspective of service profiles or bit rates, the information shows that: The cable downstream and upstream bit rates for the best effort Dutch VULA wholesale service from the cable respectively are higher or smaller than those from VDSL2, There is no hard information to infer that cable currently delivers a symmetrical premium connection with a bit rate of up to 2 Mbps. Considering the downstream and upstream capacity of a single EuroDOCSIS network segment of about 600/ Mbps, see paragraph 4.1, cable can deliver the VDSL2 best effort 100/30 Mbps and a symmetrical premium connection with a bit rate of up to 2 Mbps provided the cable segments are small enough. The current market however, demands single and dual line telephony services that, considering the overbooking and the smaller bit rates needed, generate a low aggregated bit rate per cable segment as compared to the aggregated internet traffic. Premium

13 TNO report Dutch VULA consumer market services over Cable 13 / 16 telephony services with a larger bit rate demand like videophone are foreseen for the future. When the service demand for such services develops, the cable providers will have to expand their network capacity to accommodate such services, irrespective whether these are demanded by their own retail customers or by those of a wholesale customer. In comparison with services from VDSL2, cable offers higher downstream and lower upstream bit rates of internet services, or, stated differently, cable broadband services are more asymmetric than those from VDSL2. Current cable networks pair ample downstream capacity with limited upstream capacity, see paragraph 3.1, positioning these networks for asymmetric services in particular. Arguably, the lower upstream bit rate is related to the current cable frequency design with a limited MHz upstream band. Every quarter, the Dutch regulator ACM provides a detailed overview of the Dutch communication market in terms of services, customers etc. The actual figures for the services from DSL and cable infrastructures are difficult to compare because of the differences in coverage of the networks and the differences in service profiles. Nevertheless, the figures demonstrate that broadband and premium telephony services from cable and DSL are quite competitive [9]. The figures certainly do not provide indications that a best effort internet or premium telephony service from cable infrastructure is inferior to such services from VDSL2. Therefore, from a business viewpoint there is no need to exactly reproduce the profiles of the Dutch VULA best effort wholesale services. Considering the annual growth of the internet traffic volume of 30-40%, appropriate capacity management is most important to guarantee quality of the consumer services. Cable providers have developed and implemented appropriate network monitoring tools and capacity management processes to handle such growth figures, as indicated in paragraph 3.5. If the Dutch cable providers have to offer a wholesale service, they will have to provide the capacity to serve the third parties customers. Moreover, possibly they will have to change their service profiles, which could require extra capacity too. However, service profile changes would be reflected in the service tariff. The past years the Dutch cable providers have demonstrated their capability to properly manage their network capacity and to annually expand their network capacity by 30-40%. In the current market, third parties have a market share of about 10-15% [9]. The approximate cable capacity needed to serve these third parties corresponds to about 20 30% of the current cable capacity, so less than the annual expansion. So arguably, cable could adopt this market in a year. Moreover, the cable network capacity scales with the number of the end users. So, the cable provider doesn t face a large upfront investment in cable transmission capacity to serve the first customers of a wholesale customer.

14 TNO report Dutch VULA consumer market services over Cable 14 / 16 5 Conclusion Considering the above arguments all together, it appears that: Cable can provide a local wholesale access, Cable can provide a best effort and one or two premium connections for internet access services and for VoIP telephony respectively, Cable can provide market conform service profiles for the best effort service By the frequency design of the cable network, cable offers a best effort broadband services with a higher downstream bit rate and a lower upstream bit rate (more asymmetric as compared with services from DSL), however, these services have a good market acceptance, In cable networks, sufficient capacity can be created to serve third parties. The capacity is scalable and capacity expansion in cable networks is implemented as properly managed and proven process. Summarizing, cable can deliver a cable equivalent of Dutch VULA wholesale service for the consumer market. Using this wholesale product, third parties can offer market conform best effort internet and premium telephony services. 6 References [1] Technische specificities VULA/Wholesale Broadband Access, KPN, 1 September [2] WBA Annex 4 VULA Tariffs - Consumer an Business modules Version 1.0, KPN, 1 sept 2015 [3] Wholesale Multi-Play Broadcast Streams, Service description V1.9, KPN, 24 July [4] Cable and DSL: a Comparison of their Capabilities and their Upgrade Roadmaps, TNO Report 10809, June 2015 [5] Third-Party Service Providers Options for Reselling Cable Services and Cable Access, TNO Report 10808, June 2014 [6] Evolution and prospects cable networks for broadband services. A technical perspective of the European and specifically the Dutch cable networks, TNO Report 10462, August 2012 [7] Data-Over-Cable Service Interface Specifications Business Services over DOCSIS - Layer 2 Virtual Private Networks, CableLabs, CM-SP-L2VPN-I (2010) [8] IP Multicast in Cable Networks, J. Godas (Cablevision), B. Field (Comcast), A. Bernstein, S. Desai, T. Eckert and H. Parandekar (Cisco), NCTA Papers, [9] Telecommonitor Q1 2015, ACM, August [10] Beslissing van de conferentie van de regulatoren voor de electronische communicatiesector (CRC) van 3 September 2013 betreffende de wholesale referentieaanbiedingen van Telenet in het Nederlandse taalgebied, BIPT, CSA, Medienrat and VRM, Brussels, 2013.

15 TNO report Dutch VULA consumer market services over Cable 15 / 16 ANNEX Resale premium radio, television and VoD services from Cable To offer wholesale customers the possibility to deliver premium radio, television and video on demand (VoD) consumer services using a partially own services infrastructure, KPN has developed a Wholesale Multi-Play (WMP) Broadcast Streams service [3]. This WMP Broadcast Service is offered separately from the Dutch VULA wholesale service that is analysed in the main body of this report. Essentially, KPN offers access to its live radio and television streams and electronic program guide (EPG) data. Each channel that is not free-to-air is encrypted with an own encryption key to properly manage the content rights. To deliver services, the wholesale customer has to deploy an own: digital right management solution, digital solution in the customer home (for example a smart TV with CI+ interface, digital receiver or home gate way) an own TV platform for unicast television and VoD, catch-up TV etc. Basically, the wholesale customer sells all or part of the KPN live streams, but on request, KPN can add channels [3]. With the above wholesale WMP Broadcast Services offer, a wholesale customer can to a certain extent develop an own television and video offer. He can define own channels packages, provide an own CPE and an EPG with an own branding. The current cable retail offer encompasses premium radio and television services and VoD and Catch-up TV. These services are delivered via a managed services lane over the digital television broadcast and narrow cast platforms. As discussed in detail in [4], the cable networks can deliver a functional comparable service offer: Using simulcrypt, a wholesale customer can use an own DRM solution, A wholesale customer can choose an own CPE solution, A wholesale customer can connect own servers to store VoD/Catch-up TV content and interconnect these with the narrowcast VoD and catch-up TV platform of the cable provider, The wholesale customer can develop an own EPG with an own layout However, the broadcast resell offer of KPN also provides the possibility to exclude single channels and or to develop own packages. In the digital broadcast technology, there are two options to encrypt the channels, either per channel or per multiplex of a number of channels. So technically it is possible to encrypt the channels separately, thus providing the option to define own packages of channels and to economically add or remove a channel from the resell offer. However, for the Dutch case TNO has no information which encryption option is used, per channel or per transport stream. Therefore it seems uncertain whether the option to add or remove channels from the overall resell offer or to change the packages can be directly implemented because the channels are encrypted separately or not because the transport streams are encrypted.

16 TNO report Dutch VULA consumer market services over Cable 16 / 16 In Belgium, the regulatory authorities already have imposed a resell obligation of the digital television and VoD services from the cable providers in 2013 [10]. Currently, Mobistar is testing its wholesale digital television offer from the cable in Luik and Charleroi 7. Another special feature of the broadcast service from the cable is the analogue broadcast service. The DSL network cannot deliver such an analogue television service, whereas for cable the analogue service is considered as an intrinsic part of the cable proposition. Therefore, even when comparable or equivalent at the level of the digital radio, television and VoD services, cable and DSL will be different at the level of analogue services as long as analogue of the cable is not switched off. 7 See: