In recent years, there has been a significant increase in demand by businesses and consumers for broadband, or high-speed, access to the Internet and to corporate networks. Increasing numbers of users are relying on Internet Protocol, or IP, based networks to access corporate intranets, the Web and network-dependent activities such as email, electronic commerce, telecommuting and on-line entertainment. Specifically, consumers are seeking low-cost, high-speed access to bandwidth-intensive Internet content and services such as highly graphical Web sites, audio, video and high-speed data. International Data Corporation predicts that by the end of 1999, one in three U.S. households will be online, with 50% of those households buying goods and services online. Businesses have even greater requirements for high-speed access in order to implement electronic commerce strategies or Web-based business models, and to provide employees and others with robust telecommuting capabilities. These applications often require the transmission of large, multimedia-intensive files, which is practical only with high-speed data access services.

■ Emerging Broadband Internet Access Options.

     Service providers are responding to the demand for high-speed access by providing inexpensive and comprehensive broadband services. These services deliver “always on” availability that eliminates the tedious and unreliable dial-up process associated with analog modem technologies. Changes in telecommunications regulations have facilitated the development of broadband
strategies by local access providers, leveraging the following technologies:

DSL. The market for digital subscriber line, or DSL, services is expanding rapidly. DSL operates over standard copper telephone wires, leveraging an extensive network infrastructure that can be upgraded for broadband services. Various implementations of DSL are being developed and deployed, including Asymmetrical DSL and G.lite for consumer applications and Symmetrical DSL for business applications. Certain applications of DSL can also serve as an
affordable replacement to dedicated lines previously used to deliver high-speed data services. Incumbent local exchange carriers, or ILECs, including GTE, SBC, Pacific Bell, Bell Atlantic, Bell South and US West, have deployed DSL services. Telecommunications regulatory reform has enabled the new competitive local exchange carriers, or CLECs, including Covad, NorthPoint and Rhythms NetConnections, to provide DSL service over the same existing telephone
infrastructure used by the ILECs.

Interactive Cable. High-speed interactive communication across cable is made possible by the combination of an upgraded two-way hybrid fiber coaxial cable infrastructure, cable modems installed in the home and cable modem termination systems, or CMTSs, installed at major cable concentration points, known as head-ends. Several companies are currently deploying broadband access services across hybrid fiber coaxial cable, including @Home and TimeWarner’s Roadrunner service. With [95 million] homes passed by the cable infrastructure of as [the end of 1997], cable multiple system operators, or cable MSOs, are well positioned to deploy broadband access services.

Wireless. As an alternative to wireline access, carriers and service providers are using wireless technology to provide cost-effective broadband access. Currently, over 100 frequency licenses for access to high-speed spectrums have been purchased by service providers. Many of these providers are in the early stages of using their licenses to deploy broadband wireless access.

Fiber-to-the-Curb (FTTC). Fiber optic cable supports an alternative broadband access technology based on light and photonics that offers nearly unlimited bandwidth capacity. Where deployment costs are justified by service opportunity, fiber optic cable is being deployed in the “last mile” from the telephone central office to the subscriber. Recent fiber-to-the-curb, or FTTC,
initiatives have been pursued by several ILECs. It is expected that fiber-to-the-curb will be increasingly cost-effective as existing network infrastructures continue to be upgraded to fiberoptic cable.

Dial Off-Load. Service providers can experience major gains in operational efficiency from adopting a dial off-load, or pooled modem, architecture. Outsourced modem concentrators, delivering subscriber data via high-speed connections to a service provider’s Redback SMS, deliver far lower cost of ownership and personnel expense than today’s traditional remote access
concentrators.

■ Obstacles to Deploying Broadband Access
     Regardless of the type of broadband access delivered, deployments of broadband services pose several major challenges associated with scaling and configuring existing architectures to accommodate large numbers of new high-speed subscribers. The traditional dial-up network model, relying on analog modems and standard telephone lines, although constrained by speed, is structured such that service providers can aggregate subscribers using remote access servers, or
RASs, located at the providers’ data centers. This allows service providers not only to aggregate subscriber connections and pass the traffic to routers, but also to manage subscriber provisioning, authentication and accounting.
     With broadband access technologies, however, carriers and cable MSOs are the entities who aggregate high-speed subscribers, using technology-specific access concentrators such as DSL access Multiplexers, or DSLAMs, and CMTSs. From there, high-speed data circuits are passed to a service provider’s facility, where the provider must terminate its subscribers’ connections and provide backbone connectivity to the Internet. This results in a need both to manage thousands of
subscribers’ connections and to send subscribers’ data to and from the Internet. While service providers have been using traditional routers to provide both the circuit termination and Internet connectivity functions, routers were only designed to address the Internet connection task and are limited to managing several hundred subscribers, versus thousands of potential subscribers
associated with a widely deployed service. In addition, routers are not designed to provide such broadband subscriber management functions as provisioning, authentication and accounting, in contrast to existing remote access servers used in the traditional dial-up network model. Another obstacle in deploying broadband services is the point-to-point, or dedicated nature of broadband access technologies. Whether the preferred access method is DSL, cable or wireless, each of these technologies provides a dedicated link from one starting point, such as a home or small office, to a single destination network, such as a service provider or a corporation. Thus, a telecommuter who purchases a DSL service for connecting to a corporate network will be unable to use the same line to access directly a consumer service provider for personal Web surfing.

The Redback Solution

   Redback provides solutions that make it possible for carriers, cable MSOs and service providers to connect and manage large numbers of subscribers using high-speed access technologies such as DSL, cable and wireless. Our Subscriber Management System, or SMS, lets carriers, cable MSOs and service providers connect thousands of subscribers quickly and cost-effectively, as well as manage subscriber accounts and service profiles. Carriers, cable MSOs and service
providers are able to deliver different kinds of high-speed broadband access and a variety of service offerings with a single operational structure. Our SMS bridges the gap between highspeed access concentrators and backbone routers and is currently being used by many of the world’s largest carriers, cable MSOs and service providers, such as @Work, Bell South, Concentric, Earthlink, GTE, PacBell and UUNet.

Supports All Major Access Technologies and All Types of Service Providers. The SMS provides and supports a consistent operational model across major broadband access technologies and supports all types of broadband providers, including ILECs and CLECs, ISPs and cable MSOs. For example, a service provider can offer DSL services today using the SMS and later
add or resell a cable or wireless service offering through the same SMS. With the SMS, providers are able to deliver multiple broadband access technologies to serve thousands of subscribers utilizing one product and one familiar operational model.

Facilitates Rapid and Scalable Deployment. The SMS leverages service providers’ existing access, accounting and management control systems, enabling them to quickly deploy high-speed access and achieve rapid time-to-market for significant revenue-generating services. We designed our solution to be interoperable with equipment from multiple vendors, for easy integration into
existing network environments. For example, the SMS has built-in support for the major DSL protocols and implementations. Additionally, the SMS is compatible with existing backbone routers and supports the high-performance levels of these routers, eliminating the need to purchase new routers. Once in place, the SMS architecture is inherently more scalable than a router-based architecture. The SMS 1000 currently supports 4,000 simultaneous subscriber sessions, nearly fifteen times the number of subscribers supported by conventional routers.

Provides Platform for the Delivery of Value-added Services. Our solution lets providers create and market new service offerings that leverage basic broadband connectivity and capabilities. The SMS’ multiple context functionality lets service providers configure subscribers to access
multiple services across the same physical link. For example, telecommuters can access business services from their home while their families simultaneously access consumer services through the same connection. In addition, a wholesale provider of network services can partition highspeed transport services among multiple service providers or corporate customers through a single SMS. Thus, a service provider previously generating a flat monthly access fee can offer
value-added services and generate multiple revenue streams. Similarly, a large provider can use this capability to provide wholesale access to up to 20 smaller providers per SMS chassis – a significant improvement for wholesale transactions.

Simplifies End-User Administration and Support. Our approach allows easy configuration and administration of end-user broadband modems, reducing service providers’ costs and enhancing their ability to rapidly deploy services to thousands of subscribers. Our SMS lets multiple users using different services share a single connection, for example, in a single-PC home environment. In addition, our SMS enables multiple systems at different service levels to use a single connection, for example, in a small-office environment with several PCs. The SMS also supports a variety of means to manage users, including RADIUS, the industry standard database used by traditional remote access servers, or RASs. This integration results in a reduced need for staff training and lower operational expenses.

Summary
   Redback provides solutions that make it possible for carriers, cable MSOs and service providers to rapidly and cost-effectively deploy multiple broadband access technologies. With Redback’s Subscriber Management System (SMS), providers can leverage a single, familiar operational model across all major broadband access technologies: DSL, cable, high-speed wireless, FTTC,
and dial off-load. From an operating and financial perspective, providers gain from having to invest in less equipment and being able to reduce their training expenses. From a time to market perspective, providers gain valuable lead-time in deploying services, as they leverage a single model to bring multiple services to market.