Deployment of CATVisor Argus for Brutélé in Belgium

Brutélé provides television, internet and telecommunication services in Belgium. Since 2006, the company has been developing its VOO brand in partnership with Nethys, an industrial group that pursues a dynamic and diversified policy in the energy and telecommunications sectors. VOO has developed an innovative telecom approach combining television, high speed data, fixed telephone and mobile voice and data services.

Brutélé’s network infrastructure consists of more than 5000 km of coaxial cables and 1500 km of fibre optic cables. Currently, the company’s cable network covers 230,000 subscribers in a territory of 30 municipalities in Brussels and Wallonia.

The variety of Brutélé’s services has been enabled by significant investments in fibre-optic networks and the upgrade of coaxial networks. The implementation of modern transmission technologies over the entire network infrastructure creates a strong foundation for Brutélé’s business development for the coming years.

Customer need

Brutélé started to use Teleste’s CATVisor EMS system for the management of its access network infrastructure more than 15 years ago. At that time, EMS was one of the most advanced HFC management systems on the market.

With the aim of increasing the performance of the company’s network infrastructure, Brutélé implemented Teleste’s next-generation network management software, CATVisor Argus, in 2018.  One of the key targets of the implementation was to continue utilising remote network management to increase the reliability of services and take preventive actions in network maintenance.  

Solution to customer’s need

CATVisor Argus is the fifth generation of Teleste’s EMS software. It is a client-server-based multi-user network management system for monitoring, controlling and configuring network elements in a cable network environment. The software supports all of Teleste’s headend and HFC products as well as any third-party product supporting HMS and SNMP.

Currently, Brutélé utilises Argus for the management of approximately 2500 headend devices and over 7500 intelligent HFC nodes and amplifiers, distributed over two separate regions. Additionally, the system is used for service assurance activities of both the company’s network operation centre (NOC) and the field force. On a daily basis, there are 10–20 people using Argus. Three clients have a permanent connection to Argus for the continuous monitoring and management of the system.

For Brutélé, the key functions of Argus are:

• Reporting to the Network Operation Centre
• Remote alignment of nodes and amplifiers
• Pinpointing the exact location of network issues
• Ingress suppression utilising remote ingress switching functionality
• Predictive maintenance based on alarms and warnings from the system
• Comprehensive overview on the network status providing technical personnel with all the needed information for advanced network management

Benefits achieved

Argus offers Brutélé all the familiar features of the legacy EMS system, complemented with increased scalability, reliability and new capabilities such as remote control of ingress. In addition, their key requirements for the system were reliable multi-user operation and increased server stability, which was ensured during a thorough testing period before the actual deployment of the software.

In addition, Argus enables:

• Ability to quickly locate sources of ingress and increase efficiency of maintenance activities
• Effective remote ingress control and isolation of sources of ingress
• Shorter resolution time of service outages
• Remote management and configuration of optical headend devices, nodes and amplifiers
• Inventory information on network elements and clear overall visibility on the network status
• Efficient construction of the access network

Brutélé has also selected Teleste’s most advanced fibre optic products to upgrade their access network infrastructure. Products like the intelligent node AC9100, intelligent amplifiers AC3010 and AC3210, and the fibre transmitter HDO908 offer premium performance and best-of-breed functionality that increases the quality and quantity of data and video services provided within the company’s HFC network. In addition, utilising Argus together with Teleste’s intelligent network devices provides Brutélé with a state-of-the-art solution for proactive network maintenance, to increase service uptime and customer satisfaction while cutting down operational costs and manual maintenance work in the field.