There are two main reasons why you may want to leverage the information provided by Connectivity Score.
- Isolate what to prioritize in an HFC connectivity improvement investigation or campaign
- Compare HFC performance before and after an HFC improvement campaign
Isolate what to prioritize in an HFC connectivity improvement investigation or campaign
Starting at a level of the hierarchy where a problem in quality of connectivity is evident in the Historical Connectivity Score, you can zoom in on the problematic period and then use the Time Over Threshold feature to drill down and discover where connectivity quality has suffered.
For instance, if you see a degraded Connectivity Score for a particular CMTS in the hierarchy during the previous night, you can then:
- Zoom in on the period showing degraded connectivity in the Connectivity Score graph.
- Select the Time Over Threshold tab summary view to locate any culprit problem children as indicated by higher levels of orange or red for the specified period of time.
- Select Upstream FEC and Downstream FEC from the drop-down menu to distinguish from where the majority of the connectivity issue(s) originate.
- Further investigate possible root cause using historical graphs in conjunction with Alarm Central information (requires a separate license).
- Create a strategic connectivity improvement campaign to address the isolated connectivity issue(s).
Historical Connectivity Score graphs are very useful for detecting chronic issues such as when poor connectivity scores appear at regular intervals, or when a poor score can be linked to external conditions like weather. Connectivity Score information allows for prioritized investigation and corrective maintenance on the most service-impacting issues in the network.
Compare HFC quality of connectivity before and after an HFC improvement campaign
Once you have isolated and attempted to address quality of connectivity issues as described in Isolate what to prioritize in an HFC connectivity improvement investigation or campaign, you can then use Connectivity Score to compare HFC quality of connectivity before and after the improvement campaign.
This operation is as simple as specifying for the appropriate level in the hierarchy for a time period that encompasses both the previously-identified degradation in quality of connectivity and the time after improvement attempts were made.