Customer Port Multicast TV VLAN

A triple play service provisions three broadband services, over a single broadband connection:

  • High-speed Internet access

  • Video

  • Voice

The triple play service is provisioned for service provider subscribers, while keeping Layer 2-isolation between them.

Each subscriber has a CPE MUX box. The MUX has multiple access ports that are connected to the subscriber's devices (PC, telephone and so on), and one network port that is connected to the access device.

The box forwards the packets from the network port to the subscriber's devices based on the VLAN tag of the packet. Each VLAN is mapped to one of the MUX access ports.

Packets from subscribers to the service provider network are forwarded as VLAN tagged frames, in order to distinguish between the service types, which mean that for each service type there is a unique VLAN ID in the CPE box.

All packets from the subscriber to the service provider network are encapsulated by the access device with the subscriber’s VLAN configured as customer VLAN (Outer tag or S-VID), except for IGMP snooping messages from the TV receivers, which are associated with the Multicast TV VLAN. VOD information that is also sent from the TV receivers are sent like any other type of traffic.

Packets from the service provider network that received on the network port to the subscriber are sent on the service provider network as double tag packets, while the outer tag (Service Tag or S-Tag) represent one of the two type of VLAN as following:

  • Subscriber’s VLAN (Includes Internet and IP Phones)

  • Multicast TV VLAN

The inner VLAN (C-Tag) is the tag that determines the destination in the subscriber’s network (by the CPE MUX).