Wyandotte, Michigan’s WMS finds orchestration balance across legacy and next-generation devices
Key Highlights
- WMS is converting half of Wyandotte's network to fiber, closing HFC nodes one at a time to support higher speeds and more reliable services.
- The deployment of Synamedia Gravity provides WMS with vendor-agnostic management, reducing operational complexity and enabling quick integration of new devices and services.
- OpenSync and Gravity platforms allow for self-installation, remote diagnostics, and enhanced security, improving customer experience and reducing technician visits.
- Partnerships with Graybar and Power & Tel ensure efficient material supply for the fiber rollout, supporting the city's infrastructure upgrade.
- The project emphasizes flexibility, scalability, and future-proofing, positioning Wyandotte as a forward-thinking community with advanced broadband capabilities.
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Wyandotte Municipal Services (WMS), a community-owned provider in Wyandotte, Michigan, has never backed down from a new challenge.
For over 100 years, WMS has provided electricity and water to the city. Broadband has become the third key utility that the provider continues to offer.
The city is in the process of transitioning its existing hybrid fiber coax (HFC) network to fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) technology.
WMS has employed CommScope to be a key project manager to help it build a fiber network that will support 10 Gbps, alongside fiber, IP video, and smart home services for residents and businesses.
In 2020, WMS began its conversion from a hybrid fiber coax (HFC)-based network to fiber, a process that is continuing today.
CommScope serves as the overall integrator for the Wyandotte project, playing the roles of adviser, consultant, engineer, and construction manager. It is conducting a deep analysis and considering issues such as headend relocation, fiber overlay requirements, an FCC repack, IP delivery requirements, and budget and municipal funding.
Meanwhile, Graybar and Power & Tel are in charge of order fulfillment. The two companies are members of CommScope’s PartnerPRO Network and provide material for the FTTH build.
By providing both the fiber technology and expertise, CommScope is enabling nearly 13,000 homes and more than 700 commercial buildings to access a new network with up to 10 Gbps of internet, IP video, and smart-home services.
“We are still in the process of conducting our fiber rollout across our node infrastructure," said Tonya Thompson, lead communications specialist at WMS.
As of now, WMS has converted half of the city into fiber. “We’re in the process of closing HFC nodes out,” Thompson said. “Today, we have 14 nodes and we’re looking to close one node at a time.”
Open broadband orchestration focus
As it pivots its HFC-based cable system to fiber, WMS is also enhancing its broadband orchestration infrastructure by replacing its legacy platform with Synamedia’s Gravity to minimize dependency on proprietary hardware and increase optionality for future device and service upgrades.
With a desire not to be tied to one vendor's platform, the service provider is transitioning its broadband network orchestration capabilities.
WMS deployed Synamedia Gravity, a cloud-based device management and service orchestration platform, to upgrade and scale its residential and small-to-medium business (SMB) broadband offerings.
It replaced its legacy platform with Synamedia Gravity to minimize dependency on proprietary hardware and increase optionality for future device and service upgrades.
WMS’ deployment was carried out in partnership with Advanced Media Technologies (AMT) and Heights Telecom. Synamedia Gravity’s vendor-agnostic design enables WMS to manage both legacy and next-generation devices and advanced services through a single plane of glass, thereby reducing operational complexity and accelerating the time-to-market for new services.
Given the fact that WMS is not operating a single network, they have to create an environment that allows them to manage all types—HFC and fiber.
“What we know about the state of operators today is they are not in these simple, singular access technologies,” said Patricia Kellaghan, senior director, product management at Synamedia. “It’s a blended landscape, and that makes it even more challenging how I manage my fiber and DOCSIS and fiber infrastructure, so we’re unifying that view.”
The Synamedia Gravity implementation was completed on July 1, replacing WMS’s proprietary closed system with a scalable SaaS platform.
WMS rapidly put the Gravity platform into the market it serves in two months.
“We did need a quick solution for a backend platform because a previous company was not meeting our needs,” said Thompson. “I met with Synamedia at a vendor show and within 60 days, we deployed their platform in the field.”
Having an open backend orchestration system was a key concern for WMS. Being tied to one vendor previously gave the provider various challenges to address its consumer and business customers effectively.
What is open sync?
OpenSync is a multi-vendor, cloud-based, open-source software framework that connects consumer networking devices to the cloud, enabling the delivery and management of programmable services at scale, such as network optimization, new service delivery, and remote management of Wi-Fi networks and other home-based devices. It acts as a middle layer between the device's hardware and the cloud, providing hardware-agnostic connectivity and unified data insights for communication service providers (CSPs) and original device manufacturers (ODMs).
This is especially important given that WMS is a municipally-run cable provider.
“Our reason to go with Synamedia was that open sync was a big selling point for us,” Thompson said. “We did not want to be locked in with a vendor, and that’s what created a headache for us in the first place, and we wanted to find a company that would not do that to us.”
Kellaghan said while its products have been deployed by large broadband operators, it has been focused on broadening its appeal to smaller Tier 2 providers.
“We now offer an expanded offering across residential and SMB segments,” she said. “The Tier 2 and Tier 3 segments face not only competitive pressures, but they are run by very lean organizations."
She added, as Synamedia looks to help providers enhance their orchestration, the key is to be able to offer an open solution.
“One of the pain points in the broadband ecosystem is vendor lock-in,” Kellaghan said. “Gravity’s main value proposition is to break down that barrier of vendor lock-in and make available an open architecture that enables an operator to choose what vendor they use today and in the future."
Enhancing service delivery and visibility
With centralized provisioning, remote diagnostics, and flexible pay-as-you-grow pricing, Gravity streamlines operations, reduces support costs, and accelerates service delivery.
For residential and SMB subscribers, it delivers intuitive self-service tools for installation, setup, and troubleshooting, thereby eliminating delays and reducing the need for technician visits. Beyond core device management, Synamedia Gravity enables providers to launch advanced services, including managed Wi-Fi, parental controls, content filtering, and enhanced security.
Already, WMS is seeing benefits by leveraging Synamedia’s platform.
The Gravity platform has enabled WMS to improve operations. Since the platform gives it greater visibility into its customers' network connections, it often does not have to conduct additional truck rolls.
However, WMS's work with Synamedia is part of a broader plan. The provider plans to add a second vendor for its gateway system. “We’re using one now and we’re looking at another one to address the more advanced needs for customers, and Synamedia is interfacing with them,” Thompson said.
While WMS’s commercial and consumer operations are classified the same in its system, WMS recognizes that a business customer has more complex needs.
“Businesses don’t get special treatment, but they need a more advanced monitoring system, and Gravity has given us that,” Thompson said. “This is big for our smaller businesses because before we weren’t able to have the tools needed to see what is happening and get a quick solution for any issues as they arise.”
At the heart of the Gravity product is its interfaces.
“Being able to create an operator portal provides visibility and control to monitor and manage a residential or SMB customer experience,” Kellaghan said. “The operator portal is really key because if you think about it is sitting on the devices and it orchestrates or provisions services with a single unified interface across any broadband medium, whether it is fiber, DOCSIS, or fixed wireless.”
She added that “new devices can be added quickly and there’s no need for retraining of the operations team because it can be incorporated into the operator portal with a unified view.”
Enabling self-installation
Besides providing network and service visibility, providers like WMS could use the platform to enable self-installs at the customer premises.
Today, Synamedia has been providing the self-installation capability for Tier 1 providers in the SMB space.
“While it might not be in the first install might not be a self-install,” Kellaghan said. “In the SMB segment, it could be lots of different equipment coming on board during the lifetime of that business customer contract, so we enabled a single self-installed model.”
She added that this creates a challenge to strike a balance, depending on the needs of a specific customer type. “We’re able to also offer more advanced settings for the more advanced user, so we have that flexibility in the interfaces.”
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About the Author
Sean Buckley
Sean is responsible for establishing and executing the editorial strategy of Lightwave across its website, email newsletters, events, and other information products.