The data networking capabilities need to be installed in headends and hubs, together with IP routing and switching equipment. Headend technicians will have to acquire additional skills to handle multiple data, voice and video services. Data networking expertise will become a necessity for headend personnel, who will be called upon to add new services and troubleshoot. The convenience and impulse factor inherent in VOD, for example, is likely to lead to rapid growth of the acceptance and use of this service. For the operator, this means there needs to be a way to process orders in the system, either at the video server or at the headend, depending on the network design and the capacity to deliver videos to many customers at one time.
Approaches addressing the bandwidth crunch require changes to the network and the headend.
Frequencies may be allocated to areas based on demand, so no single frequency slot would be overloaded. Among other challenges for the headend of the future is the likelihood analog transmission will need to coexist with digital in cable networks. There is a huge installed analog base that will need to continue to be supported as new digital services and applications become increasingly complex and demand additional resources. As cable networks upgrade to deliver telephony, the overhead previously associated with telephone company operations will become headend functions, and headends will need to comply with federal telephony regulations. The master headend, once a small facility with a small staff, will change forever as convergence progresses and new applications are implemented.