Does Your Network Reach Exceed Your Grasp?

Bill Stanley, Director of Strategic Business Development, Telcordia

Residential broadband access is a huge and growing success for Communications Service Providers (CSPs). Homes are networked. Consumer devices are networked. And, like it or not, that untamed wild of gadgets is now part of every CSP's network. Increasingly, consumers need help keeping those home networks up and running smoothly.

The Walled Garden Faces Invasive Species

It might not be fair, but residential broadband customers are going to call their CSP when they have trouble with any device or connection on their home network. Why wouldn't they? They are used to getting free and even prompt service from the phone company whenever they have trouble, unlike their experience with retailers or device manufacturers. The service calls are already coming in, and the number will keep growing.

Past efforts to better sort, screen and manage this call volume have had limited ability to reduce the work load. There are two steps to the solution, and both require better information about the home network.

Turn Off that Fire Hose

The first step is to turn down the valve, to reduce the number of calls coming in. The best way to reduce trouble calls is to reduce trouble in the first place. This means identifying and fixing problems in the home network before the customer even knows there is a problem. What's needed is a solution that can monitor network parameters and performance, and then compare settings to established norms. With the right information, such a solution can either restore the proper settings, or alternatively, create an informative alert for the consumer or service rep.

Hand me a Flashlight

The second step is to make the remaining trouble calls easier to handle. When calls do come in, the CSP rep typically has to play battleship with the customer, asking dozens of questions, and painstakingly waiting for the customer to execute individual clicks to check and set parameters, run tests and so on. With the right information, a knowledgeable customer service rep will be able to diagnose the problem in a fraction of the time, and likely will be able to restore the customers settings remotely.

The Way Forward

CSPs have at least two options among current leading solutions, and these two can even work together. One approach is to adopt and leverage the emerging TR-069 standard for remote management of broadband devices. This approach employs an auto configuration server (ACS) to identify and manage any compliant device in the home network, including gateways, routers, PCs, and set-top boxes. This approach allows CSPs to leverage their intelligent testing systems, service assurance systems and other OSS to provide a smooth user experience for the customer.

The other approach is to provide local intelligent software, resident on the home PC, that can monitor the home network directly. Such software can monitor and repair the home network without intervention from either the customer or the CSP.

A Clash of Titans

Three industries are coming together. Communications, consumer electronics, and content are all converging into one, integrated customer experience. Perhaps no company will own all these things, but eventually one type of company will control the access of this package to the customer. That position will likely bring rewards in the marketplace — be it greater access to and influence with the customer, or even revenue from premium customer service offerings — but it will go to the company that can make it all work easily, seamlessly, and reliably.

Telcordia provides in depth home networking and service assurance consulting to assess, design, deploy and operationalize the right approach to a comprehensive management plane for the Intelligent Home. Telcordia solutions are used by leading CSPs around the world to address these types of challenges including the important phases of testing, trouble management, service assurance and performance management.

For more information about Home Network Assurance, please contact Bill Stanley at bstanley@telcordia.com or visit our website to get our latest white paper, Home Network Assurance: Opportunity for a Converged Business Bonanza?

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