DSL Forum standards enable CPE providers to aid ISPs in automating the provisioning process. We present Netopia's take on TR-069.

by Alex Goldman ISP-Planet Managing Editor [January 24, 2006]

TR-069 (109 page .pdf file) is defined as a "CPE WAN Management Protocol". Jeff Porter, vice president of marketing at Emeryville, Calif.-based broadband equipment provider Netopia explains that the protocol uses well-known technologies from SOAP and XML to plain old HTTP and provides "a common ground among CPE providers and vendors on how to talk to each other."

Netopia's Element Management System is a suite of software products. Since it's based on a public standard, there are competing products. "There are four to six different providers of TR-069 management systems," says Porter. "Half are simple proxies, and half are full blown element management systems that allow ISPs to schedule tasks and do scripting. The end goal is diskless install."

Porter says that ISPs buy CPE in bulk and by the time that CPE is shipped, the firmware may no longer be up to date. This is just one of many problems that the Netopia system can solve automatically.

"The software bonds the CPE, based on its device number, to the subscriber. When the CPE is mailed to the subscriber, the subscriber just plugs it in and the CPE calls home to the server. The server knows which customer services the customer has subscribed to. If the firmware needs to updated, the server can do that, and can even restart the gateway if the update requires it. Of course, it also automates PPoE and username attribution."

ISPs are very interested in automating both the provisioning and support processes as much as possible, Porter says. He adds that support is not getting any easier.

"We're now a long way from a simple single PC household," Porter says. "Home networking is becoming ubiquitous, and users are hooking up various devices like a webcam or a Slingbox. Like it or not, when there's a problem, they call the ISP. Even though the problem is likely with their PC, they will think the internet is down. Our product enables ISPs to provide a higher level of support at a reduced cost. Call center staff as bring up the records of the CPE owner and use the Netopia software to contact the gateway, change parameters, if necessary, to solve the problem, run diagnostics—basically, troubleshoot it and reconfigure it, all without having to coach subscribers through navigating through interfaces they've not seen before. The name of the game is to shorten support calls."

Pricing and availability
The product is available now. Porter says that while large providers will license the software and bring it in house, a hosted option is available with pricing depending upon the number of devices managed.

Some ISPs may us it to manage a few hundred devices for a special VPN service, while others could use the hosted product to manage tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of devices. "When it gets to millions of devices, then it's time to bring the server in house," says Porter.

He says that ISPs using the hosted product pay a wide range of monthly fees, from $5 to $30,000 per month.

—End