Alcatel-Lucent
Digital Home Care Solution
Creating a Better Experience
for Your Customers
2 Alcatel-Lucent Digital Home Care Solution
You are eager to deploy triple-play services and generate revenues from innovative
services such as IP television (IPTV). But to make triple-play deployment a success, you
need to create a compelling customer experience while solving your own operational
challenges and maintaining reasonable OPEX.
The Alcatel-Lucent Digital Home Care solution is a comprehensive solution that solves
the challenge of managing home networks, triple-play services and customer-support
interactions. It cares for all stages of services deployment and provides a high degree
of automation, advanced troubleshooting and customer self-management. The solution
is designed to help you maintain reasonable OPEX while delivering a better experience
for both you and your end users.
3Alcatel-Lucent Digital Home Care Solution
The Customer Challenge
When setting up triple-play services, you are naturally concerned about the
many operational challenges. The growing complexity of home networks
and the lack of knowledge of end users to manage and solve problems by
themselves almost inevitably increases your burden. Furthermore, real-time
services, such as video and voice, are highly sensitive to disruptions and
quality issues in the access or home environment.
The early stages of triple-play service deployments have revealed that the
lack of appropriate management solutions have frustrated both you and your
end users. End users often experience great difficulties in their attempts to
configure and activate home devices by themselves. Now, with the growing
complexity of the home environment, the potential sources of problems
have increased, ranging from simple software bugs and connectivity dis ruptions to the trickier issues of configuration and setup compatibility.
Any of these problems could easily affect the conditions under which you
deliver services to the consumer. Multiple service disruptions and poor
service quality will frustrate your end users, resulting in a surge of help-desk
calls, costly repair operations, dissatisfaction and churn. This translates into
lost revenue and higher OPEX, diminishing the prof itability of your tripleplay service offering. Figure 1 illustrates the challenges in home management.
• 27 percent of users experienced home net working problems – 31 percent of those
called the SP. (Parks Customer Survey)
• 30 percent of home networking devices
are returned! (Wall Street Journal)
• 70 percent of returned devices have No
Defect Found (NDF). (North American ILEC)
• Over 25 percent of consumers would like
to connect their TV and stereo to their
home network. (TDG, Consumer Survey)
• We received an average of one call per
subscriber during installation! (European
ILEC on IPTV service launch)
Figure 1. A Broad View of Digital Home Management Challenges: Where Things Could Go Wrong
WHAT DO CONSUMERS WANT?
• Value-added services and content they
can enjoy
• Services that work easily without requiring an
understanding of complex technology issues
• Quality on par with, or even better than what
they experienced before
• Services that work smoothly and providers
who take care of making them work
WHAT REALITY DO YOU FACE?
• Accountability for service delivery, now highly
dependent on the home environment
• Millions of home networks and home devices
to support a broader range of services
• Customer expectation for the highest service
quality – even for the most sensitive real-time
services
• xDSL infrastructure, which is often stretched
to its performance limits
Line Qualification
• Unstable line
X
• Line not suitable for service
Service Configuration
X
• Wrong service parameters
Home Network Configuration
• Wrong configuration
X
• Not suitable to service
Field Operations
• No problem location
X
• No reliable diagnostics
Customer Support Center
• No visibility of customer setting
X
• Lack of competence
Network Operations
• No proactive maintenance
X
• No visibility over line and home
4 Alcatel-Lucent Digital Home Care Solution
The Alcatel-Lucent Solution
The Alcatel-Lucent Digital Home Care solution is a comprehensive
solution designed to solve your home networks management challenge
and associated end-user support interactions. It cares for all fulfillment
and assurance processes applied to home networks and triple-play services.
The solution helps you deliver the service quality and experience your
customers expect. It allows a comprehensive approach, spanning from
the access loop to the home, enabling you to make more appropriate
service-provisioning decisions and to diagnose problems faster and more
accurately. Thanks to its high degree of automation and advanced trou bleshooting, you can manage large networks while keeping the cost of
operations at a reasonable level.
The Alcatel-Lucent Digital Home Care solution is built around products and
expertise from Alcatel-Lucent and Motive. It benefits from both AlcatelLucent’s expertise in end-to-end network solutions for triple-play and
operations support systems (OSSs), and from Motive’s position as a leading
provider of management software for next-generation broadband services.
The Alcatel-Lucent Digital Home Care solution is a standards-based,
vendor-agnostic solution. It manages new customer premises equipment
(CPE) based on the DSL Forum’s TR-069 management interface and is
designed to easily cope with legacy devices deployed in the field. This makes
Alcatel-Lucent Digital Home Care an open and multivendor management
solution, ideal for a smooth transition from current to future generation
home networks. Figure 2 provides an overview of Alcatel-Lucent’s Digital
Home Care solution.
Figure 2. Alcatel-Lucent Digital Home Care Solution Overview
MOTIVE AT A GLANCE
Almost half the world’s leading broad -
band providers rely on Motive software
to install, configure, repair and update
their voice, video and data services –
driving the cost and complexity out
of management processes and helping
providers speed time-to-market with
new services. Since 1997, Motive
software has been used in connection
with more than 45 million endpoints,
including products and services from
market leaders such as AT&T, BT, Bell
Canada, Deutsche Telekom, Softbank,
Swisscom, Telecom Italia, Verizon and
many more.
Service Management
• Facilitate and automate installation
• CSR-assisted support/self-service
• Accelerate repair and troubleshooting
• Add-on services (home networking, security, etc.)
Fulfillment Assurance
HSIA E-mail WiFi IPTV VoIP Security Parental Control
Home Network Management
• Provisioning automation
• Device management (configuration,
software, etc.)
• Mass operations automation
Access Loop Management
• Loop pre-qualification and verification
• Diagnostics, problem location
and troubleshooting
Responding to Challenges
5Alcatel-Lucent Digital Home Care Solution
Less Costly Operations
The Alcatel-Lucent Digital Home
Care makes your home-network
management easier by allowing you
to manage even large numbers of
devices and customer homes with a
reasonably sized team. It accelerates
service deployment and time-torevenue thanks to intelligent
automa tion tools and embedded
expertise, enabling you to download
the right software add-ons, support
new service features or adapt the
home-network configuration auto matically, when required by new
service deployment.
Fewer Problems, Faster Resolution
The solution enables flow-through,
end-to-end processes for all fulfill ment and activation tasks, including
line pre-qualification, zero-touch
provisioning and new activation.
The solution also helps you increase
service quality on a broad scale with
advanced tools for service assurance,
from proactive to reactive manage ment capabilities. When problems
occur, regardless of origin, network
operators can diagnose and resolve
them quickly from a remote man agement position, avoiding costly
truck rolls.
Figure 3. Comprehensive Solution for All Digital Home Management Needs
The Alcatel-Lucent Digital Home Care Solution provides all the tools
for profitable deployment of triple-play services. It keeps your OPEX
related to home-network management, services management and end-
user support at a reasonable level with a high degree of automation
and advanced customer-support capabilities (see Figure 3).
Fulfillment and Zero-Touch Activation
Line
Pre-Qualification
Zero-Touch
Activation
Automatic CPE
Configuration Update
Assurance and Home Mass Operations
Problem detection
Home Mass
Operations
Inventory and
Status Management
Pro-Active
Monitoring
Diagnostics and
Troubleshooting
Customer Support and Self-Service
Troubleshooting
(Self-Care Mode)
Troubleshooting
(Assisted Mode)
HSIA E-mail WiFi IPTV VoIP Security Parental Control
Service-affecting
problem
New service
subscription
Fewer Help Desk Calls
The ultimate objective of the
Alcatel-Lucent Digital Home
Care Solution is to create a better
experience that results in more
satisfied customers, as well as
increased revenues. You can keep
you customers’ home networks and
associated services up and running
while shielding end users from
techni cal complexity. Installation
support and problem resolution
are easy, intuitive and available
24x7 with advanced self-service
capabilities that put the end user
in control and remove your
management burden.
6 Alcatel-Lucent Digital Home Care Solution
Key Features and Benefits
The Alcatel-Lucent Digital Home Care solution, as illustrated in Table 1,
helps you accelerate revenue generation from innovative triple-play
and high-speed Internet access (HSIA) services, achieve important
operational savings and keep customers satisfied, ensuring higher
customer retention.
SERVICE PROVIDER NEED
1. Reduce costly, time-consuming customer
support throughout service lifecycle.
2. Increase service profitability and maximize
customer service by reducing the number
of support calls.
3. Provide comprehensive triple-play
management by handling both the home
network and the access loop.
4. Maintain open choice and strategic
direction for CPE.
BENEFITS
• Control OPEX by keeping operational staff
at reasonable levels.
• Increase help-desk staff efficiency and avoid
unmanageable workload.
• Increase customer satisfaction through
better service quality and better customer
experience.
• Slash customer support costs.
• Increase ability to support even the largest
customer base.
• Enhance customer satisfaction by solving
nearly any problem instantly with 24x7
on-line support and problem resolution
capability.
• Resolve problems quickly and reduce
operating costs throughout the triple-play
service network.
• Maintain independence from CPE vendors,
increasing the freedom of selection and
future service evolution.
• Maintain negotiating power for lower
CPE prices.
1
2
3
4
ALCATEL-LUCENT SOLUTION
• Zero-touch provisioning and self-installation
enable automatic configuration as soon as
the end user connects the device.
• Diagnosis and problem resolution can be
achieved quickly on both the home network
and customer DSL access line.
• Policy-based management for mass
operations allows you to define rules that
will trigger operations (e.g., firmware updates)
on a specific set of devices.
• Motive customer self-management modules
allow end users to solve problems on their
own by following simple, clear instructions.
• Solution determines service eligibility of
each line, avoiding further complex and
costly support and repair operations.
Troubleshooting operations can be handled
quickly, easily and accurately.
• DSL Forum TR-69 compliance enables
management of any compliant CPE.
• Broad interoperability tests are performed
to guarantee networking with major CPE
available on the market.
Table 1. Meeting Your Challenges
7Alcatel-Lucent Digital Home Care Solution
How Does the Solution Work?
Covers All Stages of Service Deployment
The Alcatel-Lucent Digital Home Care solution is brought to the market
through a partnership between Alcatel-Lucent and Motive. The solution
combines the Alcatel-Lucent 5580 Home Network Manager (HNM) for the
management of home devices, the Alcatel-Lucent 5530 Network Analyzer
(NA) for access-loop management and Motive’s FAST™ (Fully Automated
Service Technology) solutions for high-speed data, home networking and
IPTV. This unique blend helps you handle all fulfillment and assurance
processes, from the access loop to user homes through advanced customersupport capabilities.
The solution applies to the broad range of services delivered to customer
homes through the broadband or triple-play infrastructure, including:
• Video (IPTV, video on demand [VoD])
• Voice (voice over IP [VoIP])
• Internet access (web browsing, e-mail)
• Security (firewall, parental control)
• On-line gaming
Provides a high degree of automation for home mass operations
The Alcatel-Lucent Digital Home Care solution has been engineered
to meet the challenge of managing large numbers of customer homes.
It enables your home-network management to be performed centrally
and applied in a granular, or grouped, mode when mass operations are
required. These options are especially useful for configuration updates,
device-firmware updates, such as bug fixes or new service rollouts, or
inventory purposes. A proactive management engine enables you to
capture rules and conditions, triggering commands appropriately when
conditions are met and ensuring that the right course of action is taken
when problems occur.
The Alcatel-Lucent Digital Home Care solution manages
all configuration and settings required at the network,
service or application level.
8 Alcatel-Lucent Digital Home Care Solution
Enables Effective Customer Support
With the Alcatel-Lucent Digital Home Care solution,
you have the right set of tools to manage your customer
support issues. Motive’s FAST solutions provide assistedand self-service support capabilities that simplify the
processes of setting up, managing and troubleshooting
next-generation service delivery, regardless of whether
subscribers choose to interact with providers online
or via the telephone. The benefit to your users is a more
satisfying and convenient service experience. The benefits
to you include decreased help-desk calls, higher productivity, and the capability to more profitably serve a
greater number of customers.
Supports Advanced Customer Self-care
The self-care application guides your customers through
the different steps required to activate new services or
resolve problems. When customers encounter service
problems, they can access the self-care application, which
diagnoses the problem and assists them through all the
steps required to resolve it in an easy and intuitive way. A
wide array of problems affecting the home envi ronment
or service settings can be addressed, to return services
to normal. This is achieved with intelligent automation
that can handle problems ranging from configuration
to parameter settings (for example, unsolicited change
of e-mail parameter), to the many possible compatibility
issues between services and devices in place (for example,
changes to firewall settings required for specific online
games). Table 2 outlines the applications provided by
the Alcatel-Lucent Digital Home Care solution.
Home Network Management
• Zero-touch provisioning and
activation
• Automatic configuration and
software updates
• Proactive state monitoring
• Advanced problem diagnosis
• Home-network troubleshooting
• Granular or mass (policy-based)
home-network operations
• Configuration management and
automatic updates
• Inventory management and queries
• Software management (mass
downloads, service-support updates,
bug fixes)
• Provisioning and activation (CPE, new
services, etc.)
• Problem diagnosis
• Problem resolution (network
configuration, parameter settings,
software update, etc.)
Access Loop Management
• Access-loop pre-qualification and
verification
• Proactive-state monitoring
• Advanced problem diagnosis
• Access-loop troubleshooting
• Access-loop problem diagnosis
• Access-loop problem resolution
Service Management
• Customer self-activation
• Problem diagnosis (home network,
services, access loop)
• Problem resolution (home network,
services, access loop)
• In-Home service configuration (homenetwork discovery, file/print sharing,
wireless-connection management
• CSR-assisted mode
• Customer self-care mode
Service Fulfillment
Service Assurance
Home Operations
Customer Support
Table 2. Alcatel-Lucent Digital Home Care Solution Applications
9Alcatel-Lucent Digital Home Care Solution
Easily Integrates into Your OSS Environment
The Alcatel-Lucent Digital Home Care solution is available both as
integrated out-of-the-box, and as independent modules, tailored to your
specific needs. Each module has been engineered to integrate easily
into your unique envi ronment, supporting end-to-end flow-through
processes. Northbound interfaces are based on WebServices’ simple
object access protocol (SOAP) and provide an easy means for OSS
and business support system (BSS) integration (see Figure 4).
Figure 4. Building Blocks of the Alcatel-Lucent Digital Home Care Solution
Standards-Based and
Vendor-Agnostic Solution
Interoperability and multivendor man age ment are the key requirements set by service
providers like you in the field of home-network
management. Alcatel-Lucent is a significant
contributor to the DSL Forum’s work in this
field and has been proactive in defining and
promoting the DSL Forum’s TR-069 CPE wide
area network (WAN) man agement protocol.
This protocol describes a standard manage ment inter face between the residential
gateway and management systems.
As a solution for home-network manage ment, the Alcatel-Lucent 5580 HNM fully
complies with TR-069 and manages all CPE
that complies with this standard. To cope
with legacy devices deployed in the field, the
Alcatel-Lucent 5580 HNM also implements a
flexible object model, which makes it highly
adaptable for the manage ment of other
proprietary CPE, making it the only truly
vendor-agnostic home-man agement solution
available today.
To accelerate availability of a carrier-grade
home-network management solution, AlcatelLucent has established an interoperability
lab to conduct TR-069 interoperability tests
on a wide variety of CPE. To date, more than
25 of the leading CPE vendors have been
certified for interoperability with AlcatelLucent’s HNM solution.
Customer Service Management
IPTV VoIP HSIA Home Networking Security…
SAM
Network
processes and
operations
(OSS integration)
(Self-Service Manager)
SSM
Home Network Management
Alcatel-Lucent 5580 HNM
Multivendor CPE management
DSL Forum TR-069
(Service Activation Manager)
(Customer Service Manager)
Access Loop Management
Alcatel-Lucent 5530 NA
Access
CSM
Multivendor
DSL Loop management
Customer,
service and
network processes
(OSS/BSS
integration)
Network
processes and
operations
(OSS integration)
10 Alcatel-Lucent Digital Home Care Solution
As your partner in delivering triple-play services,
Alcatel-Lucent brings several advantages to the table.
A World-Leading Partner
Freedom of Choice
Alcatel-Lucent’s approach is vendor agnostic, giving you the freedom
to choose your CPE vendor. With more than 25 CPE vendors currently
certified interoperable with HNM, you have greater flexibility and lower
risk associated with deploying and supporting multiple types of CPE.
Built-in Knowledge and Experience
The solution leverages service management with built-in knowledge of customer-service management that has been deployed to more than 45 million
endpoints worldwide. This expertise is extended to triple-play services, and
in particular, to VoIP and video, creating a better customer experience.
Built-in DSL Expertise and Tools
Alcatel-Lucent is the DSL market leader. We are well equipped to help you
build infrastructure and operational processes, guaranteeing better service
quality for your customers. The Alcatel-Lucent Digital Home Care solution
covers all service-affecting problems, including those that originate in the
DSL access loop.
Fast Time-to-Market and Modularity
The solution is fully integrated, out-of- the-box, enabling fast deployment
while remaining modular and flexible. It can be adapted to your unique
conditions and needs.
Easy Integration
The solution has been engineered to allow easy integration into your
customer environment and to support flow-through, end-to-end processes.
Alcatel-Lucent has long-standing experience with your oper ational processes
and large integration projects.
Efficiencies from Professional Services
Alcatel-Lucent provides extensive professional services to guarantee
successful implementation in your service delivery environments. Our
business-optimization service identifies detailed customer needs and drives
required system and process changes. Additional offerings around solution
design, integration, maintenance and operation outsourcing services help
you achieve leaner processes and reduce time-to-market.
SELECTED REFERENCES
HOME NETWORK MANAGEMENT
Swisscom
Ya.com
ACCESS-LOOP MANAGEMENT
Swisscom
Iceland Telecom
Ventelo
N9UF Telecom
TeliaSonera
KPN
SERVICE MANAGEMENT
AT&T
BT
Bell Canada
Deutsche Telekom
Softbank (Yahoo! Japan)
Swisscom
Telus
Telecom Italia
Telefonica
Verizon
11Alcatel-Lucent Digital Home Care Solution
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