Vendors see opportunities as service providers look to manage more home networking opportunities

Residential gateways, IP set-top boxes, voice-over-IP terminals — and soon you can add femtocell and WiMAX base stations. The list of customer premises equipment is growing, both in number and complexity, as service providers roll out richer services to more people.

But with the promise of greater customer experience comes worry for providers about service performance, and vendors are stepping into the growing space of in-home device management to tackle their fears.

One concern is visibility, said Nicole Klein, an analyst for Yankee Group. When users plug new devices into the network, providers need them to immediately pop up on their radar screens, she said, providing a chance to fix them remotely — and avoid expensive truck-rolls.

“The issue right now is that as the more complex the networks get, the harder it is to see into the network,” Klein said, “and thus the harder it is to diagnose problems, which is where a lot of [service providers'] operational costs accumulate.”

Klein said an even deeper view into the network is needed — one that can better help providers with customer care.

That's another concern not lost on vendors. When something goes wrong with a device, customers might not always think Linksys first.

“If a service is sold by the carrier and something goes wrong, your typical customer will not try to figure out who to call,” said Ben Geller, director of industry marketing for Motive. “They're not going to know whether or not they're going to call the consumer electronics provider or the partner who's providing the application; they're going to call the carrier.”

Motive offers its Home Networking solution, which lets providers recognize new devices on the network, as well as diagnose and remedy problems and activate dormant capabilities when customers pay for new services, such as switching on VoIP service in a router that supports it.

Geller said he sees CPE further heading in this multitasking direction. And it could make customer satisfaction even harder for providers, as services demand higher performance levels — from networks and devices.

“If you're online and you're surfing the Internet, you'll never notice if your service goes down for a few seconds,” said Paul Brunato, director of corporate communications for 2Wire. “But if you're watching TV via IPTV and your service goes down for a few seconds, well, you might've missed the winning pass during the Super Bowl.”

2Wire began by making CPE — they supply the platform for AT&T's Homezone service — and has branched out with its CMS solution, which enables providers to troubleshoot home devices. 2Wire's customer service reps also use the solution when fielding calls about the company's own devices.

This kind of equipment/solution meshing highlights another challenge for vendors: interoperability. Klein said there currently is no single standard to allow all home devices to function on any network.

One standards body that has taken on device management is the DSL Forum. TR-069, its device- and network-agnostic remote management protocol, addresses issues such as device configuration, service provisioning, performance monitoring and troubleshooting.

Ultimately, vendors' solutions are only as useful as the number of devices that recognize them. Heather Kirksey, chair of the DSL Forum's home group, said the group's approach, if adopted, could help vendors be more effective and keep providers from having to change troubleshooting tactics for each device type.

“By using a standards-based approach, you can ensure the interoperability of multiple devices out there across multiple vendors across multiple devices,” she said. “So you're not having to reinvent the wheel and solve the same problem over and over again.“