FARAWAY EYES

Asentria aims to help Indies monitor their remote equipment sites.

To say it benefits Independent telcos with far-flung equipment sites to keep their gear running smoothly is an understatement. As customers demand new, more complex services, Indy telcos must address those needs to stay competitive while maintaining a high quality of service in the hinterlands.

One vendor, Asentria, believes it has a solution for providers that want to keep better tabs on their hard-to-reach equipment; it's part of a shift to richer, more cost-effective site monitoring.

Asentria has debuted SiteBoss and TeleBoss, two families of remote site monitoring products. SiteBoss comprises a line of low-end to high-end hardware devices, which provide in-band and out-of-band access to remote sites, remote equipment control, views of on-site alarm conditions and the ability to monitor co-located devices. The TeleBoss family offers the same features as SiteBoss while providing additional abilities such as PBX management. Asentria plans to roll out a site management portal, SitePath, by the end of the year.

“I consider [Independent telcos] to be very high on our list because they run into [remote site management problems],” said Tim Stoner, CEO of Asentria. “They have more remote sites. They need to manage their full network effectively, and more so than larger companies, they probably have cost concerns.”

Companies already working with Asentria include NoaNet, a rural voice provider in Tacoma, Wash., and Burlington Telecom, a municipal telecom provider in Burlington, Vt.

The transition to such remote site monitoring is growing, said Jeffrey Nudler, senior analyst for Enterprise Management Associates, and it can greatly benefit independent telcos. More complete solutions such as Asentria's provide two important sets of management information: data from remote devices as well as from their environment.

Power and temperature vary at remote sites, Nudler said, which can affect sensitive network equipment. That's something that can hit these telcos in the pocketbook.

“All of this comes down to a very simple thing: How many truck rolls do I [need] to go to the site?” Nudler said. “If I can do anything from a distance without sending a truck to the site, I am ahead of the game.”

Security is another important issue that a remote management solution can address, allowing for better documentation of what happens at a site. Stoner said Asentria had this in mind when it built its new products.

“One strong value of the system is essentially having control over access, so if someone is no longer with the company, you can turn their access off very easily,” he said.

In general, anything that takes away the more mundane aspects of network maintenance and monitoring can ultimately help a company focus on the finer points of its business, Nudler said, which is something providers of all sizes can appreciate.

“By having this remote access, you can divert your [time] to do more important things than routine collection of data,” Nudler said. “You can concentrate on the improvement of the equipment and on all kinds of facilities to make your product better.”