Cooperating to compete

In the three years since the Telecommunications Act of 1996 launched a flurry of competition among service providers, subscriber expectations regarding the quality and speed of service has increased exponentially. Subscribers expect-and demand-clear dial tones, problem-free lines and immediate fixes for virtually all service complaints. In addition, an ever-burgeoning volume of data traffic and the need to offer new, revenue-producing services requires optimally maintained lines.

In fact, service has become a competitive leveler in the new playing field where incumbent local exchange carriers and competitive local exchange carriers (CLECs) square off. Whoever can serve customers faster and better-while reducing internal costs and increasing efficiencies-will have the advantage.

Service is a central issue in today's telecom market and the stakes are high. In just three years, CLECs have wrestled about 3% of market share from incumbents,and projections indicate that they may take as much as 25% by 2003. Effective testing and maintenance programs will mean the difference between a happy, long-term customer and one who is searching for a new provider in a wide-open market.

The ultimate irony is that to keep customers happy, incumbent LECs and CLECs will have to cooperate and share information that will enable both to solve service problems and maintain customer confidence.

Testing the unbundled loop: The access dilemma At the heart of the service dilemma is testing and maintaining the unbundled loop-the critical transmission path between a user's premises and a central office. Before local loops were unbundled, they ran through the provider's switch, making them easily accessible for both testing and repairs.

Gaining access to the local loop is the key issue in maintaining today's unbundled telecom network. Why? To test the local loop properly, a technician must be able to access the copper pairs through the CO. With an unbundled loop, getting direct access to these pairs can be difficult for both incumbents and CLECs, which must be able to perform several types of testing on the local loop to satisfy subscribers.

First, carriers must identify circuit facilities and ensure a number is working on the correct pair. Second, they must perform loop conditioning to support the field technicians. Third, they need to perform cable maintenance and proactive testing to reduce trouble reports. Finally, unbundled loops must be listed in the CLEC and incumbent databases and record verification must be used to periodically update these records.

While both incumbent LECs and CLECs must test for similar operational functionality, they face unique challenges when testing the unbundled loop (Figure 1).

For example, incumbents generally do not have the same direct access to unbundled loop cable or remote access to the switch that they had in the past to perform vital testing and repair functions. Indeed, the short-term burden of maintaining high levels of subscriber service falls on incumbents, which must often abandon established service facilities and protocols and seek out new ways of performing tests on the unbundled loop.

To understand the significance of this, imagine that a field technician is dispatched to repair a fault at a cross-connect box. The technician might encounter a situation in which one pair is connected to another provider's switch and cannot be conditioned. The technician's system is connected to the switch, but not all pairs are. As a result, the technician cannot finish the job, and the telecom provider has dispatched a highly paid expert who was unable to make repairs.

For CLECs, which will begin to feel the effects of directly handling service calls as they increase market share and lease more of the local loop, the issue is how to make repairs with limited or no access to the physical facility.

In addition, the primary focus of youthful CLECs has been on garnering financing, establishing themselves and simply gaining access to the loop. Service and maintenance technology is often not addressed up front and must be quickly brought on-line as the provider begins to offer service.

Remote testing offers a solution Both incumbent and competitive LECs are finding the answer to these challenges in a new generation of remote testing technology that can replace the need for a technician at the CO in many applications. Indeed, remote proactive and reactive testing of the local loop has already paid off for many service providers, cutting the dispatch rate by as much as 50% and significantly simplifying plant maintenance.

Remote testing units are intelligent test heads that measure the condition of telephone circuits, perform analysis and provide an overview of performance. Although remote testing units have long been part of the telco's maintenance tool box, it is only in recent years that they have been equipped with applications that allow them to monitor the local loop (Figure 2). They can provide single-ended test results by functioning as an integrated test system and supporting a variety of communication networks.

Integrated test systems offer different benefits for incumbents and CLECs. Once a loop becomes unbundled, for example, the incumbent's existing test devices often cannot perform the tests needed at the level required, and the loop represents a flat revenue base where control of maintenance costs becomes critical.

Integrated test systems reduce incumbent service costs by accurately identifying faults. This, in turn, reduces unnecessary truck rolls and ensures that technicians are sent only when and where they are needed. Integrated test systems also enable incumbent carriers to guarantee their customers improved service by testing loops at the conclusion of installation. Also, integrated test systems help incumbents conserve capital resources, so new plant is added only when necessary.

Integrated test systems also benefit CLECs. Like incumbents, they wish to avoid a dispatch on every call. With remote testing units in place, they can monitor their network to learn how good the loop is and verify that the loop can support the services needed. They also can gather the necessary data to show an incumbent that its loop is the problem in a particular situation and avoid being charged for "false repair requests."

Today's remote testing devices provide benefits in many areas:

* Once a fault is identified, the remote test system can often help locate the precise nature of the fault. Depending on the fault type, it may be possible to locate it via remote testing only (such as an open circuit and load coils), or the test system may be used interactively to locate other faults (such as a resistive short and power line noise induction).

* Proactive testing of the outside plant can help the service provider address problems before they become customer problems. For example, proactively testing a cable in late evening during off-peak hours would allow the service provider to review a report in the morning and identify troubles that affect an entire cable-before receiving customer complaints. One technician then could be dispatched proactively and address problems that affect many customers.

* Proactive testing can also be used for line pre-qualification so that a provider can evaluate the condition of its OSP to see if it can support higher-speed services such as digital subscriber line (DSL). If pre-qualification were not performed, the carrier would have to dispatch a technician to nearly every customer installation request-and in some cases, two technicians (one at the CPE, one at the CO).

* Proactive testing is also critical in the CLEC environment for line pre-installation. A CLEC only wants to dispatch a technician after the incumbent has jumpered the pair from the main distribution frame to the co-location cage. The CLEC can remotely test and determine loop length. If the loop is only a few hundred feet long, it's likely that the incumbent has not yet completed the connection at the main distribution frame.

* During installation, remote testing equipment can be used to send tones and measure tones-making it easier for a technician to find a pair and perform diagnostics on the pair. This also helps improve efficiency.

Incumbents can benefit from using remote testing units besides the testing of metallic pairs. With little added cost, they can run a trunk from the remote testing units to the switch and can test all their loops for noise, load coils and other data pre-qualifying tests. They can also perform automatic loop test proactive scans and cable patterning of faults. Because they can test added features on their normal plant, they now have the same testing capabilities on their unbundled loops as on the bundled ones.

Moving toward total network solutions Numerous service providers are realizing the benefits of line testing technology that offers not only standard remote testing capabilities for the local loop but also encompasses the ability to pre-qualify lines for services such as ISDN and DSL. Some systems can also provide centralized network monitoring and management.

Last year, for example, MCI WorldCom and NorthPoint Communications selected Harris Corp.'s Line Test System to be a major component of their overall testing architecture, providing proactive and reactive testing for their nationwide core networks. The system provides a suite of tools that addresses installation, maintenance and fault management requirements. Access is gained by placing a relay matrix on the unbundled loop. This device can look outward toward the unbundled loop and inward to the digital loop carrier (Figure 3).

Testing is then performed by several models of remote testing units that administer a full range of tests such as loop length, load coil value and spacing, and noise testing. A central controller with an open system is key to the design, which provides an OSP database, trouble ticketing dispatch system and interactive voice response system.

Once proactive testing is completed and a technician is dispatched to the correct fault location, providers face the challenge of maintaining an accurate and timely flow of information between the tech and the primary facilities. Carriers can deploy solutions such as a hand-held, wireless computer that links the field technician with the provider's office and the customer, further mechanizing and standardizing the flow of information in the service process.

As the number of unbundled loops proliferates, incumbent LECs and CLECs-for different reasons-will seek to expand their capabilities to test lines remotely with integrated testing technologies. For both, a new generation of test systems mechanizes the testing process and the flow of information, thereby reducing operational costs while improving service and maintaining satisfied customers.

As customer service in the era of the unbundled loop continues to evolve, it will-ironically-become a source of cooperative efforts between incumbents and CLECs that can generate positive results for both. Both types of carriers must perform testing that will determine in whose equipment a problem resides before it can be resolved. In order to effectively perform this testing, they must first work together to establish parameters for how much and what kind of testing data they will share with each other.

Ultimately, like other businesses in today's global marketplace, telecom service providers must work smarter, faster and more cost-effectively. Wisely applying advanced line testing technology can play a key role in achieving that crucial competitive edge.