West Coast sings a different tune

While Covad Communications was fighting to delay Bell Atlantic's entry into long-distance - largely because of the incumbent's alleged dismal record in provisioning broadband services - it successfully was deploying the first fully automated system for ordering DSL service from Pacific Bell.

Covad is touting a 90% reduction in the time it takes to get a firm order confirmation (FOC) from its West Coast trading partner. What previously took two to three days now takes less than eight hours, said Umesh Bellur, manager of software development for Covad.

Eliminating human intervention has cut loop order administration costs in half, he said. "If we get an order in Pacific Bell territory, no human actually picks that order up. It is picked up by our electronic data interchange server, and a loop order is placed with Pacific Bell's system also using EDI," Bellur said.

The cash flowing to Pacific Bell for the cost of the loop order also has been reduced by 70%, Bellur said.

Using its own XML-based application interface called xLink (pronounced cross link), Covad and Pacific Bell worked together to deploy the system throughout Pacific Bell's region.

Pacific Bell provided the EDI portion of the connection according to the specification from the Ordering and Billing Forum. "It's the same as what's being done at other ILECs. We were simply the first ones to take advantage of it," Bellur said.

"It was important for the two companies to collaborate in order to provide continued service delivery improvement," said a spokesman for Pacific Bell.

The flow-through system has been in production for the last few months. The improvements in processes and the cost reduction figures cited by Covad were determined by orders placed during that time. "The process includes automatic order generation and mechanized assignment of network facilities," the Pacific Bell spokesman said.

The development process took approximately two months. "If you go with certified vendors for the implementation, its likely to go even quicker," Bellur said.

Covad created a certified software vendor program to aid its ISP customers in implementing its xLink solution. Vendors such as Vitria and NightFire have pre-built connectors that ISPs can use to bond with xLink electronically. Vitria has built a xLink connector as part of its BusinessWare software package.

Covad customers have two options for connecting to xLink electronically. They can customize their own Web site, or they can send customers transparently to Covad's Web site to generate orders. ISPs can use xLink to pre-qualify local loops for DSL by determining if the switch serving their area supports DSL and checking the mileage to the customer premises.

"Only orders for local loops within 12,000 feet of the central office are completely flow-through," the Pacific Bell spokesman said. "Loops from 12,000 to 17,000 are partially flow-through." Longer loops must be tested manually for line quality before an FOC can be given. Covad is working with its equipment vendors to incorporate the functions of electronic cross-connects and other systems to enable physical loop qualification as opposed to database qualification. This will allow Covad to determine automatically the type of DSL service a line will support.

The entire DSL installation process has improved by 25%, Bellur said. On average, turning up DSL service with Pacific Bell using its flow-through process takes Covad 26 days, down from the previous 34 days, he said.

"It's a pure matter of efficiency. We are obviously seeing [greater] efficiency with this, and that's what is important for us. And the net result of that is the customer satisfaction that will come out of it, which is very important to us as well," Bellur said.