Gateways to voice over DSL

With Internet usage, multi-PC homes, broadband connectivity and telecommuting all increasing at ever-accelerating rates, there can be little doubt that voice-over-DSL services will eventually (and most likely rapidly) achieve wide penetration in the small office/home office marketplace.

The reasons are simple: Voice over DSL has the potential to deliver value to the SOHO customer, while giving service providers a platform for upselling value-added services over existing wires and reducing infrastructure buildout costs. And the price point cannot be matched by any existing voice-only or data-only standard service.

Yet despite its obvious appeal, the creation of a voice-over-DSL solution that offers flexibility and ease of use in the home, along with low cost and high penetration among users, presents formidable technology challenges for service providers that are above and beyond simply choosing voice over ATM or voice over IP.

The Customer is Always Right

Today’s home consumers require high-quality, high-speed Internet access for multiple PCs and Internet devices. Along with the ability to access the Web and use one or more phones at the same time, many home consumers will also want and need more phone lines. Parents want to reduce competition for the phone, and children want their own phones and phone numbers. The flexibility to use multiple devices simultaneously anywhere in the home, regardless of plug-in points—such as cordless access—is desirable because it gives people the freedom to interact with the system wherever it’s convenient. Why not Web surf while lounging around the backyard pool?

Voice over DSL offers this functionality using the existing copper pair and also offers the home consumer several other features (see Table 1 below).

TABLE 1

What’s in it for customers?

• A single, simplified solution for voice, data, and entertainment services.

• Lower total cost for the service mix.

• Fewer providers, which can mean simplified billing.

• A platform for the future delivery of innovative applications such as cordless handsets integrated with PCs for voice-activated dialing, interactive games with real-time voice capabilities, etc.

Current Capabilities

Service providers understand the potential revenues they can generate from bundled services and new services based on voice over DSL. Providers also realize that getting voice over DSL to the SOHO customer is only half the battle.

Of the voice-over-DSL platforms under evaluation today, most have focused on solving fundamental problems such as bandwidth usage, voice quality and hardware reliability. Addressing issues such as consumer friendliness and the cost of service delivery have not yet evolved, consequently VoDSL is not yet ready for the mass consumer market.

The key to higher returns and optimal customer satisfaction with voice over DSL lies in delivering high-quality service through an offering that is both easy to use and easy to configure to meet specific customer requirements. Installation costs and resources expended on troubleshooting and reconfiguration must also be minimized.

In the longer term, service providers’ revenue streams and subscriber retention will increasingly hinge on the ability to cost-effectively provide additional value-added services, many of which have not yet been defined. These services might include everything from virtual private networks (VPNs) and gaming to video telephony, home portals and unified messaging. Voice over DSL platforms must therefore offer the flexibility and extensibility required to roll out virtually any application.

The Gateway’s Role

The broadband gateway that forms the interface between the wide area network (WAN) outside the home and the local area network (LAN) inside the home is the focal point for implementation of voice-over-DSL services for the SOHO market; the entry to fulfilling high-quality service, low deployment and flexible delivery. Services that are not provided on that gateway must be provided via the provider’s network. This is evidenced by today’s voice-over-DSL platforms and their heavy reliance on the network and central office equipment to manage the service and—with varying degrees of success—address specific household requirements.

Whatever advantages it may seem to offer, a centralized platform can never “know” enough about the customer premises to deliver a competitive level of service. Nor can a centralized approach scale to support a carrier’s goals for end-to-end service delivery. To be successful with service rollout and to scale to millions of subscribers, the intelligent gateway must participate in the overall service delivery mission. An optimal solution is one that balances the advantages of centralized equipment with the flexibility of an intelligent premises-based gateway.

To cost-effectively deliver the flexibility and ease-of-use that consumers want, the gateway must evolve to serve as a service-enabler platform through which the carrier can deliver services and content to customers. In this context, it acts as the convergence point for data, voice and multimedia services within the customer premises, as well as an arbitration point for transmission back to the WAN. Such a gateway will provide basic software services such as routing, device management and voice services. However, its value to both provider and customer will be significantly enhanced if the gateway can also deliver software services like a security firewall, VPN capabilities, remote management, etc. And, of course, bundled subscription services like voice, data, Internet and e-mail. Figure 1 illustrates the “gateway as a service enabling platform” architecture.

Lower cost, “dumb” CPEs are frequently perceived as the CPE device of choice because they are cheaper to acquire. However, these units cost more and yield less in the long run because they cannot provide the high level of service and easy of deployment that the home market demands. The SOHO market requires an intelligent gateway that simplifies the selling of additional, value-added services. The technology challenge here, of course, is to create a smart gateway at a price point that is attractive to providers, particularly those who must make cost/benefit decisions from a shorter-term viewpoint.

Essential Gateway Features

Given overriding cost considerations, the questions then become: What “smart” gateway capabilities have the highest priority from a cost/benefit standpoint in the SOHO arena? What are the essential gateway features that must be delivered to the home, albeit at an optimum price point and in the near future?

Keeping in mind that real service quality can only be guaranteed when the carrier controls the network, the critical technology requirements for voice-over-DSL implementations in the SOHO marketplace are:

Plug-and-play installation by the customer. First and foremost, end customers must be able to self-install voice-over-DSL gateways easily, to add new devices easily and to use existing devices (including Web-aware devices) seamlessly.

By way of example, customers will need to link both wireless and wireline devices with existing PCs, printers and other network resources. Delivering these capabilities will not only increase market penetration, but also will dramatically lower deployment costs—driving them far below the cost of deploying “dumb” bridges with the help of a truck roll.

Cordless distribution. The integration of cordless telephony with voice over DSL, via a gateway that acts as a cordless base station, adds tremendous additional value for both consumers and service providers. For providers it means a larger revenue base, achieved by offering multiple lines over a single line without the need to add more in-home wiring or outside plant cabling.

Cordless, after all, means no wires at all. Studies show that, given a choice, consumers prefer wireless networking. It’s not surprising in view of the fact that cordless communication offers greater freedom and flexibility without the expense and inconvenience of new wiring. In an increasingly competitive marketplace, cordless service is therefore likely to increase both subscription and retention rates.

No-touch configuration and troubleshooting. A gateway that can communicate with the central office, the point of presence (POP) or the network operations center (NOC) eliminates the high cost of configuring voice over DSL services in every customer premises via a truck roll. Likewise, the gateway’s ability to transmit intelligent diagnostics will simplify deployment and troubleshooting, thus reducing life cycle costs. Ideally, the gateway should enable customers themselves to quickly detect, assess and, in some cases, fix connection and transmission problems themselves.

In particular, the ability to monitor gateway functions via a Web browser from the premises and central facility is desirable: It can eliminate a truck roll, or at a minimum reduce the need for multiple truck rolls through correct problem identification. Custom configuration of each phone line should also be easy. For example, parents should be able to quickly disable 900 calling and long-distance calling on specific phones.

Robust security. With an always-on Internet connection, multiple layers of security are essential. The gateway must be hardened against hackers so as to secure the entire in-home network against intrusions and denial of service attacks. Families and small businesses will not readily adopt services that might potentially compromise their personal or corporate data. Network layer security is not enough.

The gateway must incorporate multiple security layers, providing self-configuring barriers against intrusion and theft with features like intrusion detection. It must also provide transparent data security over the public Internet.

The availability of a broadband gateway that can serve as a service-enabling platform—combining ease of installation with consumer friendliness and the flexibility to deploy new services—could ensure the wide and immediate acceptance of VoDSL.

What’s Next?

Studies have shown that consumers are more motivated and willing to pay for voice services than for, say, Internet connectivity. Voice is the most widely used communication service and is perceived to be indispensable. Other services, while valued and enjoyed, are seen as luxuries rather than necessities to varying degrees. Therefore, the ability to provide enhanced voice services can generate significant revenues for providers. But these value-added services must be reliable, secure, easy to use and present few barriers to installation, such as the need for new wires in the home; otherwise consumers will not pay for them.

Intelligent gateways to the home can help providers to generate revenue through new service offerings, build customer loyalty and increase retention, and reduce the overall operating costs of broadband delivery.

Through upselling of new services via an intelligent, on-premises gateway, a voice-over-DSL provider can become the customer’s single access point for voice, data, the Web, multimedia and more. Smart gateways support the widest range of services possible, delivering the greatest value to consumer and provider alike.

Greg Whelan is Director of Product Marketing at Cayman Systems, Billerica, Mass. His e-mail address is gwhelan@cayman.com