Turnstone coughs up a hairball

(Telephony) While the provisioning process takes a beating at DSLcon in Denver this week, Turnstone Systems announced a new product and an enhancement to their CX100 Copper CrossConnect system that could help the process get off the floor and send it back into battle.

Turnstone’s new D230 ADSL service verification card, a new blade in the CX100 loop management platform, verifies the configuration and provisioning on a DSL loop before the end user tries to turn up service.

The card can be used to simulate the connection of customer premises equipment from the central office. It is scheduled for release in July.

“With this card, once a service provider has gone through the provision process, it can verify that all that connectivity and configuration through the network was done correctly,” said Jane Wasson, product marketing manager for Turnstone. “Today, if there is a mistake in that process such as a cable mismatch, a [bad] connection between the DSLAM and the [main distribution frame], there is no way to know those things until the subscriber tries to install his modem.”

In addition to the service verification card, Turnstone announced an enhancement to the CX100 that now provides direct connectivity to a Class 5 switch for testing and pre-qualifying local loops for DSL. With the direct connection to the switch, service providers can capture accurate information regarding loop length, the presence of load coils, AC/DC characteristics and narrowband characteristics of the line, Wasson said.

Turnstone’s CrossWorks platform provides application interfaces that can communicate the captured data to higher-layer OSSs.

Together, the new capabilities give service providers the ability to identify and pinpoint the cause of trouble prior to it impacting the end user.

“This is not a point solution that is solving one little issue: prequalification,” Wasson said. “It is a loop management solution that [also] addresess provisioning and ongoing operational issues from the loop management perspective.”

Turnstone is trying to improve a system that according to its data shows is accurate only 60% to 80% of the time. The company cites a study by BT that found 30% of the time when they told a customer their loop could not support DSL , they were wrong.

“So, they were basically leaving money on the table,” Wasson said.

And the problem goes both ways.

“Twenty percent of the time when they said they could provide service, they were also wrong. This is what gets us into the hairball mess we are in with DSL deployment today,” Wasson said.