Xangati gives consumers app control

Contributing to a growing trend of letting consumers control their own customer service, Xangati today introduced an update to its application management framework that includes an end-user application suite (EAS) providing visibility of application use in the network. Last December the company turned on this functionality for the service providers, but today it is bringing the capability to the consumers themselves.

The Application Management 2.0 framework, made up of an AppMonitor and Visual Trouble Ticket portal, provides real-time streaming visuals directly to consumers, so that they can work with the service provider to troubleshoot. The AppMonitor lets subscribers see their streaming real-time app activity over the Internet to identify issues, while the Visual Trouble Ticket portal lets them initiate and submit a DVR-style recording of their network and app activity to share with a customer support rep. The idea behind both components is to lower costs and speed the time it takes to identify and resolve network problems.

The framework is designed for residential or business users, although typically those who are more tech-savvy or involved with IT, according to David Messina, Xangati’s vice president of marketing. Xangati’s customers are primarily service providers in the tier two and three market, but Messina said that as the company gets into customer-centric apps, they are also starting more discussions with the larger providers.

With the rising tide of complicated apps that consumers are using over the Internet, he said that one HD YouTube stream can consume essentially all of a consumer’s bandwidth, creating problems in the network. It’s a classic scenario of companies that develop apps, like Hulu and YouTube, and the network owners not having a dialogue between them, Messina said.

"Streaming apps like YouTube and Hulu are starting to clash for the limited resources you have for bandwidth, resulting in performance problems with the network, but it’s the activity itself that’s creating the bottleneck," Messina said.

Unlike deep packet inspection, Xangati’s service is not invasive. The framework is native to a service provider’s routers, so the network data can be pushed to Xangati without it having a point of presence in every home or a probe in place. Service providers have the option of offering it as a rebranded incremental upsell to monthly Internet service or bundling it in for free as a competitive differentiator. For their consumers who just want basic information, service providers can also embed a phone number into the support page to contact them. With the system in place, they will already have all the notes on the consumer’s network history and the consumer is free from any burden of proof.

"Your service provider calling you, knowing what your issue is, is really powerful," Messina said.