SERVICE MANAGEMENTOptimizing the <strong>Broadband</strong>Experience – in Real TimeIf subscribers aren’t getting the service levels they expect, can you tellthem why? Xangati can.A BBP Staff Reports providers introduce advancedservices over theirnetworks, customers’ expectationsrise accordingly.<strong>Broadband</strong> subscribers expect speedydownloads. Video subscribers expectgreat picture quality. Voice subscribersexpect conversations without annoyingpauses or echoes. And when subscribersdon’t get what they expect, they’re quickto call tech support.But providers’ technical support repsdon’t always have the necessary tools tosolve service problems. It’s difficult todetermine why a broadband connectionhas slowed to a crawl, for example.Has a neighbor availed herself of thesubscriber’s WiFi connection? Or is thesubscriber’s own computer running programshe isn’t aware of? Typically thesupport rep asks a few basic questions,then escalates the problem to a networkengineer – who must generally start overfrom square one, and who may not havean easy time diagnosing the problem,either. Even sending a truck out to thesubscriber’s house doesn’t always producethe desired results.“Only the desperate and the bravecall,” says David Messina, marketingVP at Xangati, a startup company thathopes to make customer support encountersmore satisfying for service providersand customers alike. “But you want usersto end the call with something beingachieved. It’s not a good place for serviceproviders to be.”first product in 2007 – an appliancethat sits on the service provider’s networkand gathers detailed informationfrom the routers about the applicationsthat each subscriber is using. (ThoughXangati doesn’t install hardware or softwareat the customer premises, the appliancemaintains a fixed identity for eachsubscriber even in the absence of fixedIP addresses.) The company originallyconceived of its appliance as a troubleshootingtool for network engineers andnetwork operations staff. It would collectbaseline information to establish normalbehavior for each network element, subscriberand application, and then sendalerts to network operators whenever behaviorfell outside of normal parameters.Visibility at the Subscriber LevelXangati, a privately held company basedin Cupertino, California, launched itsThis Xangati output screen shows bandwidth use by type of service.94 | BROADBAND PROPERTIES | www.broadbandproperties.com | July 2008
SERVICE MANAGEMENTThe Xangati appliance was a successon its own terms, but the companyquickly found it had overlooked an evenmore pressing need: a problem-solvingtool for front-line customer supportreps. “There was no network equivalentof Ctrl-Alt-Delete,” Messina says, referringto the keystrokes that bring upWindows Task Manager, which showsstatus information for each process andapplication running on a PC. So inMarch of this year, Xangati introducedVirtual Task Manager, software thatpresents subscriber-level data in a formataccessible to support staff.Support reps using Virtual TaskManager can see in real time whichapplications are active and how muchbandwidth they are using. They can workwith subscribers on the phone to recreateor replay symptoms and investigate thesubscriber’s recent history in detail. Ifnecessary, they can drill down into anyrelated application, server or peer.“There’s a What-Box Upstairs?”Primelink, a New York State CLEC thatwas one of the first companies to trialVirtual Task Manager, says senior engineerswho once spent nearly all of theirtime on reactive escalation issues havecut that time in half. The engineers arealso discovering some surprising causesfor customer complaints. “In one case,”says Frank Koniszewski, an IP networkengineer at Primelink, “the Xangati applicationenabled us to track down arecurring performance problem to anXbox gaming server the subscriber’steenage son had installed surreptitiously.Whenever the son fired up the server toplay games with his friends, the homeInternet connection was flooded and becameextremely sluggish.”Another early user, Harris Miller,manager of engineering at EATEL (aLouisiana ILEC), says his company wasfrustrated by being unable to resolvecomplaints about network performancedegradation. Virtual Task Manager“lets us be more helpful and take ownershipof the problems,” he says. EATELbegan by using Virtual Task Managerreactively, but Miller says the companyis now taking proactive steps as well:“We’re seeing a lot of parents who aren’taware their kids are running BitTorrentand other peer-to-peer programs, andwe’re educating them about what theycan do to secure the home connection.We’re finding out people’s computers areinfected with viruses and they don’t realizeit till they can’t function, so we’reeducating them about security. Whenthere is a spammer, we can zoom in onthem faster…and mitigate an attack beforeit knocks the server down.”Sometimes support reps determinethat response time is slow because theuser doesn’t have enough bandwidth.Miller says, “There may be a legitimateneed to upsell to a faster connectionspeed. If it’s not a peer-to-peer or virusissue, they may really be saturated. Soit puts us in a position to upsell whilewe’re correcting the problem – spinninga negative to a positive.”EATEL has made an effort to protectcustomers’ privacy, and Miller sayscustomers don’t perceive Virtual TaskManager as a privacy threat. Reps askfor permission before running tests, andthey explain to customers that all theycan see is the header package, not the actualsites the customer is visiting or thecontents of what is being downloaded.They also explain that malware runningXangati tracked a recurring performance problemto an Xbox gaming server the subscriber’s son hadinstalled surreptitiously. Whenever the son fired upthe server to play games with his friends,the home Internet connection was flooded andbecame extremely sluggish.“If it’s not a peer-to-peer or virus issue, they mayreally be saturated. So it puts us in a position toupsell while we’re correcting the problem – spinning anegative to a positive.”on the customer’s computer may exposethe customer to identity theft.An Infrastructure-AgnosticProductBecause Virtual Task Manager is infrastructure-agnostic,it can be used by providerswith any type of access network.Xangati is marketing the product – directlyand through value-added resellers– to local exchange carriers, includingwholesalers; to cable providers; andeven to private operators like universities.At current pricing levels (the entryprice point for the base platform is about$35,000), the company says its productis economical for providers with between1,000 and 100,000 subscribers, takinginto consideration the savings in supportcosts and the benefits to customer retentionand loyalty. A hosted service, whichthe company is considering, might besuitable for even smaller providers.Xangati also recently introducedwhat it calls a “24/7” program, a quickstartmethodology for launching VirtualTask Manager that promises users sevenmajor insights into their networks in 24hours. One reseller reports that it was ableto detect a spambot on the network of acustomer within hours of installation.In addition, Xangati is looking forsynergies with other vendors’ products.A recently announced three-way integrationwith Calix Management System andClearAccess TR-069 CPE ManagementApplication gives support reps insight notonly into the network applications that asubscriber is using but into the location ofthe subscriber’s premises and the broadbandaccess devices on site – and then allowsthem to remotely control the homenetwork and customer premises equipmentso they can fix problems withoutsending a technician to the site. Accordingto Miller, “The integrated workflowthat the Calix-Xangati-ClearAccess solutionoffers would give us the most direct,cost-effective, and easy method for fixingany performance problem, whether thesource is in the access network or in thesubscriber home.”July 2008 | www.broadbandproperties.com | BROADBAND PROPERTIES | 95
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