NETWORKING: Connecting Homes

The popularity of broadband-based Internet access is
undeniable. But the high up-front costs of installations and support continue to
push service providers' break-even points even further out into the future. To
maximise profitability with existing subscribers, many digital services
providers (DSPs), the companies that provide these services to consumers, are
looking to supplement current subscriber's basic service with value-added
services, attempting to repeat local telephone carriers' success with
high-margin add-ons such as call waiting, caller ID and call forwarding.

Home networking: Lowering DSP's break-even point

Home networking is the first of numerous value-added
offerings to be aggressively marketed. As the moniker describes, home networking
connects multiple computers and other computing resources into a network over a
broadband connection, as well software, files, and peripherals (eg. printers, CD
readers/writers).

Home networking is really the natural progression for
broadband subscribers. By the beginning of 2003 there were approximately 33 mn
homes in the US with multiple computers and nearly half of those homes already
have a broadband Internet connection.

A number of DSPs have a significant part of their subscribers
up and running with home networking configurations. And there is an equally
strong long-term growth. The Yankee Group has predicated that the US broadband
subscriber market will grow 361% by the end of 2007.

The home networking market is attractive to DSPs in a number
of ways. First it is large — the Internet Home Alliance estimates that even in
early 2001, 26.1 mn US households were inclined towards adopting connected home
technology. And the demographics of these households provide the DSP with the
opportunity to not just turn profitable more quickly but to establish a stronger
technology base in the subscriber's home upon which to add other value-added
services such as personal firewalls, voice over IP (VoIP) and video
distribution.

Consumers and DSPs Face the Same Home Networking Conundrum

Unfortunately home networking has not completely leveraged
its full potential both for the BSP and also for the consumer.

A dour, yet succinct market appraisal that a research firm
once published, "Home Networking: No Mass Market Opportunity Yet,"
stated "Most Consumers are confused by home networking technology,
frustrated by its complexity and lack of interoperability with other household
devices and refuse to pay high prices for point products. Above all they do not
see a value proposition."

But in today's fast-changing consumer market, new
technologies are being adopted increasingly quickly. Subscribers are beginning
to see clearly the value of home networking. They are embracing applications as
varied as entertainment, family applications such as scheduling and
communications and career-related productivity. Perhaps most intriguing of all
is the notion of a "home entertainment library," which gives
household-wide access and easy-to-use control of all digital entertainment media
including audio CDs, MP3 files, digital photo albums and personal video
recorders (PVRs, such as TiVO), all to be played on the television, personal
computer or stereo systems.

The home entertainment library concept is not just a
short-lived novelty. According to research performed by the Internet Home
Alliance, a majority of the primary market consumers and a plurality of total
market consumers found this home entertainment library concept "very
appealing." Furthermore a majority in the primary market said that
"improving my ability to do routine tasks at home efficiently," was
its number one choice in assessing whether to install a home network.

Unfortunately, formidable challenges in support,
installations, and maintenance still exist for the consumer and the home
networking provider. This disconnect — a growing marketed demand that cannot
be easily and cost effectively captured — created the "home networking
conundrum" For example, many providers are still in the process of defining
installation and support procedures for home networks. In handling related
support issues, the most common response from DSPs is to tell their customers
that their configurations are unsupported, urge the subscribers to disconnect
home network and troubleshoot the standard PC/cable or DSL model scenario-an
approach that can easily alienate subscribers.

Service and Support Automation

However, as much as home networking presents installation and
support challenges, solutions exist to readily address them. Today, having
recognised a significant need for home networking, leaders in providing service
and support automation solutions have architected comprehensive service
automation and support automation technology for home networking.

It provides a path to scalability and profitability for this
new service, automating the installation, management, and ongoing support of
home networking value-added services. Solution architects now allow providers to
avoid the extra installation and ongoing support calls that spread across a
subscriber base, can make the difference between red ink and black. DSPs can
today give subscribers fast, easy access to home networking services, presenting
a hassle and worry-free path to all the benefits this exciting new technology
affords.

So What Customers Need?

The answer is an integrated solution. Designed to solve the
home networking conundrum, best-of-breed service and support automation solution
providers help DSPs accelerate incremental revenue by streamlining
self-installations of home networking value-added services. This technology
automates a subscriber's installation and configuration of the standard,
supported home networking offerings in a simple, straightforward manner. It
automatically configures a home network, delivering more value to the subscriber
as users can easily share a broadband connection among multiple PCs.

This enables resource sharing, including devices such as
printers, CD burners, photos and music as well as enabling multiplayer games. It
also sets the stage for additional offerings such as network-based home
entertainment libraries, VoIP and video-on-demand.

Users now receive equally strong capabilities for ongoing
support. In terms of proactive support, technology providers identify
subscribers who are running supported and unsupported home networks and give
them targeted support, updates and messaging to pre-empt support calls. It also
allows DSPs to quickly scale their resources to support this complex value-added
service, reducing the volume and length of support calls by offering
self-service options that empower subscribers to resolve ongoing issues or
configure new features on their own.

In doing so, service and support automation companies shorten
calls and live interactions with home networking subscribers while
simultaneously improving customer satisfaction. Finally, service and support
automation meets consumers' most stringent requirement: ease of use. It
exceeds subscriber requirements for simplicity with graphical, step-by-step
processes that use the subscriber's language. So simple are the applications,
even novice broadband users will find home networking easy to install and
manage.

Speaking the Subscriber's Language

Concerted efforts in technological developments in the
broadband arena, have helped companies develop highly effective broadband
subscriber software that is extremely easy to use. These solutions provide a
step-by-step methodology that automatically presents the subscriber with the
"right" solution or the next step in the process. With descriptive,
friendly graphics and subscriber-oriented language-not technical jargon-these
programmes help cultivate service providers' image on the desktop with fully
brandable HTML standard interface. As a result, all installation, configuration,
resource sharing and ongoing support solutions can be consistent with the
provider's overall service branding.

Service and support automation solutions help DSPs reduce
subscriber churn costs and accelerate profitability in two ways: by reducing
support calls, and minimizing truck rolls associated with ongoing support for
any tier of broadband service.

These solutions automate the installation of high-speed
access to accelerate the deployment of basic broadband service. They enable and
support self-installation, and provide customer service representatives with
permission- based visibility into the subscriber's environment. The solutions
also automatically determine if a subscriber's computing system qualifies for
a broadband connection and, if so, enable self-installation of high-speed
access.

In addition, the front-end process is automated to enable
automated provisioning by providing XML-based, personalized subscriber
information to service providers. This subscriber data, based on
industry-standard XML formats, can be easily integrated into back-office billing
systems to automate back-end provisioning. Once connected, these solutions allow
subscribers to easily order install and configure value-added services such as
home networking.

These integrated solutions provide complete support for the
entire subscriber lifecycle - from installation of initial service, ongoing
service and technical support and through the activation and support of future
value-added services.

Technology providers have architected end-to-end, fully
integrated service and support automation solutions for the broadband service
providers' current and future needs. These solutions ensure optimal
functionality, scalability, high performance and a solid foundation on which to
build future offerings.

In summary, home networking extends the straightforward value
proposition of broadband access-sheer speed-into a deeper, more
multi-faceted relationship between subscribers and the technology. The Internet
Home Alliance notes: "Likely adopters mainly see the
connected home as a means of saving time in order to spend more and better
quality time with family and friends. Or, alternately, they regard the connected
home as a powerful opportunity to pursue hobbies or just relax. In short, they
regard the connected home as a powerful opportunity to match their daily
routines with their priorities as parents. With the advent of the connected
home, they perceive the chance to ensure their family comes first. In part
because this segment consists of more than just technology enthusiasts, the
connected home isn't a means in itself; it's a means to an end."

Because the market places so much emphasis on using the
technology to enjoy life, users have little time, patience or technical
expertise to wrangle with complex installation and ongoing support issues.
Addressing both the providers' and subscribers' needs, they allow providers
to deploy and support complex value-added services with unmatched scalability
and efficacy. Even novice users will quickly grasp this intuitive, graphical,
step-by-step methodology that automatically presents the subscriber with the
"right" solution or the next step in the process.

As service providers begin to roll out standard, supported
home networking offerings and other value-added services, service and support
automation architects can streamline subscriber access to these services, and
reduce call volumes and duration - solving providers' home networking
conundrum by enabling incremental revenues to be acquired without increasing
service and support costs.

Craig Chatterton, country manager, SupportSoft