Occam Launches FTTH Customer Support Program

Bob Wallace, x-Change Magazine

Broadband access systems giant Occam Networks Inc. has launched a multi-tier, technology-focused support program designed to help telcos with challenges encountered in the deployment of fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) networks.

The vendor’s FTTH Quick Start Program is targeted at customers, typically independents, with its point-to-point FTTH products. The program will be expanded to include planned GPON product offerings at an unspecified date. Pricing was not divulged.

“The program provides the tools needed to get educated and trained on our platform,” said Juan Vela, director of solutions marketing and strategy for Occam. “It supports customers in quickly turning up subscribers and ‘operationalizing’ FTTHs and ONTs.”

FTTH networks require an expanded and often more complex set of skills than carriers use in deploying FTTP networks, where fiber is run to a node close to a neighborhood, and copper or another media is used to actually reach the home.

“FTTH is still relatively new and is in its infancy in customer deployments,” admitted Vela, emphasizing that his comments best apply to tier-one operators such as FTTH pioneer Verizon Communications Inc. Occam said more than 270 independents, including a few CLECs, are among its customer base as of the end 2007.

At least one top industry expert, Teresa Mastrangelo, principal analyst at Broadbandtrends.com, predicted that this year and next will be a critical time for carriers to decide on whether to deploy FTTH networks, especially with a raft of vendors deploying, or planning to support GPON technology on multiservice access systems.

“FTTH has the potential to be more complicated, simply because each customer might take different services and each ONT has to be provisioned as such,” explained Mastrangelo. “Additionally, unlike DSL it is not currently self-installable, so anything to reduce the labor costs to deploy are highly valued by the operators. Occam is transferring its own lessons learned in the field to help its operator customers reduce the pain of installation.”

Occam’s Vela noted that the company’s customers typically don’t have the deep pockets and big resources that tier 1carriers often enjoy.

“Independents don’t have large staffs, but they do have intense competition in their regions from broadband service providers like cable operators and DBS companies,” said Vela. Another factor driving creation of the program is that because they are two- to five-times more expensive than ADSL2+ modems used for bonded copper to the home deployments, the ONTs will likely reside longer in the networks of carriers, he added.

The program draws off Occam’s two and a half years of experiences with passive optical network deployments, according to Vela.

The Basic package provides an Occam customer support engineer onsite for two days to help telco staff gain hands on experience with CPE and the vendor’s installation and training tools, said Vela. It’s designed for those just getting started with FTTH and a small number of ONTs.

The Outside Plant Package includes everything in the Basic package plus an extra day with the onsite technician as well as hands-on training with fiber splicing and the mounting of ONT, according to Vela. Occam recommends the ratio of telco staff to Occam technician in classroom setups be eight to one.

The DHCP Plus package includes everything in the two preceding packages and is for operators focused heavily on scaling their FTTH networks. Customers get an extra day with the Occam engineer, who focuses on network administration as it applies to installing DHCP servers.

Customers can use Occam’s ONT Configuration Manager tool to streamline the deployment of ONTs with IP addresses needed to work with network systems such as softswitches, said Vela.

Asked if the program includes a focus on justifying FTTH deployments, expansions or upgrades, Vela replied: “We’re assuming they have already made the business case for FTTH.”

Is the program another way for Occam to make money from its customer base? “It’s not just a revenue generation play, it’s something we are doing to help our customers,” said Vela.

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