Managing Beyond the CPE – Home Networking

I just picked up my iPhone 3G S last month at the AT&T store after a 30 minute wait to talk to the sales guy. It always amazes me that the AT&T retail stores are less efficient than the folks processing drivers license renewals at the DMV. It’s great to have a lock on the iPhone market. As I stood in line gradually losing patience with the staff’s lack of urgency to the dozen or so customers waiting in line I realized that a lot more than selling was going on. Three of the five staff was helping consumers set-up email or providing other technical support functions. It was the geek squad for iPhones. AT&T Wireless is much more than a mobile wireless operator. It is a help desk for Apple!

This type of blending of sales and support for a more complex eco-system in the mobile world is also unfolding in the consumer fixed broadband market. But the stakes here are much higher because you need to support not just one device but many in the home. Once IPTV moves beyond the early adopter phase, the support cost curve will climb exponentially.

Customer experience is sometimes lost in the banter around channel changes and video pixilation as hard metrics to measure quality of service. What will CSPs do when a customer calls in to complain that video doesn’t work yet all the dashboards in the operation centers are green? Consumers that still can’t program their DVR’s are not about to embrace a CSR in India to remotely troubleshoot their video problem.

Growth in advanced consumer services will languish until CSPs get serious about managing the home network. Standards such as TR-069 is a good start but more needs to be done to move the demarcation point beyond the CPE. The residential broadband was an active segment a few years ago but growth has lagged in subscriber net adds and revenue increases in the past several years. Some of this is due to the fact that activation and remote testing capabilities have improved for the large CSPs so the need has diminished. With new services such as VoIP now and IPTV in the next year to move beyond mass market adoption - we expect net-adds to ramp up quickly. I put some forecast out in this area last month and will be doing more in the next 8 weeks to peel the onion back on home network management.