What does it take to start your own call center to service Internet subscribers and provide broadband technical support? Is it difficult? What do you need to know? 

In the competitive world of broadband services, the level of technical support you provide to your Internet subscribers can often set you apart from your competition, in either a good or, unfortunately, a bad way. With this growing need for exceptional customer service, the idea of setting up your own in-house center might seem like a sound investment. But, before you connect phones and start taking calls, consider first what’s involved. Read on to review what it takes to put together and run your own call center.

The Plan
Before you purchase a single piece of equipment or hire your first customer service rep, you’ll need to decide on the services you plan to support. What kind of connection issues will you support? Will you support the internet connection to the subscriber home only, or will you also help with the customer’s WiFi network? What about helping with applications like streaming video, and all those devices that are part of the internet world; Roku boxes, routers, and gaming systems that connect to the internet and internet phones? Will you also be supporting your own VoIP or video service?

The Place
Once you have a solid idea of the services you’ll offer you’ll next need a location for your calls to be received. The “center” for your call center. There are multiple ways to obtain your call center space. The most economical way is to find a space that was formerly used as a call center and now stands vacant. But you won’t find these on every block like a Starbucks. Most often, you’ll find yourself with empty buildings that may not have a useable layout. If you purchase rather than rent the space, you may have to bring your building up to the current local building code. And, if it’s not a former technical type of building, you may need to have the building wired for internet and possibly extra electrical to handle the number of computers needed to man the center.

The Gear
You’ll need workstations or desks and the equipment to outfit them; computers and phones, etc. If you run 24 hours a day, (and subscribers will always expect help in the middle of the night, holidays and weekends), you need to make sure the center is able to function properly at all times with adequate light, heating and cooling, bathrooms, water and security. You’ll also need one or more backup generators for the inevitable power outages due to weather or other circumstances.

The People
Now, you need to plan for the number of call center agents you’ll hire. Based on your subscriber numbers and your growth plans, you’ll need to hire enough customer service reps for efficient handling times for calls, staffing appropriately for your peak hour in an eight hour shift. Subscribers don’t want to wait long for help when they call. Also, it’s a good rule of thumb to have a supervisor for every 10 agents to keep things running smoothly. And, if you’re a 24-hour service, service never stops. Someone always needs to be present and ready to answer calls. Even your Call Center Manager, who may not answer service calls, will need to always be available on call if an urgent issue arises.

When determining staffing levels, you’ll need to consider the level of service you want to provide and the costs that go into servicing your customer base. Call centers survive or die on the efficiency and effectiveness of their customer service agents. It’s a losing proposition if every call lasts for close to an hour or more. Before long, you‘ll have a long queue of increasingly frustrated subscribers on hold and planning to cancel their service with you as soon as they can. But, while common sense dictates that shorter call times are better, since you’ll have more agents and lines ready for calls, that doesn’t mean rushing subscribers off the phone without resolving their issue is a good policy. That also would present a poor support experience for your customer.

Keeping the calls efficient and effective while also keeping your subscribers happy can be the difference between a center that thrives and one that doesn’t make it. There are Erlang calculators that will help you determine how many agents you need in an hour, or during an eight hour shift, based on your assumptions about call volume, call length, and the service level you are willing to accept, which is the percentage of calls answered in a specific target time (such as 80% of calls answered in 20 seconds).

Of course, it takes competitive salaries and good benefits to attract and retain good employees. You’ll also need to provide training on handling calls from a customer service perspective, how to support the subscriber from a technical perspective, and how to use the call center equipment and software. It’s also important to note the continuous nature of technical training. As new technologies, equipment, and software are introduced, your employees will need to keep their skills up to date. This ongoing training cannot end if you want to maintain a quality support experience and not have your call center become obsolete.

The Technology
So now you have your space, your people and your basic equipment. Next, you’ll have to keep track of your customers and their information. You will need an application or software tool to record and store customer account information as you take calls. This application will also be needed to enter support tickets for tracking problems to see them through to resolution. These types of applications can be purchased out of the box. If you want to create a more customized application that fits your business and procedures, you can develop your own tool if you have developers on staff with that expertise, or you can hire outside developers.

You’ll also need an Automatic Call Distributor (ACD) to route incoming calls to your support agents. You may want to archive recordings of your customer calls to help with training in the future, as well as for reviewing calls when any customer complaints or praises are received. To do this, you’re going to need recording software. If you plan on handling your own billing transactions, you’ll need special equipment and procedures to keep all subscriber billing information secure.

The Ongoing
Lastly, you need to consider ongoing operational costs. Employee recruiting and training and equipment needs are part of this. Generators will need to be serviced on a monthly basis. Janitorial services will be needed to keep the environment clean. IT support will be needed to make sure your equipment is always running properly.

The Last Word
Whew! That’s a lot to consider. It’s not easy to start a call center. It takes money, keen business acumen, some luck, and an incredible amount of dedication. Keeping your center running satisfactorily can take a lot more time and effort than you originally planned for. Before you jump in to put one together, consider the costs and the time involved. You may decide going it on your own is not the best use of your resources. If that’s the case, consider outsourcing your support, but make sure you find a partner you can trust, who will treat your customers as if they are their own.

The post Call Center 101: Getting Started with Broadband Technical Support appeared first on ZCorum.

What is the Digital Millennium Copyright Act?

The DMCA was signed into law in 1998 to help protect the rights of copyright holders on the Internet. The usual infringement we see is when an internet subscriber illegally downloads copyrighted material like a movie, TV show or song.  If a rights holder finds out about this, they will send the ISP the IP address, notifying them that the person using that IP illegally downloaded copyrighted material. The ISP is then supposed to immediately remove the content if it happens to be hosted on servers they control; or, as is more often the case, they are to notify the customer the content was illegally downloaded and needs to be removed from any subscriber devices. They also must take steps to address and prevent multiple repeat offenses including terminating the account if necessary.

What’s the Change?

There is “safe harbor” protection granted under the DMCA, covered in Title II of the Act, which limits liability for ISPs as long as they follow a few requirements.  One of those requirements is that the ISP name a “Designated Agent” who is to receive notifications of claimed infringement.  And, that Designated Agent information needs to be posted on the Copyright.gov website. When the DMCA was first implemented, this was done through paper forms sent to the Copyright office.  To make it easier for copyright holders to have access to those forms, they were scanned and placed online on the copyright.gov website.

In December 2016, the Copyright office introduced an online registration system to replace the old paper-based system and directory. They said at that time that any Designated Agent filings previously done via the old paper system would be invalid after December 31, 2017. This means if an ISP had already filed a Designated Agent by sending in a form, they would need to redo that process in the new on-line system by December 31st of this year, which is just a few days away.

You can see see if you have already have a Designated Agent by checking the old paper-based list here and checking the new on-line system here. If you have an up-to-date listing in the old database but are not in the new one, or you don’t have a Designated Agent at all, you can begin the process of setting up a Designated Agent in the new system by registering here and then completing the required information. There is a $6 fee, and must be renewed after 3 years.

Must I Really?

Yes!  This is one of the main requirements if you want to have safe harbor status under the DMCA.  There can be hefty fines for copyright infringement, and an ISP can be held liable if they do not follow the limited liability provisions in the Act. In addition to registering a Designated Agent with copyright.gov, you also need to make the contact information of your Designated Agent publicly available on your wesbite for rights holders who want to report incidents of copyright infringement to you.

You also must also create and publish a DMCA policy (such as on your website or in your subscriber agreement) that includes what what steps are taken in the case of repeat infringers, and you then must follow those procedures by properly responding to legitimate DMCA copyright notifications. This means notifying customers of infringing material, requiring that they remove it from all devices, and terminating the accounts of repeat infringers.

What if I Don’t?

Cox Communications found out what happens when you don’t comply with the requirements for safe harbor status. In 2016 BMG was awarded $25 million dollars in a jury trial when it was determined that Cox was liable for “contributory infringement” by failing to terminate accounts of repeat infringers. Evidence presented in the case showed that they allowed and even encouraged the reinstatement of accounts after they were terminated, and that this was done willfully to circumvent the DMCA. Cox was ordered to pay BMG another 8 million in legal fees earlier this year.

Let me end by saying I am not a lawyer, so ISPs should read up on the act on their own and seek out the advice of an attorney if they have any questions about compliance.

The post DMCA Deadline Affects Copyright Infringement Liability for ISPs appeared first on ZCorum.

To me and many others, the 2015 Net Neutrality rules were overreaching and ill-fitting regulations in search of a problem. There were no significant issues prior to the Net Neutrality rules, and the very few issues that came up were handled without the need for regulations. If you listen to the rhetoric from those opposed to lifting the rules, though, you would think the Internet as we know it is going to end.  They make it sound as if the vote will end net neutrality itself, when the vote is actually to remove burdensome Net Neutrality regulations.

What is Net Neutrality?

Net neutrality is the concept that traffic on the Internet should be treated neutrally, meaning that an ISP should not restrict your ability to get to any legal content based on the website or the specific type of traffic.  The concept of net neutrality does not mean that ISPs cannot implement fair network management policies, such as neutrally restricting traffic at times to make sure they can provide good service to all. It also doesn’t mean that they cannot charge different customers a different price based on how much data they use or the speed of their package.  These are normal practices based on the need for a business to be able to manage their resources and costs, and to charge customers based on consumption.

Why remove the Net Neutrality Regulations?

Title II was a poor fit that left operators in an uncertain position about their future because it could mean an expansion of the scope of the regulations at any time for any reason. Businesses don’t like uncertainty when they are making long-term hiring and investment decisions. Complying with the regulations is also a real cost for a business. When you pile on unneeded or unfitting regulations it is a burden, especially for small businesses.  Some ISPs have only a few thousand subscribers or less, and they don’t have an attorney or extra staff at the ready to make sure they are in compliance.  It’s not just about ensuring that they treat traffic neutrally. It’s also the actions they need to take to be in compliance with the regulatory mandates, such as providing detailed reports disclosing fees, data caps and network performance. That requirement has been temporarily waived for providers with less than 100,000 subscribers. But, a temporary waiver is another element of uncertainty that can stifle growth.

What happens after regulations are lifted?

The Internet was net neutral before the regulations were put in place, and it should remain that way after they are repealed. In fact, there is very little incentive for ISPs to do something that would be counter to the current regulations even after they are lifted. You can be against net neutrality regulations and not be against the concept of net neutrality, and ISPs are in the business of providing subscribers full access to the Internet. And, if it turns out that an ISP misbehaves after the regulations are gone, there will still be oversight from the FCC and FTC, not to mention the bad PR.

I fully expect that Chairman Pai and the FCC will handle any situation that comes up on a case by case basis as was done before. If it turns out that there is an actual, ongoing issue where the neutrality of the Internet is at stake, that would be the time for new rules or legislation to be drafted. And, any new Net Neutrality rules should simply be focused on defining the actions that would be prohibited and the consequences for an ISP if those rules are not followed, without extra mandates that would mean additional costs and uncertainty for all ISPs. Finally, if rules are put in place for ISPs, they should also be put in place for content providers like Google, Facebook and others, who have significant control over what information is disseminated, and who have the real ability to shape public opinion by blocking some content and favoring other content.

The post The Future of Net Neutrality appeared first on ZCorum.

We wanted to confirm that information, so we sent out a survey to over 150 cable operators. We asked whether they would find it beneficial to see diagnostics information from set-top boxes in the home to help troubleshoot and support video subscribers, and what types of metrics would be useful. We were also curious about the number of older set-top boxes in those networks, and what plans operators had for upgrading their legacy boxes to newer hybrid set-top box technology.

In the video below I discuss some of the answers we received from that survey.

The post Set-Top Box Survey Shows Need for Video Diagnostics Monitoring appeared first on ZCorum.

The post Advantages of DOCSIS Provisioning of EPoN and GPoN appeared first on ZCorum.

So, why are data usage caps even necessary in the first place? Most providers resoundingly agree that data caps are essential to manage network congestion and to ensure that ALL customers have an enjoyable user experience. If you have a group of customers that are consistently using more data than others, those heavy users should be subjected to usage limits imposed by the provider to maintain the balance. Mediacom Senior VP and General Counsel, Joseph Young, seems to agree and equated data usage to Oreos (yes, the cookie) saying, “You have to pay extra for double-stuffed.” Interesting.

Sounds easy enough, but many customers were not buying it and continued to view the data caps as an un-necessary evil. Over the past year, the FCC has been flooded with complaints from consumers and interest groups and companies like Netflix who want to see data caps eliminated, especially with the rise in online video consumption.

The FCC’s involvement in the “data cap war” remains in limbo, but some of the big providers are stepping in and are signaling that they hear the cries of their customers and others that oppose the usage caps. Recently, AT&T and Comcast announced an increase in their data usage caps to one terabyte (1TB) monthly* for most users before restrictions are implemented. This is up, respectively, from 300 GB caps for Comcast customers and 300GB and 600GB caps for AT&T customers. Customers that remain on AT&Ts DSL network are unable to take advantage of the increased usage caps and will remain at 150GB monthly. Both of these providers also offer an “unlimited” data option for Internet users that agree to specific terms and fees for the service. This is a step in the right direction to meet customer demand.

Right now, all seems calm on the Internet usage front as both the providers and the consumers are seemingly meeting in the middle, but only time (and new Netflix titles) will tell.

*As a guideline, a consumer can watch about 600-700 hours of HD video to meet the 1TB usage limit.

The post Broadband Usage Caps’ Increase – For the Better? appeared first on ZCorum.

One of the big challenges providers face is finding where ingress is entering the upstream plant. The most common tool used to combat ingress is a spectrum analyzer, which clearly shows when you have a noise problem. An analyzer is certainly helpful, but it doesn’t show you where the problem is. The usual method required to track down ingress in the return path is a trial and error process of disconnecting various segments of the plant to see the impact on noise levels on the spectrum analyzer. Besides being time consuming, this process is customer impacting each time a segment is disconnected. And, noise can be bursty, so by the time you get there it may be gone, only to appear later. It’s not a great way to troubleshoot noise, especially down to the subscriber level.

One of the things we do know is that 80% or more of the noise entering the cable plant comes in at the subscriber home or drop. This makes sense. It’s where you have the least amount of control and ongoing maintenance, so it’s where you will most likely have physical cable issues and loose connectors. While this bit of information narrows down likely sources of ingress, it also means a lot of potential places where noise could be leaking in. A connector on the back of a subscriber’s modem that is only a turn or two loose can be a significant ingress point. Add to that some noise from a home appliance, a radio and other sources of RF interference and the amount of ingress on the plant can quickly spike. Finding out which homes have loose connectors or other potential sources of ingress, and which ones are leaking in noise, is where the challenge lies.

Fortunately, there are new tools in the field already helping cable operators do just that. DOCSIS Proactive Network Maintenance (PNM) tools look at cable modem pre-equalization (Pre-EQ) levels to determine if there are upstream impairments in the plant like micro-reflections and group delay, and the approximate location of the problem. This can help you identify things like a bad connector, corroded center seizure screw, a squirrel chew, a bend in a cable, etc. This data is often used to target issues in the outside plant that could be customer impacting in the future. While this improves plant health and can avoid future outages, these hardline plant issues are not usually the major sources of ingress on the plant.

Click to Enlarge

But, there is another really interesting thing that you can do with some PNM tools that will help you isolate ingress down to a customer’s home. Cable modems can adjust their transmit power, and one reason they do this is to compensate for a noisy upstream.  A PNM tool can take that transmit power data and correlate it with corresponding changes in the cable modem’s Pre-EQ coefficients. If there is a strong correlation between the fluctuation of upstream power levels and changes in the modems Pre-EQ data, then you can be pretty sure that you have a cable modem that is leaking in large amounts of noise. And, if that information is charted, you can see historically when those correlations occur. This solves the problem of tracking down something like impulse noise that is inherently intermittent.

So, rather than disconnecting half your plant to find a source of ingress, you can tell right from your office which subscriber homes should be looked at first to combat the problem. You might be able to clear up some problems with a simple call to the subscriber asking them to tighten the F-Connector on the back of their modem. Check out the screens on the right that one of our customers sent us. He had Upstream Analyzer pulled up on his laptop and was looking at a modem that he had identified as a source of ingress. He could see the elevated noise floor and ingress under the carrier. He called the customer and asked him to tighten the connector on his modem. After just a turn or two the Min Hold line dropped to the floor. To find out how he was able to identify which modem to look at, watch the video below. Every subscriber home where you can reduce ingress means your overall noise level on the plant lessens. This will mean better service for all subscribers on that upstream.

 

The post Tracking Down Ingress in Your Return Path appeared first on ZCorum.

Wireless links are now embedded in watches, shoes, MP3 players, and many other tiny consumer devices. Because of the growing dependence on all these devices, Wi-Fi interference has become a major issue in troubleshooting WiFi networks. Research reports 67 percent of all residential Wi-Fi problems are linked to that interference. Technicians troubleshooting WiFi connections for customers say interference is the biggest challenge in managing a Wi-Fi network.

With the right tools in place you can determine if interference is actually the problem when your subscriber’s internet is not performing adequately. If interference is indicated there are a number of things your techs can check to narrow down the source as they troubleshoot a subscriber’s WiFi connection. Let’s take a look at some things to watch for:

EMI or Electromagnetic Interference

Interference Outside the Home
Large satellite dishes, radio towers, and neighbors’ wireless networks are among the sources of wireless interference that can originate from outside the home. While there’s not much that can be done about these, changing frequencies to 5 GHz in order to separate from neighbors’ 2.4 GHz networks can sometimes clear things up.

The Router is Next to an Electronic Device
Your subscribers will likely have a number of electronic devices and appliances at home. Many of these devices can cause interference for WiFi signals. Everything from TVs to microwaves to refrigerators can cause the strength of the signal to be compromised or obstructed. The problem increases when the router is placed next to the television, microwave, blue tooth speakers or any other electronic device. Sometimes improving the signal is as simple as moving the WiFi router a safe distance from such equipment.

Location, Location, Location

Interference from other electronic devices is not the only problem causing poor WiFi performance. It’s important to know the most favorable positioning of WiFi routers in order to correct mistakes. Incorrect device placement will cause interference that hampers and sometimes blocks the WiFi signal entirely. When troubleshooting, watch out for some of these common placement mistakes that subscriber’s often make:

The home gateway is on the floor
WiFi signals are known to move sideways as well as downwards. So, when a router is placed on the floor you are blocking the way through which the WiFi signal travels throughout the house. If you want to get the best signals from the WiFi router, it should be placed at a certain height, which is at least five to seven feet above the ground level.

The home gateway is hiding
When the router is hidden in a closet, a cabinet or behind a bookshelf, the performance diminishes significantly. This is because a number of household materials are known to block WiFi signals. Walls with plumbing can cause significant interference, and walls with electrical wiring inside can cause some degree of interference. Even humans are known to cause interference in spreading WiFi signals. So, if you find the router is hidden, concrete walls and other hidden construction materials could be causing disturbances to the WiFi signals, and hampering its strength. Instead, the router should be placed in a more open area.

The home gateway is beside water
Your subscriber has a fish tank on a table in his house. He’s placed the WiFi router on the same table, next to the fish tank. And now he’s calling in because his WiFi signals are poor and he doesn’t have access to the Internet from all corners of the house. No, the fish aren’t the culprit. But the water is. WiFi signals are known to be obstructed by the reflection caused by water. So, it’s better not to have the WiFi router close to any container of water.

The home gateway is next to a window
We all love to sit by a window while working or just surfing the internet. It’s a nice way to be connected. But is the router there too? When the router is right beside a window, almost half of the WiFi signals are going out of the house. So half the signal is unused and out the window leaving the subscriber with just the remaining half. There’s obviously going to be poor performance in terms of WiFi connectivity. Moving the router away from the window will improve the WiFi signal.

The home gateway is in a far corner of the house
A WiFi signal needs to spread throughout the house. Only then can you count on Internet connectivity from all corners of the house. But if the WiFi router is at one corner of the house it loses the capability of spreading the WiFi signals around on all sides. A wall on one or two sides of the router can cause obstruction and the signal is not transferred. However, placing the router at a central location ensures a strong WiFi signal throughout the house.

It’s critical that you be able to determine if interference whether electromagnetic or gateway placement is the cause of slow internet complaints and to analyze the source of that interference in order to determine the best course of action. The right tools for analyzing interference can mean the difference between frustrated and satisfied subscribers (and technicians).

ZCorum’s Truvizion diagnostics software now has real-time WiFi diagnostics built right in. For a brief overview of the WiFi diagnostics in TruVizion watch this video.

The post WiFi Connections Gone Wild – Is Your Customer’s WiFi on Spring Break? appeared first on ZCorum.

Can your networks handle anticipated increases in information flow related to Internet of Things (IoT) optimization?

Subscriber to Service Provider: “So what you’re telling me Mr. Internet Provider is that I can run my lawn sprinkler and my home security, but I can’t stream a movie at the same time?? *&%^$#

This sounds like an extreme example, but it’s not so far-fetched when you consider that estimates for IoT are 26 billion connected devices and products installed by 2020. With all of them channeling huge volumes of data traffic into data centers, you begin to get an idea of the toll on the customer experience.

The bandwidth feeding frenzy is a growing issue among service providers. This immense volume of bandwidth consumption is being brought on by a number of different sources, but two of the major contributors are the Internet of Things (IoT) and over-the-top content providers like Netflix, Hulu and Roku.

The rapid growth of IoT is changing more than just service provider strategies; it’s changing the way the world works. Gartner research expects 4.9 billion connected “things” to be in use this year alone and estimates that number will reach 26 billion within four years.

Added to that is the over-the-top content that is also seeing record growth. In 2015, Netflix grew its subscriber base by a record 4.9 million in the first quarter alone and now boasts a total base of 62.3 million. Analysts only expect this growth to continue.

And for broadband service providers facing this explosion in connected products and video content, the question is “How will you manage and deliver the high volume of data at good quality to an increasingly demanding subscriber base?”

Download the ZCorum eBook below, The Internet of Things Explained, that includes a section on the data center to get a view of what’s coming and ideas on minimizing the impact of the data flood.

Also, if you didn’t get a chance to catch up on the previous posts in this IoT series, check out Part 1 and Part 2.

Download Now 

Simply complete the form below to view the eBook online now.

The post Is Your Data Center Ready for the Internet of Things? appeared first on ZCorum.

The term Internet of Things was first coined by Kevin Ashton in 1999, but actually, the Internet of Things goes back a lot further than merely 15 years. In fact, already in 1926, we saw the first predictions of an Internet of Things. Back then, Nikola Tesla told Colliers Magazine the following in an interview: “When wireless is perfectly applied, the whole earth will be converted into a huge brain and the instruments through which we shall be able to do this will be amazingly simple compared with our present telephone. A man will be able to carry one in his vest pocket.” Not too far off the mark for 1926!

Last week, we learned that the real IoT is a network of connected devices that talk to each other and to many other devices and programs. But there seems to be a hold up in the whole system. You can buy a lot of those devices right now, but they don’t talk to a lot of other devices and you’ll need a ton of apps to run them all.

The problem is that devices are made by all sorts of different manufacturers and each manufacturer is using their own set of protocols and their own app for the devices they make. That’s why you end up with a different app for your lawn sprinkler, another one for your thermostat and yet another one for your home security. You’re spending more time managing your apps than you save by having the devices in the first place.

What’s needed is a way to collect all the data from all your different devices no matter the manufacturer and have that data talking to the devices and issuing instructions for running your lights, appliances, sprinklers, security, etc. Call it a central “gateway” that collects and manages all the incoming data from your devices.

So let’s build a gateway, right? Not so fast, with 26 billion devices coming down the road, a central gateway couldn’t manage ten, fifteen, twenty or fifty different devices with fifty different sets of protocols. You’d have to have multiple gateway boxes with all the different protocols on your coffee table. We’re back to the multiple controller problem.

What’s the solution? The simple answer is standards. A standard technology or set of protocols for these devices needs to be developed that would allow the predicted billions of devices to be IoT functional. What’s that mean? Let’s look at an example.

If you’ve ever traveled abroad, you have to buy at least five different types of electrical adapters and transformers yet somehow you can still end up in a hotel where your cell phone charger will not plug into the outlet. Why do we need all these adapters and transformers while traveling? Because individual regions independently chose to develop their own technology and no standard was set early on.

Now, just as in the days of electrical outlet creation, getting all the manufacturers to agree to build their devices with one standard is not the no-brainer it seems it should be. Every manufacturer wants to build devices based on their own protocols and without standards set, we end up with a multitude of devices that all send their data differently and that makes it impossible for a single gateway to manage.

So let’s agree on standards! That’s the not-so-simple part. If you haven’t downloaded the eBook yet, check it out to see who’s involved and why in the IoT standards war.

Download Now 

Simply complete the form below to view the eBook online now.

The post The Hold Up with the Internet of Things appeared first on ZCorum.

Sitting with a group of people at halftime last weekend, I threw out the phrase The Internet of Things and asked them what they thought it was or would be. (Without looking it up on their phones!)

Some of the answers, if not exact science, were enlightening as to the expectations people have of the future.

“Everything around you will be controlled by the internet from your phone or tv.”

“The house will talk to us like in that show Eureka where the house knew everything they needed before they asked for it. And if something went wrong with the computer the sprinklers would come on during a party or they got locked out of their own house.”

“Some app will check my refrigerator, count the beer and order more and have it delivered before the game!”

“And then your refrigerator will email your insurance company that you might be drinking and driving and they’ll raise your rates.” (Ha-ha)

“We’ll finally have flying cars and robots that do everything!”

“There will be absolutely no privacy.”

Fantasy and paranoia and a dose of truth, but is it an accurate depiction of the near future?

Almost without our noticing, our reliance on IoT is growing every day. We now have Internet-enabled light bulbs, dead bolts, smoke detectors, refrigerators, mirrors, and what the world really needs internet toothbrushes. Google recently bought a networked-thermostat maker called Nest that will control your heating and cooling and maybe the sprinklers and the door locks too at some point. And while they aren’t flying yet, cars are already being connected.

IoT is setting up to change the way the world works. Next blog we’ll explore the problems that are emerging before IoT is even out of the gate.

And to get a better understanding of what is being hailed as the thing that will change the world as we know it, download the IoT eBook below.

Download Now 

Simply complete the form below to view the eBook online now.

The post Internet of Things: What’s the World Coming To? appeared first on ZCorum.

Migrating to DHCP

In this edition of Ask a Broadband Expert we provide insight into why a telco or DSL operator should migrate to DHCP from PPPoE or PPPoA.  And, if you are a broadband operator looking for a help with the provisioning of your CPE, don’t forget to check out our managed provisioning services.

DHCP doesn’t just solve IP address  management problems, it can save you at the bank when it’s upgrade time. Want to know more? Read Scott’s answers to DHCP questions and find out the number one reason operators switch, why most telco or DSL operators may already be equipped to make the switch, and more.  

These are just a few of the questions Scott answers in the full interview. 

So, how does DHCP work in the DSL world?  DHCP Enforcement and Option 82 

So why would an operator want to switch?  The number 1 reason!

So why don’t all operators switch?   Scott’s take on the future

So chances are they’re already equipped to switch?  This might surprise you!

A few more excerpts…

Who in the Telco world does this issue address and why?

Helms: The primary audience could be almost anyone in the telco/DSL world concerned with transitioning to DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol).

How did we get to DHCP Technology and why?

Helms: Let me give you a little bit of history and it’ll make more sense. In the early days of DSL most operators chose to do PPPoA (Point to Point Protocol Over Asynchronous Transfer Mode). It was the only good choice. Operators could still do DHCP or static assignments of IP addresses but both of those options left you vulnerable to having inaccurate IP information if you needed to answer law enforcement or a copyright abuse case or any other reason you’d need to know who had a certain IP address at a certain time. The other advantage that PPPoA had was that it worked with another system that operators were already comfortable with, which is RADIUS (Remote Authentication Dial In User Service).

So if it worked so well, why did they change?

Helms: ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode), which is the “A” part of PPPOA, was being phased out of operator networks because of the cost difference between an ATM interface versus an Ethernet interface. In many cases the difference was multiple tens of thousands of dollars. There was never a real technical reason for the phase out. Over time DSL networks began moving away from having an ATM core and transport network with PPPoA to having an Ethernet core and transport network in PPPoE (Point to Point Protocol Over Ethernet). So largely everyone moved over to PPPOE because it was pretty painless, and most often didn’t require any replacement equipment.

This sounds like a great solution. So why is DHCP now preferable over PPPOE…

To read more, fill out the form below.

Download Now

Simply complete the below form and you will be redirected to the full interview in PDF form.

The post Why Should I Move From PPPoA or PPPoE to DHCP? appeared first on ZCorum.