TR-069 Gains Traction With Telcos; Cablecos Coming

Although there has been some resistance within the cable-provider ecosystem regarding adoption of the Broadband Forum’s TR-069 specification for remote device management, telcos appear to be fully on board with it.

TR-069 enables a series of specs that span nearly any form of access network facilitating remote discovery, provisioning and operation of devices. For more, see "Bullpen: Leveraging Broadband Forum Standards."

Motive, an Alcatel-Lucent acquisition that focuses on remote device management, is ending the year with more than 50 million devices under management with its Home Device Manager (HDM) product. This is up from 10 million devices under management 24 months ago. In the same period, Motive added 25 customers. Although Motive was acquired by Alcatel Lucent in 2008, it has retained its own branding.

Motive HDM combines provisioning, maintenance and support capabilities that allow service providers to configure, upgrade and manage a wide range of customer premises equipment, ranging from residential gateways, IPTV set-top boxes, VoIP adapters and femtocell access points.

Just about all of the Tier 1 telcos are using HDM technology, says Ben Geller, senior director/product marketing at Alcatel-Lucent, Motive Product Division, and there’s starting to be some serious interest from cable providers as well.

"They are starting to explore the ability to include TR-069 stacks on their devices," notes Geller. "A number of cable companies are issuing RFPs and RFIs. A lot of cable companies are beginning to ask questions about it and to bring vendors in for trials, indicating to us they’re discussing with modem vendors and set-top vendors about incorporating TR-069."

According to Geller, HDM gives operators the ability to ship a self-install kit to end users and to run a zero-touch installation. When a device has problems, the remote management can save a truck roll, and it also gives customer-service representatives better visibility when a customer calls.

"A lot of (operators) multi-source from vendors," adds Geller. "The last thing they want to do is publish user instructions for every single variable of every device."

-Linda Hardesty