In the past telephones on Plain Old Telephone Services (POTS) connections were simple devices and the vast majority of consumer fault reports could be attributed either to cable pair faults or more infrequently to POTS switch faults. Telecoms service providers developed uncomplicated but effective fault management systems which delivered a reliable telephony service through simple but routine nightly proactive troubleshooting of the copper plant.

With the advent of triple play services, bringing together the Internet, television (video on demand [VoD] or live stream) and phone (voice over IP [VoIP] services), it is often overlooked that the overwhelming majority of broadband networks are built on POTS connections on the existing copper plant: most often fibre optic networks are used to provide the backbone IP network and the POTS copper plant is used to deliver the last mile to subscribers.

Whilst cable pair faults remain an issue for telecoms service providers delivering digital telephony to consumers, the issues which must be taken into account in a modern testing process are significantly more complex.

Modern test solutions need to cater for testing of high-speed data connections to web servers via local fibre optic loop, which typically involves testing not only the copper pairs but also central office transmission and home reception devices.

Test sets without advanced and accurate measurement and diagnostic functionalities will prevent telecoms service providers from meeting consumer expectations for inexpensive high-speed data connections, including both reliable Voice over IP (VoIP) communications and video on demand services.

Faults sometimes lie in the consumer’s own equipment or other telecoms service providers’ systems but the process of locating and diagnosing the fault is often complex. If telecoms service providers ignore or fail to fix problems when consumers report them, they risk overburdening the operations team, customer dissatisfaction and lost revenue over disputed service charges as well as regulatory penalties incurred for poor customer service.

The solution is effective fault management. A sophisticated copper plant with fully automated testing functionality is a prerequisite for telecoms service providers seeking to pursue business strategies fit for the twenty-first century strategy.

Ageing copper plants are unable to keep pace with technological advances in the sector. Without testing solutions which maintain current and future demands on the copper plant consumer demand for technologies such as IPTV and increased data rates cannot be met.

Copper plant faults (opens, shorts and grounds) are commonplace on the copper plant, particularly where it is not maintained proactively. These faults cause lengthy delays to the resolution of consumer fault reports, which in turn cause the operating costs of customer service to rise exponentially as system reliability plummets.

When a fault report is received by a consumer, the first action by the telecoms service provider is to test the consumer’s circuit. Where the copper plant infrastructure is poorly maintained, it will not be possible to pinpoint where the fault is an engineer will have to be dispatched out to ascertain the source of the trouble manually. On a large scale, this manual solution is time consuming, costly and inefficient.

A majority of engineer dispatches need not take place either because the root cause was not in the field or the testing equipment has failed to pinpoint the location of the fault on account of equipment failures, port problems, software bugs or inadequate upgrades to cope with increased demand on the plant.

Setting new global benchmarks for proactive service restoration

Our measurement and testing software and hardware drastically reduces the number of dispatches to the field, particularly in connection with assuring bandwidth capability, whilst creating a more efficient and sustainably run copper plant and increasing consumer satisfaction.

CCL’s software and hardware solutions set new benchmarks for speed, reliability, accuracy and sophistication.
Not only do our test sets test physical layer problems, they are able to identify bandwidth problems and identify the root cause of the fault on the line so that the telecoms service provider can restore consumer service promptly. 

Unlike many of our competitors, our hardware and software solutions offer additional longitudinal noise and metallic noise diagnostic functionalities, which not only improve the quality of service provision but also increase safety on the lines for staff and consumers alike.

Targeted test and element management hardware and software solutions

CCL offers test management, element management and fully automated test solutions to telecoms service providers. 

We preserve the value of client investment in technology by eliminating forced end of life swap-outs and through producing high quality products and services to our clients across the globe. 

Our support service costs are not index linked and remain among the lowest in the sector.