Subtonomy has announced it has added support for both broadband and full fibre networks to its Customer & Network Experience Platform. It says this will allow CSPs to support their customers across all network types from a single pane of glass in real-time.
Previously, Subtonomy’s platform pulled together data about real-time customer experience on the network from all mobile network types (2G, 2.5G, 3G and 4G) but, as explained by Subtonomy’s SVP Sales & Marketing, Fredrik Edwall, its customers needed broadband and full fibre support to be added into the mix.
“In the 10 years Subtonomy has been supporting mobile CSPs our customers’ needs have changed,” said Edwall. “Many now offer both mobile and broadband services, or have identified the broadband market as one they wish to expand into. In response, we’ve extended our market-leading mobile Network Experience Platform to support broadband and gigabit fiber networks. This enables CSPs to deliver the type of fast, digital support their customers increasingly expect – no matter what the service or network technology – from a single pane of glass.”
Broadband is an increasingly important part of the network mix
Broadband networks are no longer the poor relation of mobile and business networks, but a critical part of the infrastructure for the Digital Economy. Not only have the type of services being used by the household expanded, but many of these services require more bandwidth and are more QoS-sensitive. Services such as gaming, UHD streaming and video communications, smart home devices and homeworking are all adding to the demand for more performant broadband.
Such trends are leading to a huge and fast upgrade of broadband networks, as countries make them gigabit-capable in order to close the digital divide and ensure they are well positioned for the future digital economy. Analysys Mason, for example, forecast that this will result in worldwide fiber-to-the-premises (FTTP) coverage increasing from 43% at the end of 2020 to 57% by the end of 2026.
But few believe there will be a single network type. Pragmatically, broadband will continue to be delivered over a wide mix of technologies for the foreseeable future – adding to the support headache.
Not only are broadband networks evolving, but Point Topic data shows that they continue to expand – even in areas that are seen as traditionally connected via mobile. Their figures indicate 1.2 billion fixed broadband subscribers in 2021, up 85 million connections from the year before and with most of the additional subscribers coming from Asia.
Gigabit fiber needs lightning-fast support
But, as Subtonomy are quick to point out, speed isn’t everything. Households value a reliable connection more than just speed. Achieving reliability means being able to proactively fix problems to minimise disruptions; plan engineering better and keep customers informed when it’s going on; and when something breaks fixing it as fast as possible.
Subtonomy says research it conducted last year in Sweden revealed that more than a quarter of customers (26%) now expect 24×7 support and 1 in 3 (29%) won’t wait longer than 5 minutes to receive it.
Meeting such expectations is challenging as both networks and services become more complex. Subtonomy argues that without a change in approach, CSPs risk soaring support costs, frustrated customers and increased churn.
Transforming the support paradigm
This is the problem Subtonomy has sought to address by extending the same functionality it offers to its mobile operator customers to convergent operators and those wishing to target the household with innovative offers. Subtonomy says that traditional tools tend to support either mobile or broadband, one type of network technology or another. By combining everything in a single tool, they can ensure that support teams can see a customer’s network experience in real-time – irrespective of the combination of networks it was delivered over (2G, 2.5G, 3G, 4G, broadband or gigabit fiber). This speeds the time to triage and resolve issues and reduces the burden on CSRs.
Edwall points out a number of other advantages to his company’s approach. He says that the data presented in a single pane of glass to CSRs can also be fed to self-service applications, digital apps and even chatbots. Not only does this empower omnichannel support, but it give customers digital autonomy – lowering costs for CSPs and enabling most queries (he says up to 90%) to be resolved via self-service or proactively. This single source of data can also also be accessed by other teams such as operations, sales & marketing, and business teams. Operations can use the data to prioritise fault-fixing or network build, and sales & marketing can use it to target customers more accurately.
“With our added support for broadband and gigabit fibre, CSPs can now deliver a new standard of support that’s fit for the Gigabit era, differentiating themselves and positioning themselves as a provider of a quality network experience – whatever the network,” says Edwall. He notes that the solution is now in production with Subtonomy’s customers and available for general release to service providers worldwide.