Customers change service providers for different reasons in their search for quality service. Frustration occurs on several levels. Flow charts for customer complaints that start out by talking to someone in India or the Philippines will usually get them on a roll. Corrupted test results and improper analysis of those test results also lead to frustration. Customers want to talk to a quality technician who knows the root cause of their service interruption. But what they want isn’t usually what they get.

Let’s travel through the departments together, shall we?

The Central Office, Remote, or Service Center
Service interruptions occur because of faulty equipment on the Plain Old Telephone (POTS) portion of the service or on the bandwidth xDSL service, or improper provisioning for each particular type of service. These problems can be identified and rectified in short order without a visit to the customer.

The Residence
If the problem is with the end-user’s equipment at the residence, then a visit is usually required adding a new opportunity for frustration because the customer has to take time off work to rectify the problem. If the problem is identified and repaired, the customer is usually satisfied. If not, and a repeat visit is required, be ready to hear about it.

In a regulated society the customer was at the mercy of the telco, and if it took several visits to rectify the problem the customer couldn’t do much other than yell a lot. Today the consequences for an unhappy customer are dire: if service isn’t restored quickly, he has other options for service providers.

The Infrastructure
When service interruption is in the cable the customer does not have to be involved but if you care about customer service, you will be well advised to keep him in the loop. Most problems in the cable occur at an access, a terminal, or pedestal in the distribution portion of the plant, and are usually caused by technician activity, ants and rodents, and faulty closures.

If these faults are identified and repaired, future problems are mitigated. If the root cause is not identified and resolved, and the tech elects the easy way out (cut-to-clear) you will have repeat reports soon --  and you have created a longer term problem affecting more than just one customer.

Typical faults include wet splices, sheath damage, and water in sections of air core Plastic Insulated Conductor (PIC) cables. If these faults aren’t uncovered, field technicians will change cable pairs until there are no quality circuits left. At this point in the process, many customers have decided to give your competition a shot. After all, they’re offering drastically reduced rates for the first three months. Why not give it a try? Cable companies have their own networks, but resellers rent the same broken line and you will get called back to fix it -- but now you’re doing the work while your competitor has taken your customer. That can’t make shareholders very happy.

Wet Sections of Air Core PIC Cables
If you have water in a section of air core PIC, you should replace that cable as soon as possible. Unfortunately engineering will only replace the cable when there is a significant number of Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS) circuits in the cable that are affected by the water. They are often unaware of how many DSL circuits are affected in that same cable by the initial ingress of water.

Water in cable immediately affects bandwidth, especially on ADSL circuits. Because the impedance of the cable is drastically changed, ADSL circuits in that cable begin interfering with other ADSL circuits. Bidirectional cross talk decreases the maximum achievable rate and the capacity of each ADSL circuit decreases. When the fast rate is affected, modems slow down and start dumping, and sync is repeatedly lost.

If the cause of the problem isn’t found and the capacity is affected, the customer is capped at a lower rate (likely lower than what he is paying for and will tolerate). So if he hasn’t already left, he’s probably waving goodbye to you. POTS customers are relatively unaffected for about six months and then, due to electro endosmosis, POTS circuits begin to fail. After repeated complaints these customers also leave.

When the maintenance technician identifies the wet section and turns it in for replacement, engineering turns the job down because there are not enough customers affected to justify the replacement. That is because there are only 2 customers left in a 50 pair cable because the other 48 customers went to the competition.

The Solution
Monitor bandwidth customer complaints by cable and cable pair, and then look for slow modem speed and modems loosing sync. A results test showing increasing forward error correction is the first sign of water ingress. Cyclic redundancy errors begin appearing after water infiltrates the cable. Another sign of water is the ADSL customers canceling service and going to the competition.

With water ingress into the cable core ADSL and VDSL2 customers receiving FTTN IPTV service first show macro blocking, then pixelization and freezing on the TV screen even though there is no obvious cable pair trouble. As the cable deteriorates, set-top boxes and modems drop and popping indicates audio trouble.

Engineering must react immediately and replace cables before the customer leaves. Air core cables with water present should be replaced with larger gauge filled cables in both aerial and buried sections to increase the bandwidth and eliminate water problems altogether. Engineering design should provide circuits from the CO or remote to the customer eliminating wire beyond the customer (bridged tap) and multiple pair appearance on more than one cable (lateral).

That first mile of cable from the remote input to the customer will then provide a quality cable pair that will handle POTS, xDSL, and IPTV.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how you keep a customer.

Signing Off
I’m hoping your cable is working so you can let me know what is keeping you awake at night. I can’t help you with the babies who aren’t sleeping but I might be able to help you troubleshoot a really tough cable problem. MARK YOUR CALENDAR: Be sure to register to attend OSP EXPO 2009, September 2-3 in Minneapolis, Minn. (Register at http://www.ospmag.com/expo) This year I will again host an “Ask the OSP Expert” session. Send me questions you would like answered during this session. We will also take questions at the time of the event. Call me, email me, just don’t ignore me! www.mccartyinc.com. dmccarty@mccartyinc.com. 831.818.3930.