i3 and PacketFront form strategic partnership to reduce triple play support cost for operators

i3 micro technology, a leading provider of voice over IP (VoIP) and IP-TV products, and PacketFront, the world leader in open access FTTH technology and next generation broadband aggregation, have announced a strategic partnership that will provide operators with an industry-leading solution to reduce the escalating costs of supporting triple play services. The solution, which harnesses i3’s acknowledged capabilities to provide customer premise equipment (CPE) for triple play services, will reduce implementation and operational costs for operators and increase customer service efficiency.

i3 will license and integrate the PFDP ( PacketFront Device Protocol) in i3’s Vood IP Residential Gateways, enabling traffic related conditions on the Vood CPE to be easily and remotely monitored. Vood products already support self-provisioning and remote configuration, and by now implementing PFDP operators can do more to determine, analyse and resolve most helpdesk and support issues over the phone, thereby eliminating the need to send support staff to the customer premises.

The comprehensive diagnostic capabilities of the PacketFront Help Desk Management Tool (HMT) will facilitate customer support for operators by enabling status reports of any CPE to be instantly available at the click of a button. Customer support personnel can quickly search and find any subscriber on the network, instantly gain access to CPE ports and link status, and graphically view packet flows, drops, errors, link status, duplex relation and Ethernet speed.

“We are excited about being able to offer further OPEX reductions to PacketFront’s customers,” says Leif Björklund, VP Strategic Partnership Alliances for i3 micro technology. “This implementation complements the benefits of our centralised CPE manager, which already offloads helpdesk operations by handling CPE auto-provisioning and remote configurations. Now, we are also able to provide support staff with traffic related information that essentially lets them handle all trouble-shooting over the phone.”