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Archives
 August 1999 Issue
Columns
Providing Service Integrity Requires Constant Vigilance
By Terry Wright
Many of you may have noticed a common theme in nearly all of my columns for the last year or so. During that time, I have written about issues I believe are or will become important to the industry, and Ive tried to surface them before they become the topic of the day. They all share the common theme of service integrity.
This time, my goal is to weave aspects of these prior columns into a common definition of service integrity. I hope that this definition will bring substance to the theme and help explain why its the most critical obstacle to the continued success of broadband data/Internet services.
Whats at stake?
With the industry continuing to consolidate, and considering the constant evolution of the Internet and its underlying technologies, now seems to be a particularly good time to get the concept of service integrity out on the table.
Why? Well, for one thing, literally hundreds of billions of dollars are riding on cables ability to get another $30 a month or so from about 30 percent of its existing subscribers through Internet/data and other digital services. Frankly, this is no back-room, penny-ante card gamethe players represent some of the biggest names on Wall Street, as well as the telecommunications and consumer electronics businesses.
The cable industrys ability to understand and embrace the need for data service integrity, simple as that theme might sound, is fundamental to the longevity of the industry in the data and digital services space. My conclusions are based on first-hand observations of broadband Internet services delivery within the cable TV industry over the past five years.
Of course, achieving and maintaining service integrity is equally critical to the success and longevity of the digital subscriber line (DSL), local wireless and satellite outfits, and they know it. Thats why I am preaching service integrity to the cable industry.
Understanding integrity
To see service integrity as fundamental to the success of cable in the data and Internet services space, you need to thoroughly understand it. The commonly understood meanings of the words "service" (to do something for someone else) and "integrity" (the state of being intact or unimpaired) themselves provide a good starting point.
Integrating the meanings of these words suggests that to achieve service integrity, a service must be complete, unimpaired, whole and in an unbroken condition. The service delivery infrastructure is what either enables or prevents service integrity.
Unfortunately, too many cable operators limit their view of service delivery to just the cable modem and cable modem termination system (CMTS). Others focus on a sophisticated content package. Subscribers, however, tend to view services in a much broader way.
Subscribers perspective
While speed of service is important to subscribers, they expect other data service attributes to be comparable to those of other Internet services theyve previously experienced.
Such attributes include knowledgeable 24/7 helpdesk support and problem escalation capability, trouble ticket tracking and resolution, high service reliability, prior notification of planned service outages, responsiveness to unique needs, accurate billing, and so on.
All these attributes help define the integrity of the service from the subscribers point of view. Without competitive parity in all the dimensions of a data service, a provider risks becoming the topic of unflattering chat room conversations, newsgroup posts and word-of-mouth from the technically astute and communicative online community.
Service integrity requires a constant vigil on the performance, reliability, quality and support of the complete service. Any integrity-threatening condition must be taken seriously. These threats can be in the cable plant (noise floor/carrier-to-noise ratio); the server, routing and switching complex (storage space, caching schema, domain name system and proxy management); the Internet network access portal (availability and capacity); abusive users; and in virtually any other service attribute or delivery component.
A vehicle, not a destination
The point is that subscribers see cable modems and the cable network as simply the access device and local access network, respectively, of the service. They pay a premium for performance; they expect the remaining service attributes to be at least as good as what they can get from competing lower performance services.
Therefore, if the great gamble on cables high-speed broadband data/Internet services is to pay off, the cable data service provider must view the service delivery infrastructure as a wholethe same way subscribers see it.
Stay on your toes
The successful long-term view of broadband data/Internet services is one that accepts the continuous evolution of the Internet at the hands of its users and those responding to the demands of its users. Cable operators must be willing to help facilitate this evolution while delivering services with high integrity. This calls for a very involved, end-to-end systems perspective of the services being delivered.
An exotic sports car is a fast form of dependable transportation (compared to the family sedan) only if it starts every time, doesnt stall often, doesnt leak when it rains and never strands the driver in rush-hour traffic.
Terry Wright is chief technology officer at Atlanta-based C-Cor.net Corp. He can be reached at or via e-mail at
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