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.