By Bruce Christian
Speeding Up Fiber Installations at the Premises
Operators are looking for ways to speed up fiber deployments at multi-dwelling units (MDU), as well as single-family units (SFU).
The question they ask is how to bring fiber deeper into the home or business without exceeding budgets or having to sacrifice anything in network performance and reliability. In a post by CommScope’s Corporate Communications Manager Joseph P. Depa III that appears on the company’s blog page, Product Manager Kathy Terryll explains how the company’s new FTTx offerings provide operators with solutions that speed up fiber installs and helps to increase property values.
Trends in fiber optic deployments are moving toward a network architecture that drives fiber deeper to various stages of the FTTx network, and ultimately into individual homes. Equipment providers need to offer solutions that address the larger challenges of meeting targeted budgets, while still addressing shorter timelines for fiber deployments.
Customers also want complete product offerings streamlined to meet their full end-to-end architecture needs. Walker & Associates distributes the CommScope solutions.
Optical fiber continues to gain popularity as one of the best broadband mediums for future-proofing against higher and faster capacity requirements by end users. While some have concluded the existence of optical connectivity in MDUs, office buildings and even SFUs may increase property values, fiber connectivity as part of the building structure has become an expected service for users.
The acquisition of the BNS business from TE Connectivity significantly expanded CommScope’s fiber portfolio to deliver more innovative solutions. CommScope now solves more of its customers’ challenges, and serves more customers around the globe with new FTTx solutions.
The company’s mini Rapid Fiber distribution terminal (RDT), available in indoor and outdoor MDU applications, gives service providers a plug-and-play box to get fiber to users faster.
Using its RapidReel cable spool, the mini RDT can deploy several hundred feet of fiber cable quickly, which lowers installation costs. Both the indoor/outdoor cable and plenum cable models are available.
The RapidReel cable spool and multifiber cable with connectors help to reduce site survey inspections, and the reel spool offers a clean, neat way to store any excess cable quickly. The mini RDT minimizes product variations in inventory and provides “on-the-fly” cable length adjustments to speed up overall MDU installations.
The new optical wall box (OWB-S) is a small outdoor fiber termination solution for connecting fiber-to-the-home devices, used in outdoor above-ground applications. The OWB can be attached easily to the SFU or small MDU building. As a premise connection box, it offers multiple cable access points to transition from outdoor to indoor fiber deployment applications.
A YouTube video located at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgrB89IdmXg, also features Terryll showing service providers how to speed up fiber installations on premises with the new fiber solutions.
Walker and Associates is a distributor of network product solutions, providing world-class supply chain management, network deployment kits, quality installation, systems integration and service to domestic telecommunications service provider markets. Servicing the industry since 1970, Walker’s customers include more than 1,200 service providers.
For more information, visit Walker & Associates at booth 213 in the exhibition hall or go to www.walkerfirst.com.
GSA Reduces Mobile Carrier’s USF Liability
GSA has enabled a mobile carrier client save hundreds of thousands of dollars adapting its regulatory regimen from a previous business model.
The GSA approach the carrier applied supports a method for rating tax and calculating regulatory liabilities; the largest of them being the federal Universal Service Fund (USF) liability. Unfortunately for the carrier, assumptions regarding how its products should be rated were based on antiquated resources.
GSA performed a three-level approach to engagement with the carrier:
- First, GSA identified the methods by which the carrier applied tax rating to its transactions. This research provided details on how efficient and accurate the rating logic applied tax liability to the customers’ transactions.
- Secondly, GSA rebuilt the revenue experience in its Tax Lab. GSA applied its knowledge of the customer’s product and sales goals to revenue and modeled scenarios that achieved the best tax treatment.
- Finally, GSA recognized that revenue recognition for the carrier along with marketing materials did not reflect the proper offerings to achieve the optimal results.
As a result, GSA and the carrier embarked on a full review of terms and conditions and a re-application of revenue recognition methods to synchronize USF filing reports, profiled by GSA to be optimized.
This outcome led to a redesign of the customer’s point of sale and tax rating engine. Integral to that redesign were GSA’s optimization rules that synchronized the rating with the reporting of liabilities.
A byproduct of the redesign was seamless automation of transaction data imported into the general ledger for revenue recognition without manual manipulation. The outcome: The carrier reduced its USF liability by more than $700,000, which was credited within the year of its annual report, creating a return-on-investment of more than 400 percent on the project.
GSA is a North American telecom regulatory and indirect tax compliance advisory and outsource provider with data repositories of more than 24,000 jurisdictions. The company has more than 14 years of experience in the industry and is experienced in understanding guidelines surrounding federal and state regulatory and tax rules.
If you have manual processes involved in tax and regulatory reporting, or if you have older resources (advisors and systems), GSA would be happy to review your reporting methods to see if there are ways to improve your bottom line.
For more information, visit GSA at booth 312 in the exhibit hall, go to
www.gsaudits.com or call Karine Vosberg at 678-304-6469.
CDG Expands MBS Online Client Billing Controls
Communications Data Group (CDG) announced the recent migration of its MBS online databases to CDG’s AIX platform.
With this move, MBS online companies now have the ability to directly control their own bill processing and verification, from the pre-extract audit to final bill run, as well as the capacity to personally manage the setup, automation, approval processes and scheduling of their invoicing modules.
“With the AIX platform comes a whole host of new tools that give our clients a level of control they have never had access to before,” CDG’s Vice President of Product Support Mike Runyon explained. “We know that nobody knows their usage and processes better than our clients, and now they are able to capitalize on that knowledge to further increase their revenue assurance and maximize their billable revenue.”
Many of CDG’s MBS clients already are using these new billing control tools successfully.
CDG’s subscriber billing and invoicing solution, MBS, is a highly flexible, modular system for managing and billing wire line, Internet, cable, wireless, VoIP, IPTV and non-telecom services. MBS interfaces to customer care, mediation, customer invoicing, plant records, trouble reporting, e-care, cash drawer, service activation manager (SAM) and patronage, as well as third-party financial, mapping and facilities management products.
Besides those solutions, CDG also offers scalable, accurate billing and operational support solutions for voice, video, and data for retail and wholesale telecommunications carriers and service providers.
For more information on CDG’s products and services, visit booth 219 in the exhibit hall or go to www.cdg.ws.
Thermo Credit Provides Capital to Gibson Technology Solutions
Thermo Credit LLC announced today it has provided Gibson Technology Solutions a $250,000 factoring facility to be used for business expansion.
“We are confident that this factoring facility is going to give Andre and his team the working capital they need to take Gibson Technology to the next level,” said Seth Block, Thermo Credit’s executive vice president.
Located in New Jersey, Gibson Technology’s services include full outsourcing of an IT department, project-based remediation of services and supplemental resources for additional support.
Gibson Technology Solutions was founded in 2009 after a group of top IT professionals recognized the need for innovative computer solutions at competitive rates. Today, the company delivers cost-effective IT solutions to organizations seeking quick and easy access to information.
The company’s clients bridge many industries and a myriad of requirements, but they all share a need to increase productivity and save money by leveraging their expertise. It offers a full range of technology consulting services up to and including outsourcing entire IT operations on a contracted basis.
Gibson Technology CEO Andre Gibson thanked Thermo Credit and said, “I’m very excited. This new business relationship now provides us the opportunity to purse larger clients and compete with aggressive terms.”
The facility was funded by Thermo Credit’s lending partner, Thermo Communications Funding LLC.
Thermo Credit is a privately held funding company that provides asset-based loans, accounts receivable financing and factoring services. Specializing in the communications and technology industries, Thermo Credit serves established, well-run companies that need capital to expand their businesses, improve operations or fund an acquisition.
For more information, visit Thermo Credit at booth 323 in the exhibit hall, go to www.thermocredit.com or call Seth Block at 504-620-3101.
