Jungo aims to reduce support calls and ease IPTV and other new services

Operators are bogged down with the tremendous support costs associated with introduction of new broadband services, while subscribers are frustrated by the difficulties in using these services. That is the claim of Jungo Ltd (an NDS company), which has launched a Support Cost Reduction package (SCR) for reducing “the costs and frustration” of broadband services.

Jungo provides broadband gateway middleware and says operators using this new solution can introduce new services like IPTV cost-effectively. The solution combines intelligent software located in the residential gateway with remote management software located at the data centre and it automatically identifies and corrects many service problems, or guides the user through a simple troubleshooting procedure.

Jungo says the net result is to reduce the need for support centre help for subscribers. If a call is made to the support centre, it will be cheaper because its Support Cost Reduction package provides efficient interaction with the support representative using diagnostics and remote management tools.

“Operators using Jungo’s solution can easily introduce new value-added services while keeping operational expense at a minimum,” the vendor says. “They can continuously respond to market trends and customer demands, placing them in a strong position to increase revenues, build customer loyalty and reduce churn.”

As residential gateways become widespread, more subscribers can have access to complex networking services like VoIP and IP video. Jungo says it conducted a study with two network operators that indicates that with the introduction of these new services, support calls have grown 16-fold, with support costs surpassing an average $50 per subscriber per annum.

“To reduce support costs, operators often turn to remote gateway management solutions. However, these only help once a call has been made, the costs have been absorbed and the user satisfaction is compromised,” Jungo says. “Unlike commonly deployed remote management solutions, SCR includes an automatic intelligent mechanism that resides in the residential gateway. This sophisticated software tool includes self-healing and self-help components that in most cases eliminate the need for a call to the support centre.”

“As customer support becomes a key inhibitor to the introduction of new broadband services, operators turn to management systems to assist their support teams,” says Ofer Vilenski, Jungo’s CEO and Co-Founder. “We have introduced a paradigm shift, where instead of building systems to handle support calls, our technology solves users’ problems before they become support calls.

“The SCR, along with our Jungo.net services portal, allow operators to increase revenue per customer without increasing their support calls, and thereby minimising customer frustration.”