| Getting Ready for VOD? Start with Those 'Non-Responders' |
And there it sits, a plastic lump. Maybe it hears the queries, but doesn't answer. Maybe it doesn't hear the queries, so it can't answer. You don't really know.
Month after month, billing cycle after billing cycle, the taciturn lump inside your customers' homes just sits there. Stubbornly, it refuses to say whether it holds any data worth retrieving.
In the language of machine misbehavior, that unsociable slab of plastic is known as a "non-responder." In the lore of unspoken industrial patterns, non-responder boxes typically represent around 10% of the installed base of two-way set-tops, both analog and digital.
Put another way: Say you run a system with 100,000 digital video customers. Right now, as you read this, 10,000 of those customers could be using boxes that seem like they're as deaf as doorknobs.
Up until now, non-responders haven't really mattered. They've been a pest, not a panic: More like the check that doesn't clear, statement after statement.
Historically, non-responders weren't even important enough to roll a truck. The primary downstream video service still worked, and the lost-revenue risk was fixed. That's because set-tops are usually installed with a pay-per-view maximum. Let's say it's 20 events. If the billing system still hasn't been able to retrieve event purchase information after the 20th event, no more events. (The customer then becomes the mechanism to report the non-responder.)
These days, though, the upsurge in services that lean on the upstream part of the signal path is equating non-responders with outages. The logic: A revenue-bearing service that isn't working, for whatever reason, is an outage. In the world of two-way, there are now upstream outages, and downstream outages.
It follows that what was once a niggling issue - finding and fixing non-responders -- is now a readiness criterion in most U.S. VOD deployments.
Most MSOs -- or at least those active with VOD and SVOD - now strongly encourage single-digit percentages, in the 3-5% range, for non-responder boxes. Finding and fixing non-responders becomes part of the get-ready list for VOD, just like buying equipment and training staff.
Can You Hear Me Now?
In general, a box is considered a non-responder if it hasn't heeded a series of two or three "ping tests" a day, for a few weeks. Queries happen at least monthly, and are sequential: Each box is polled for information, one by one, in a big circle. The best results come at night and on weekends, when more people are watching TV.
There are lots of reasons why boxes become non-responders. Most of the reasons - north of 90%, by some engineering estimates - start inside the house. The set-top plugged into the electrical outlet that's wired to the wall switch, for example, becomes a non-responder each time a hand flips off the light switch.
Or, consider the fix-it type, who outfits the house with an elaborate maze of splitters and house amplifiers, probably purchased from the corner store, probably not of a grade that a professional installer would use. Cheap or loose fittings, as well as connectors clamped on with whatever hand tool is closest, instead of a specific crimping tool, can make a box into a non-responder real fast.
In other cases, the problem is a filter (also known as a "trap.") In the 1990s, when the last, big plant upgrades began, some MSOs decided to take a shortcut to the two-way finish-line. They did so by installing "band-stop" filters on the houses of customers who didn't subscribe to a two-way service. That way, any electrical noise from those homes wouldn't gunk up the already noisy upstream path.
A box operating inside a house with a bandstop filter is automatically a non-responder: The filter blunts the upstream transmission.
Or, in some cases, the box may have been a non-responder since it began its working life. Ask any installer how long it takes to get a "ping" to a freshly installed set-top, once the customer care department has been contacted to initiate the order. In a perfect world, the care agent instructs the billing system to "ping" the box, which happens immediately. In reality, there's sometimes so much other stuff going on that it takes longer than even a patient installer wants to wait, to get that first, confirming ping.
When you ask engineers if they have the diagnostic tools they need to wipe out non-responders, the resultant smile registers somewhere between "you're kidding, right?" and "may I speak freely?"
Most say the situation is much better than it was a year ago, and that diagnostic tools continue to evolve to meet the tighter non-responder rules. Most also say there's more to be done -- like a hand-held ping generator that sidesteps the need for the installer to phone the customer care agent, who interlaces the ping with whatever else the provisioning system is doing.
Regardless, it's probably time to revisit your non-responder elimination plans, especially if you're getting ready to launch VOD.
This column originally appeared in the Broadband Week section of Multichannel News.