Cox expands commitment to MetaSolv

August 29, 2003
America's Network Weekly
By Shira Levine, Executive Editor

MetaSolv Software will announce this week that Cox Communications has chosen its network resource management solution to support its expansion into new regional markets, further solidifying MetaSolv's position in the cable OSS space.

Cox already uses MetaSolv's order management and provisioning solution for the commercial voice and data services that it offers through its Cox Business division, and has committed to further investment in the software to support its expansion into San Diego, New England, Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Wichita and Hampton Roads, Virginia.

John Smiley, IT director for Cox Business, says the solution allows the carrier to automate critical steps of the order entry and provisioning process. Cox's network engineering group loads network element information into the software. Once an order is entered into the system, a provisioning plan is attached to the order, and the information is sent to the appropriate work groups for provisioning.

However, despite all the talk among OSS vendors-MetaSolv included-about flow-through provisioning, several of Cox's processes are still manual, such as attaching the provisioning plan and the actual turn up of the network elements. Smiley says that flow-through is still a "holy grail" and believes that some steps still need to be handled by human beings.

"Even if it's totally automated, you end up with fallout orders and manual intervention no matter what," he says. "We want to make sure the orders have the attention they need to be successful, the first time through, as often as we can, so we put them in front of people who know what needs to be done."

Yankee Group analyst David Hawley says that Cox's investment in inventory management and provisioning puts it ahead of many of its MSO counterparts. Most cable operators have little to no topology information about their networks.

"No one knows what elements are out there," he says. "I have heard of cases where if an engineer cannot find a network element, he calls the employee with the longest history with the company, who might know where it is."

The development of today's cable industry makes maintaining an accurate inventory even more of a challenge, says David Sharpley, senior vice president of marketing at MetaSolv. Today's cable monoliths such as Cox and Comcast were created by "clustering"-buying and swapping systems among each other to create cohesive geographic footprints.

"If you map out the systems, there are all these different segments of serving territories, all with their own inventory, that need to managed and ultimately interconnected," he says.

Coordinating those systems is a significant undertaking-but not doing so could lead to lost revenues down the road, Hawley says.