Maintaining distribution frames is a very labor-intensive process. That is because all jumpers must be made manually. In other words, technicians must be dispatched to the MDF or IDF to physically place the appropriate jumpers when a service is being turned up or modified. This process is very resource intensive, requiring on-site labor within the telephone exchange. It also requires advanced scheduling and extensive coordination between different service-provider groups and operations support systems (OSSs) to be performed correctly. In addition, a manual process such as this is prone to errors, such as improper punch-downs and incorrect cross-connects. These problems can delay the turn-up of new services, and many times result in the loss of existing services. This, in turn, can increase the time to revenue for the service, which often causes dissatisfaction with the customer and can result in unnecessary operational expenditures, as technicians must be dispatched to isolate and resolve any problems that arise.

Another problem with today's telco environments is that technicians are often required to go to the frame to manually analyze or test the copper. During service turn-up, for example, a handheld testset typically is connected to a newly configured circuit to verify the accuracy of an installation. In addition, in some instances, troubleshooting a service may require similar on-site visits to "shoe up the frame" for testing purposes.

Figure 2. Technicians are often required to visit the frame to "shoe up a testset" for service verification or troubleshooting.