PDF of this tutorialSome Money-Saving Applications
Remote testing of the local loop has already paid dividends for a number of telcos. It has cut the dispatch rate by as much as 50 percent, simplified maintenance of the plant, and allowed telcos to plan for growth intelligently.
There are four situations in which the economic benefits of testing are especially evident. First, it is important to test before dispatching; this eliminates a dispatch on "no trouble found" conditions. Second, it is essential to test a new service before turning it over to a customer. This reduces installation trouble reports, reports of trouble that occur on a line that was installed within the last thirty days. Third, it is crucial to do proactive scanning tests to reduce the number of trouble reports. Finally, testing can be used to allow an outside plant (OSP) technician to fix more than one problem on a single dispatch. If a technician fixes an additional problem on just two dispatches each week, the cumulative savings would be enormous. It is clear that testing pays off.
Additional Benefits
ILECs can get some more benefits from using remote testing units (RTUs), besides the testing of metallic pairs. With little added cost, they can run a trunk from the RTUs to the switch; now all their loops can be tested for noise, load coils and other ISDN prequalifying tests. They can also do automatic loop test (ALT) proactive scans and cable patterning of faults. Because they can also test added features on their normal plant, they now have the same testing capabilities on their unbundled loops as on the bundled ones.
