Policy software targets broadband use

Software maker Motive Communications last week announced a product it says gives service providers more insight into how their broadband offerings are being used.

The company's Usage Policy Manager correlates bandwidth consumption with available and potential service offerings, providing DSL carriers and cable operators with data they need to better cater their services to customers' needs.

"We're talking about service providers being able to manage at a higher level so that they can get more profits out of their broadband networks," says Kip McClanahan, who joined Motive as president earlier this year after Motive bought BroadJump, the broadband software company he co-founded.

For instance, the software could show a service provider that certain customers might be better off with a "lite" Internet access service than a higher-cost and higher-speed broadband offering. While the service provider might take an immediate hit by switching a customer to a less-expensive service, the move could help keep a customer from bailing out to another provider and eventually result in more business from such a customer. On the other hand, the software could include a policy that would identify heavy-duty network users, for instance those that use peer-to-peer file sharing programs, so that a service provider easily could identify a candidate to upsell to a premium service.

Motive officials say most existing policy management software, unlike Usage Policy Manager, is focused more on tracking network elements rather than how the network relates to business services.

Usage Policy Manager features several components, including a rules generator, a workflow engine that handles policy enforcement and a console for operations and customer care staff to keep an eye on usage trends and potential service problems. The software sits at various locations within a service provider network, with other existing management packages.

Motive seeks to cash in on the escalating competition between DSL and cable service providers, which have been slashing prices and bundling services to steal customers from one another and lure new customers to broadband. Motive officials say their new software would be one more tool for service providers to use to differentiate themselves.

Michael Harris, president and principal analyst at Kinetic Strategies, says Motive's offering is unique in providing service views to executive and marketing level employees.

"One thing that impresses me about Motive and BroadJump is that they've done a really good job focusing on areas of sufficient value, where service providers are willing to pay for something," Harris says. "That's unlike other areas, especially in cable, where products have become commodities and companies selling workflow, and provisioning tools are just beating each other up."

Usage Policy Manager is a new product category for Motive, which until now has specialized in offerings that help service providers set up self-service systems for their customers and that let carriers acquire and provision customers. The privately held company, which started in 1997 and now has 400 employees, says it has been profitable for the past five quarters. Motive generated $54 million in revenue last year, and company officials say the vendor is on track to as much as double revenue this year (partly because of additional revenue generated by products BroadJump sold).