Leveraging new opportunities with USP

Leveraging new opportunities with USP

By Daniel Egger, Axiros GmbH and Project Stream Lead for Broadband User Services (BUS) Data Modeling Project Stream

As the number of connected devices continues to proliferate, service providers have a unique opportunity to monetize the Connected Home. But first, they must unlock a truly interoperable ecosystem for user services that vastly improves the consumer experience.

Bringing both benefits and challenges, service providers must evolve how the broadband experience is measured and delivered both in the home and for business. Built by vendors and service providers within Broadband Forum, TR-369, also known as User Services Platform (USP), is the evolution of TR-069 – the protocol for remote IP network CPE management.

For service providers, this will provide the key to accessing a host of new revenue generating opportunities.

Enhancing TR-069

With one billion installations worldwide, TR-069 has fostered the broadband ecosystem we know today and is largely responsible for creating the mass market that stimulated broadband innovation and subscriber adoption.

For the Internet of Things (IoT) though, it does have its limitations with a notable one being the N:1 Relationship, where a device only has one relationship with the provider network Auto Configuration Server (ACS). In other words, whenever a service provider needed to extract information from a device, it had to go through one system. In addition, there are other drawbacks such as TR-069 requiring a back-channel for connection retrace in case the user ever needed to adjust anything on the server side. As TR-069 is session based, it requires an event which triggers a connection which is established on the CPE side.

To access anything from the server side, service providers needed a spec channel to request a new connection to be established. As operators have different systems in their network, attaining data from a particular device for provisioning purposes, customer service purposes, monitoring or for Wi-Fi optimization, can prove troublesome. Users are limited by the N:1 relationship which hinders the ability to extract the data they require to function optimally.

To better manage the vast numbers and different types of devices now being brought to networks as a result of the uptake of IoT services, service providers have considered the following options:

• Option 1: Installing a TR-069-aware proxy before the ACS – which usually means, funneling data through one single system.
• Option 2: Use a beefy ACS setup and forward data to other parties.
• Option 3: Hand over the device from one dedicated ACS to another as needed.
• Option 4: Use multiple TR-069 implementations on a device.

Moving forward with USP

Also taking on the challenge of preparing services providers for the IoT era, is Broadband Forum. With the design of USP, we invented new ways of establishing multiple connections to different Endpoints and introduced several new concepts to make this a reality. One major evolution to the standards and Endpoint IDs is that every relevant participant in USP has a unique identifier, and previously in TR-069 this only existed for the CPE side. Operators have the ability to specify these IDs in very different ways and allow an Agent such as a games console, Wi-Fi connection or streaming service to talk to different Controllers such as a handheld device or a computer and know exactly which Controller requires which data.

Operators’ ability to place the to/from Endpoint IDs becomes a key element of any Records (which are the low-level packets sent between USP participants) for routing. USP also provides the ability to address multiple Controllers and more can be added via discovery mechanisms, so multiple Controllers can be easily installed. This is alongside a dedicated configuration per Controller and commands which allows Controller specific targeting.

Presenting a choice of Message Transport Protocols (MTPs), operators can choose the best possible connectivity for Controllers and re-use the existing infrastructure. Operators can have different MTPs for different Controllers and configure them how they see fit, allowing each Controller to subscribe to the data it requires. It also enables Controller Trust which define access controls for each Controller and restricts the abilities the Controller has on the data model.

Multiple Controllers and greater security

USP facilitates multi-Controller architecture, as well as the addition and removal of Controllers.

There are three ways to onboard a new Controller:

1) An established Controller sets up a new Controller and instructs the Agent to send an Onboard Request to that new Controller.

2) A Controller advertises itself and the Agent picks it up and decides to start an onboard process using the advertised information.

3) The Agent is locally instructed to onboard with a Controller, e.g. via GUI configuration or third-party mechanism like an app.

In addition, operators can also have different MTPs for a single Controller in order to create redundant communication paths. Several mechanisms are in place to prevent malicious Controllers getting into the system and taking control of device. There is role-based access control per Controller and a Trust can be established with an Agent on its first use. The Trust can be attached with certain certificates for authorization and this can be used for end-to-end encryption for a secure connection.

Greater flexibility ahead

When it comes to the golden ticket of generating additional revenue streams, USP allows for the roll-out and implementation of new applications much easier without affecting existing installations. Operators can scale deployments more easily as one system can undertake the heavy lifting while the other can facilitate different purposes. Additionally, there are more set-up options for an operator’s infrastructure which can be achieved easily and flexibly and USP allows for more efficient data transport.  Not only allowing multiple Controllers to be created seamlessly, USP ensures enhanced security and greater operability.