Policy-based multi-level routing: dealing with uncertainty in the provisioning process of the first mile part of DSL-based TelCo products

Abstract

The copper-based First Mile is the blind spot of a TelCo. While the Second Mile comprises active network components that can report status and configuration, the First Mile largely consists of passive components. Hence, any information about the First Mile can only be obtained from the TelCo's database. Given the high rate of change in First Mile data due to provisioning for new customers as well as product-changes, network extensions and a number of other causes, this data cannot be guaranteed to reflect the First Mile's reality. This situation is aggravated by the fact, that some parts of the First Mile are decades old and the data granularity required by modern DSL products exceeds that of the data gathered in the pre-DSL era. This paper proposes an approach to tackle uncertainty in First Mile data by introducing a policy-based approach avoiding re-routing or re-checking connections on a pin-by-pin level. Instead, a connection is built by assembling existing sub-connections. A connection's properties are computed by its sub-connections properties which in turn are stored as facts in a database.