What’s happening

NGA currently supports a maximum of one primary bitstream offer per ONT. We have received a number of requests from Service Providers who want a nationally consistent service that allows a new primary offer to be added to an ONT before the old one is removed, to provide a much better customer experience during upgrades, with abandonment and similar scenarios.

We have introduced a workaround for this limitation, until such time as a more elegant solution can be provided. You can add a second primary bitstream offer by an ONT by using an Add Secondary Offer service request following by a Change Plan service request to change it to a primary offer.

What’s the detail

NGA supports two kinds of offers:

• Primary offers, which usually include a bitstream and an optional ATA Voice service. Currently there must be one, and only one, primary offer per ONT.
• Secondary offers, which take advantage of the ONT’s spare ports to support additional bitstream or ATA Voice services at the site.

We have received multiple requests to make NGA more flexible and nationally consistent service. In particular, Service Providers would like Chorus to provide the ability they have with other LFCs that enables them to get a second primary offer-based service up and running before removing the old service. This is simpler operationally and technically than using secondary offers, and provides a better experience for customers.

We have successfully tested a workaround that allows you to do this, as follows:

• You request a secondary offer to be added to the ONT;
• Once this order has been completed (normally 4 hours later), you submit a change plan request to change this offer to a primary;

Note that if there are insufficient spare ports, UNI or ATA, to support the primary offer then this change plan request will fail.

The purpose of this workaround is not to change the NGA business rules, but to give you the flexibility to manage these rules yourselves to deliver the customer experience you want. NGA Secondary offers can still be used if preferred.

We are also interested in understanding how you want primary and secondary offers to work going forward and if there are other business rules or constraints that you feel unnecessarily constrain your experience or systems.

Please also note that the intent of this workaround is not to replace all Connect & Replace, Transfer or Additional ONT requests. Currently the industry is discussing these scenarios. This workaround will, however, provide another capability in your toolbox that can be used on a case-by-case basis.

This approach does present both opportunities and challenges:

• Currently most NGA services are delivered to port 1 of the ONT. With this approach, you will need to ensure Customers know which physical port to connect their CPE devices to;
• If this approach is used for switching Service Providers, the Customer will need to ask the Losing Service Provider to remove their old service, i.e. the Gaining Service Provider will not be able to remove it.

It is important to understand that while this workaround allows you to provide a better experience if used correctly, it could result in a poor experience and drive additional operational costs if used incorrectly. You need to check the ONT prior to using this workaround, to ensure that there are sufficient ports available to complete your request. If there are insufficient ports available, then the Change Offer service request will be rejected. Continued incorrect use of this workaround may result in us withdrawing the workaround, until we can design and built a more robust process with additional checks.

We are interested in understanding how you want primary and secondary offers to work going forward, to give you the flexibility you need to manager your customers’ experience. We would also be interested in understanding if there are other business rules or constraints that you feel unnecessarily constrain your experience or systems.

FAQs