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June 21, 2022

Acotel: transforming routers from simple ‘black boxes’ to data gold mines and services platforms

The Internet of Things is transforming the telecommunications sector, allowing operators to gain insights into customer behavior and provide better, more innovative services based on them. Leading ICT Cloud company Acotel is committed to making this potential a reality in both the Italian and international telecoms markets. Using Microsoft Azure IoT, the company has developed a highly scalable edge-to-cloud solution that “mines” and processes data on traditional household routers. By providing that data to operators, it gives them an unparalleled understanding of their customer base and the perceived state of their services – all without introducing additional devices in the customer’s environment. This extraordinary solution, which stands right at the intersection between IoT technology and the telecoms sector, is already being used across over three million routers from different vendors in Italy – with plans to expand it to other countries already in the pipeline.

Acotel

“This initiative shows that innovation can come from everywhere – even from that black router box with flickering lights that we all keep in a hidden corner of our house.”

Fabrizio Gorietti, General Manager at Acotel, is reflecting on his company’s latest large-scale IoT project – and why household routers are proving pivotal to its success. 

“We’re used to seeing routers just as the devices that give us WiFi, but there is so much more to them,” says Gorietti. “They actually contain precious information that can transform how telecom operators provide their services.”

It’s a truly untapped potential that Acotel – an Italian ICT Cloud company – is now bidding to realize by combining IoT, big data, and cloud technology. 

Using Microsoft’s Azure IoT Platform, the company has developed an edge-to-cloud solution that “senses” and “mines” hundreds of data parameters from household routers and processes them to deliver high-resolution metrics and feed analysis and services platforms. That enables telecoms operators to cost effectively, deliver consistently high-quality broadband, and provide innovative services that show a proactive approach to caring for their customers. 

The solution is already being used by one of Italy’s largest telecom operators, with Acotel planning to expand it even further as time goes by. 

“Our goal is to provide our clients with great new opportunities and simple solutions that leverage the potential of cloud and IoT technologies,” says Gorietti. 

“With this initiative, we’re doing just that: bringing innovation to pioneering companies.”

An ambitious plan to enter the telecoms market

Rome and New York-based Acotel has more than 40 years of experience operating in the telecommunications, energy and security sectors. At the core of its work is combining cloud-based software and hardware to help companies embrace digital transformation with targeted solutions. 

“We may be a small company, but we put innovation and technology at the heart of all we do,” says Fabrizio Gorietti. “Our focus is to leverage the power of cloud platforms such as Microsoft Azure and IoT devices and sensors in order to get various types of data and information from them.

Innovation is at the heart of Acotel’s mission and under the leadership of its Founder Claudio Carnevale, the company strives to ensure that every service it delivers brings something unique to the market. 

“You may not think of a traditional telco router as an IoT device,” adds Gorietti. “But that’s where things get interesting. 

“The router is on 24x7; it supports key services for the household – think how central WiFi is to study, work and lifestyle today. But still, it is largely underused by customers, and to some extent by operators as well. Because the broadband router has incredible potential when it comes to delivering innovative services. 

“That was our starting point: we aimed to create a 100% software-based solution that would turn traditional routers into smart devices”

Opportunities to do so are currently flourishing in the telecommunications sector, where Acotel is looking to establish itself as an over-the-top provider – helping to relieve operators of some of their most time-consuming and costly activities.

“We are convinced that operators can do a lot more with their time if they reposition themselves in a new digital world,” says Alberto Ciarniello, Chief Technology Officer at Acotel. 

“This is a key part of what we are doing: we want to use our expertise to provide solutions that can really help operators rethink themselves and better preserve their core business. 

“Two years ago, we had a great opportunity to do it.”

The dawn of Smart Routers

When Acotel approached a leading Italian telecom operator in 2020, their proposition was simple: providing a cost-effective way for the operator to get the most out of their data by understanding their customers better through advanced data insights.  

“A router is a very sophisticated machine that actually resembles a computer,” explains Alberto Ciarniello. “Up until now, this computer has only been used to connect households to broadband, just transmitting information.” 

But Acotel understood that routers could do much more. “That’s the basic idea behind our solution,” he continues. “To make that router smarter and equip it to elaborate a lot of information with a S/W-only cross-vendor solution that can be used on existing routers out there.” 

At the heart of the solution is a software that Acotel has connected to the Azure IoT Platform, which can be remotely installed on individual routers already deployed in customer’s homes, as well as on new routers delivered to new customers. Once downloaded, the software can “sense” and “mine” more than 700 different types of information from a single device, with variable time resolution that – depending on the type of data - can go as a high as every few minutes.

All the data gathered is processed and stored on an Azure platform and packaged in real time to the operator, who is then able to analyze it further and act upon it. “This opens up an entirely new world for our client and the over three million routers it currently operates our solution on” says Fabrizio Gorietti. 

“It allows them to get greater understanding of customer profiles, internet access, device performance and much more.”

How Smart Routers are benefiting the telco operator

Having been able to test and fully validate the solution, Acotel’s client has now been using it on multiple router vendor models since late 2021. 

As things currently stand, the operator is using Acotel and Microsoft’s platform to achieve three main goals: understanding customer behavior and needs, proactive assurance, and dynamic WiFi optimization. 

“One of the key things that the operator wanted to achieve from the very beginning was a better understanding of customer behavior, things like the number of members living in a household, the type of mobile lines they’re using, consumption models and more,” says Fabrizio Gorietti. 

“By combining the data we provide with information they already have in their customer database, they can deliver more targeted offers, tailored to individual customers.”

This also helps Acotel’s customer to stay on top of its current services and intervene before issues even arise or are flagged up by users.   “Being able to monitor at scale the state of the fiber and WiFi performances – and the way WiFi quality is perceived by customers – is a game changer for operators,” he says. 

“This way they can interact in a proactive way with the customer, save money on service maintenance and provide a higher quality of services. They can also improve performance and optimize the WiFi itself.”

Maximizing the potential of data, the cloud and Acotel’s platform  

Beyond this collaboration, Acotel is working with Microsoft to scale its platform and branch out to other companies and sectors such as sales optimization and tourism. 

“Data sensing and mining can truly revolutionize how an organization does business,” says CTO Alberto Ciarniello. “Using our software, we can mine data anywhere we want and provide our telco customer with near-real-time insights on the state of their devices and services – all by using a powerful distributed processing platform to enable new services.

“And we can do that in a cost-effective way that can be scaled up to almost any size. Broadband is pervasive and it is a million-units-sized business almost by definition, so we developed a digital product that can scale across the entire installed base of telco operators, while covering different router vendor technologies, to deliver a seamless solution.”

To facilitate distribution to telco operators around the world, the Smart Router solution is now available also via the Microsoft Commercial Marketplace. 

It is very easy to install and roll out, says Luigi Zabatta, Chief Revenue Officer at Acotel. “Installing our agent onto the operator’s over three million routers was fast and easy,” he explains. 

“That’s because we didn’t need to deploy any new hardware; all we had to do was remotely install the software on existing devices, using the device manager system of the telco company. In a matter of weeks, all routers had already been equipped with it.” 

The benefit of this isn’t just scalability, but also security. “One of the key features of the solution is that it can provide the same level of security throughout the installed base,” he says. 

“All of these processes require a very strict security policy that allows us to handle the data and share it with the client safely.”

Looking ahead

With the platform now well up and running, Acotel is looking to expand its telco customer base and use cases in collaboration with Microsoft.

“We have a new version of the software agent ready to be installed,” says Fabrizio Gorietti. “And together with Microsoft, we’re working to take our solution beyond Italian borders. Working with Microsoft provided us not only with a best-in-class IoT cloud platform, but also the scalability and fast-paced support we needed to think big and prepare for our next goals. 

“We are also showcasing the potential for innovative services such as high-resolution WiFi motion sensing, including detection and distance of nearby devices, device movements and distribution in space and time,” adds Gorietti.

Crucial to making this happen is a change in the way these companies perceive data-led services and the transformational potential of solutions like Acotel’s. 

“Operators have probably never had such large quantities of customer data at their disposal,” he continues. “Fortunately, our first telco customer trusted us with investing in this kind of solution, and it’s for that reason our work with them has been so successful.” 

This is something that Alberto Ciarniello deems crucial for any future collaboration. “If we really want this solution to be used at its best, we really need to see a different cultural approach to big data,” he concludes. 

“From a financial standpoint, the investment in these solutions is usually quite low. Acotel’s solution is a “pay-as-you-go” service, so from telco perspective there is no server or platform investment to make, just a license fee for each router connected. So, this is a typical Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution. 

“What we really need to see now is that leap of faith in the technology, and an investment in cultural change.”

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