Video Platform Stability

1. Investigation

During the first two weeks we will familiarize ourselves with your vision and the added value that you wish to offer your viewers. We create an overview of your main business and operational KPI’s (for example churn percentage, NPS levels or number of tickets) and take note of your current ecosystem design (architecture, tools and monitoring capabilities). We also describe your current operational processes and service management lay out.

2. Plan

Based on our specific domain expertise and best practices knowledge we provide insights and views on your video delivery ecosystem. After only two weeks we will already be able to describe areas of improvement and quick wins for your most urgent use cases, reflecting the ‘dream’ and value for subscribers. For example, for black screens use cases it could very well be that we recommend changing the way you collect data enabling you to search error patterns efficiently for further analysis. Or we might recommend to collect status logs and errors from all the devices in the field so you can create a more complete overview of the problems and your operations team can set priorities according to the extent of viewer impact. Other examples could include to display support-oriented message codes and customer-oriented self-help messages when appropriate. 

3. Action

Here is where we get to the actual engineering. First we take action on the issues discussed in step 2. Then we can start solving your quality issues by categorizing and prioritizing problems. Then we identify root causes of failures and solve them. Some examples of actions that we could take are executing controlled tests for error reproduction to collect additional information like for example automated random zapping longevity tests. When doing this for a customer we were able to detect 3 distinct causes of black screen conditions:

1. a download issue after zapping,
2. a CDN timeout issue, and
3. a DRM failure.

In all of these cases, we restored service quickly by providing workarounds. Also we communicated with the corresponding technology vendors so they were able to properly resolve the identified faults in the right software stack. In another case, our troubleshooting brought to light additional problem areas, such as DSL modems losing the multicast signal, or failing fast channel changes and retransmission mechanisms.
In summary, within just a couple of weeks, Divitel can help you identify all distinct causes of black screens or any other quality use case and coordinate all required fixes with corresponding technology vendors. 

4. Results

Of course we also measure whether or not the actions that we have taken have had the desired business and operational effects. For example, due to actions taken, a large European operator managed to reduce their weekly customer care calls with 66%. You can imagine how much costs this improvement helps reduce. In another example we managed to resolve all vendor tickets, no more long to do lists! Our customers regain control of their operations and no longer need to spend valuable time and resources on back log issues. Instead they are now able to spend more time on development.

5. Long term recommendations

We advise you on more durable, long term improvements of operational processes, use of data or technology. For example, regarding the previously mentioned example of black screens, we could recommend action towards related topics and then pick the next improvement area and repeat the process.

6. Continuous improvement

Lastly, we can advise on what kind of next steps we could take in accordance to your support need.