loading
loading
As homes fill with connected devices, internet service providers face growing pressure to deliver experiences that are not only reliable but also secure. Daniel Herscovici of Plume discusses how real-time network data, specialized AI and automated troubleshooting can help providers identify connectivity issues and turn network intelligence into action. That visibility can also play an important role in cybersecurity, particularly as devices such as cameras, thermostats and other connected products create additional potential attack surfaces within the home. As AI agents begin running tasks around the clock, even a brief disruption can make something customers rely on stop working, and every new agent and device widens the attack surface, which makes reliability and cybersecurity the same job for providers. Plume approaches security at the connectivity layer, providing protection for devices connected to the router. Herscovici discusses capabilities including safe browsing, intrusion protection, anomaly detection and vulnerability detection, as well as the value of identifying outdated firmware and known device vulnerabilities. Combined with proactive connectivity management, this approach can help ISPs move beyond simply monitoring network performance toward delivering a more secure and reliable connected home experience. For providers, protecting devices and resolving problems before they affect customers can also help strengthen trust and support long-term customer relationships. Discover Plume Console, the newly launched AI-powered solution helping ISPs streamline operations, proactively resolve subscriber issues and unlock new opportunities for growth. Learn more about Plume Console Steve Saunders: When you talk to ISPs, do you think most of them are more worried about going too far in with AI too soon or being left behind? Daniel Herscovici: They're worried about being left behind. Steve Saunders: Is it? Daniel Herscovici: It's definitely left behind. And it's really around this combination of being able to deliver the same or better customer experience while simultaneously reducing the operating cost or the cost to service that customer. And there's so much pressure, economic pressure, and there's so much pressure to differentiate yourself. Steve Saunders: That you are able to pull in data from half a billion devices. Daniel Herscovici: The fidelity of that data helps you move from looking backwards into history and what might have happened to looking forward and almost predicting what will happen. Data without insight is worthless. So it's interesting to have data. It's interesting to know what the data says. It's interesting to even interpret it and provide interesting insights that there's a problem. The gap is action. So you need to have the ability to take action on that data. And that's not a trivial thing. In the ISP world, being on the router and being able to imagine you've got 1,000 knobs to turn or 500 knobs to turn and being able to actually turn those knobs to actually reset the router, to change the password, to modify packet priority and to take that action in real time or semi-real time as you determine what the issues are, that is a huge gap. Many solutions out there are decent at identifying an issue and sharing the fact that an issue is occurring, but solving that- Steve Saunders: But they don't take the next step. Daniel Herscovici: Yeah. Solving it requires the next step. Steve Saunders: We've gone through quality of service, quality of experience, and now we're at quality of outcome. Daniel Herscovici: Absolutely. Steve Saunders: It's about that deliverable. And of course, if the outcome's right, you can charge for it, right? Daniel Herscovici: Yes. When you ask somebody what the internet is, they talk about Netflix and they talk about their gaming experience. And so outcome-based focus is strictly around, is this application running and performing the way you want to at that given time? Is it buffering? Is it stuttering? Does it have high latency? And what can I do to prevent that from happening? It's invisible to the consumer. Steve Saunders: Well, it should be. Daniel Herscovici: It should be. It naturally reduces calls to the ISP. It naturally reduces truck rolls. So the fact that a customer never experiences an issue, improves the customer experience, makes them trust you more, creates customer confidence and trust in the ISP that they're looking out for them. But also it does so in a way that optimizes cost. Our fundamental belief is around customer experience is your moat as an ISP, and you have to do so in a way that honors your cost structure. You can never solve even 90% of problems autonomously. It's just not possible because fundamentally you are dealing with a physical world environment. And so placement of the gateway, placement of your device and where it's located in the home, whether or not you have an extender, those are physical world activities that require human intervention. Steve Saunders: I love the fact that you put customer retention ahead as a priority. Daniel Herscovici: I think it's customer retention first. I think it's how to deliver that at a cost that matches your business or improves your business acumen and being coached on how to solve a little slightly more complex technical problems in the home and really delighting a customer in an exchange. It's just a different fulfillment on the care side too. I think it's a win-win everywhere. We have this measure that we are optimizing. We call it Time to Wifi. Probably once you hear the statistic, it's not very surprising. 20 plus percent of churn of people leaving an ISP, if on average 1,000 people leave an ISP a year, depending on the size, a large majority of that, 20, 25% of that is in the first 90 days of an exchange. How do you A, get somebody online and have, "Wow, we really accomplished something here. I got my entire home connected. I'm online and operating. I really love this." How do you let somebody get onto wifi right away? But then there is a whole host of optimization that occurs to make sure that when the network is stressed, when there's multiple people using multiple things at the same time, that it's operating efficiently, that every device has enough coverage. Doing that day one when all you want to do is get online is not the right moment to do that. So we have this time to wifi metric, so how quickly can we get somebody online? And then we have this 90-day onboarding. And how do we take the actions that are a little bit more involved to optimize your network, to secure your network, to do the fine-tuning versus the gross tuning to make sure that it's operating properly? And I think that builds trust as well. So it's how do you handhold a customer through that experience so that they feel you're looking out for them, so they feel you're building a great connection. That's the part that we try to focus on.
document fetched 2026-10-23 16:26 · canonical https://fierce-network.com/sponsored/securing-ai-powered-connected-home