How to choose OLT management software for your ISP: a 12-point checklist
Once a fibre network passes a few hundred customers, managing OLTs by hand stops working. Installers wait on the phone for the NOC, nobody knows which ONT has which settings, and a fibre cut is discovered when customers start calling. OLT management software fixes this, but the products are very different. Use this checklist before you choose.
1. Does it support your OLTs?
Check the exact models and software versions you run, for example Huawei MA5608T, MA5680T and MA5800. Ask whether the vendor has customers running them in production, not only in a lab.
2. Does it handle every ONT brand you have?
Very few networks are single-brand. Customers bring their own routers, and stock changes from year to year. Ask for a list of tested models and what works on each: internet, management, TR-069 and Wi-Fi settings.
3. Is a TR-069 ACS included?
Changing a Wi-Fi password, fixing PPPoE or checking connected devices without a site visit saves more money than anything else. If the ACS is a separate product, add its price and its maintenance to the comparison.
4. How fast is it?
Time an ONT authorization during the trial, from clicking to a working customer. Seconds matter when an installer is waiting on site, multiplied by every install you do in a year.
5. Do customers drop during changes?
Ask what happens when you change an ONT's profile, VLAN or speed. Does the customer go offline while it is re-applied? A good system changes settings live and checks the ONT afterwards.
6. Are bulk changes safe?
Bulk changes save hours, and can also break hundreds of customers in one click. Look for filters, progress, per-ONT results, automatic checks and an automatic undo when something goes wrong.
7. How good are the alarms?
Too many alarms are as bad as none. The NOC needs to know about a fibre cut, not about every load-shedding cycle. Ask whether the system tells real cuts from power cuts and where on the PON a cut is.
8. Can you limit what each person can do?
Installers, NOC staff, franchises and resellers need different rights, and often only their own OLTs. Every change should be logged with who did it and when.
9. Does it need a public IP on your network?
It shouldn't. A cloud system should reach your OLTs through an encrypted tunnel from your own router, with nothing exposed to the internet.
10. Are your configurations backed up?
Automatic OLT configuration backups, with a view of what changed, turn a bad night into a five-minute fix.
11. How is it priced?
Per-ONT pricing punishes growth. A flat price per OLT, with unlimited ONTs and users, keeps your cost predictable.
12. Can you move without downtime?
The best system is worthless if moving to it means a night of outages. Ask for a free trial on your own OLT, a read-only test phase, and a plan to import names, zones and PPPoE users from your current panel.