Automation of customer premises equipment provisioning in a telecommunications network

A computer-readable medium having stored one or more sequences of instructions for automatically provisioning customer premises equipment of a subscriber in a next generation digital telecommunications network to provide a network service, which instructions, when executed by one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to carry out the steps of:

• receiving a service request from a network service provider that comprises information uniquely identifying the customer premises equipment to be provisioned, and a service to be provided by the customer premises equipment;
• receiving information indicating that access is provisioned for a subscriber associated with the customer premises equipment and that one or more permanent virtual circuits are established in network elements of the network for facilitating the access;
• retrieving a configuration template for a configuration appropriate for the customer premises equipment;
• allocating and reserving at least one resource associated with the customer premises equipment;
• allocating and reserving network addresses for a voice signaling channel and a bearer channel associated with communications between the customer premises equipment and the network;
• updating a domain name service server with information that associates the allocated and reserved network addresses with the customer premises equipment;
• creating and storing one or more mappings for the permanent virtual circuits in a switch device that directs network communications to the customer premises equipment;
• generating configuration data for the customer premises equipment based on the configuration template and stored system configuration information;
• delivering the configuration data over the network to the customer premises equipment to result in provisioning the customer premises equipment to provide the service.

An apparatus for automatically provisioning customer premises equipment of a subscriber in a next generation digital telecommunications network to provide a network service, comprising:

• means for receiving a service request from a network service provider that comprises information uniquely identifying the customer premises equipment to be provisioned and a service to be provided by the customer premises equipment;
• means for receiving information indicating that access is provisioned for a subscriber associated with the customer premises equipment and that one or more permanent virtual circuits are established in network elements of the network for facilitating the access;
• means for retrieving a configuration template for a configuration appropriate for the customer premises equipment;
• means for allocating and reserving at least one resource associated with the customer premises equipment;
• means for allocating and reserving network addresses for a voice signaling channel and a bearer channel associated with communications between the customer premises equipment and the network:
• means for updating a domain name service server with information that associates the allocated and reserved network addresses with the customer premises equipment;
• means for creating and storing one or more mappings for the permanent virtual circuits in a switch device that directs network communications to the customer premises equipment;
• means for generating configuration data for the customer premises equipment based on the configuration template and stored system configuration information;
• means for delivering the configuration data over the network to the customer premises equipment to result in provisioning the customer premises equipment to provide the service.

An apparatus for automatically provisioning customer premises equipment of a subscriber in a next generation digital telecommunications network to provide a network service, comprising:

• a processor;
• a network interface communicatively coupled between the processor and the network and configured to communicate data among the processor and the network;
• a computer-readable medium having stored one or more sequences of instructions which, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to carry out the steps of:
• receiving a service request from a network service provider that comprises information uniquely identifying the customer premises equipment to be provisioned and a service to be provided by the customer premises equipment;
• receiving information indicating that access is provisioned for a subscriber associated with the customer premises equipment and that one or more permanent virtual circuits are established in network elements of the network for facilitating the access;
• retrieving a configuration template for a configuration appropriate for the customer premises equipment;
• allocating and reserving at least one resource associated with the customer premises equipment;
• allocating and reserving network addresses for a voice signaling channel and a bearer channel associated with communications between the customer premises equipment and the network;
• updating a domain name service server with information that associates the allocated and reserved network addresses with the customer premises equipment;
• creating and storing one or more mappings for the permanent virtual circuits in a switch device that directs network communications to the customer premises equipment;
• generating configuration data for the customer premises equipment based on the configuration template and stored system configuration information;
• delivering the configuration data over the network to the customer premises equipment to result in provisioning the customer premises equipment to provide the service.

An apparatus for automatically provisioning customer premises equipment of a subscriber in a next generation digital telecommunications network to provide a network service, comprising:

• a provisioning engine configured to receive a service request from a network service provider that comprises information uniquely identifying the customer premises equipment to be provisioned, and a service to be provided by the customer premises equipment;
• a configuration template manager communicatively coupled to the provisioning engine and configured to retrieve a configuration template for a configuration appropriate for the customer premises equipment;
• means in the provisioning engine for allocating and reserving at least one resource associated with the customer premises equipment and for generating configuration data for the customer premises equipment based on the configuration template and stored system configuration information;
• wherein the means in the provisioning engine for allocating and reserving at least one resource associated with the customer premises equipment and for generating configuration data for the customer premises equipment based on the configuration template and stored system configuration information includes means for:
• receiving information indicating that access is provisioned for a subscriber associated with the customer premises equipment and that one or more permanent virtual circuits are established in network elements of the network for facilitating the access;
• allocating and reserving network addresses for a voice signaling channel and a bearer channel associated with communications between the customer premises equipment and the network:
• updating a domain name service server with information that associates the allocated and reserved network addresses with the customer premises equipment;
• creating and storing one or more mappings for the permanent virtual circuits in a switch device that directs network communications to the customer premises equipment;
• and
• a configuration delivery manager communicatively coupled to the provisioning engine and configured to deliver the configuration data over the network to the customer premises equipment to result in provisioning the customer premises equipment to provide the service.