Airties Lite to Give ISPs Vision into Customer-Owned Wi-Fi Routers

PARIS – May 07, 2026 – In a move aimed at solving a multi-billion-dollar headache for Internet Service Providers (ISPs), connectivity software leader Airties today announced the launch of Airties Lite. The new AI-driven platform is designed to give ISPs unprecedented visibility and management capabilities over Wi-Fi gateways that subscribers purchase themselves from retail stores—a long-standing operational blind spot that drives up costs and customer frustration.

Unveiled ahead of the ANGA COM 2026 trade show in Germany, Airties Lite leverages the TR-369 industry standard, also known as User Services Platform (USP), to remotely monitor, diagnose, and optimize these customer-owned devices without requiring any custom software to be installed on them. The solution promises to help ISPs reduce subscriber churn, streamline customer care, and unlock new revenue opportunities in markets where bringing your own device is common.

The Persistent 'Blind Spot' in Home Wi-Fi

For years, ISPs have struggled with a fundamental challenge: when a customer's Wi-Fi fails, the ISP gets the blame, regardless of who owns the hardware. In many global markets, including Germany, Austria, and Japan, it is common for consumers to purchase their own routers and gateways before signing up for a broadband service. This creates a support nightmare for providers.

When a customer with a retail-purchased router calls technical support, the ISP's hands are often tied. They lack the tools to see what is happening inside the customer's home network, making it nearly impossible to diagnose signal interference, misconfigurations, or performance bottlenecks. This leads to longer support calls, frustrating experiences, and often culminates in an expensive and frequently unnecessary technician visit, or 'truck roll.'

This friction is a primary driver of subscriber churn, an issue that costs the industry an estimated $189 billion annually across the US, UK, Europe, and Japan. Research consistently shows that poor in-home Wi-Fi performance is a leading reason customers switch providers, often ranking higher than price. As Metin Taskin, CEO and co-founder of Airties, stated in the announcement, "These homes also clearly represent a larger churn risk, which remains the paramount financial issue ISPs face today."

A Standardized Solution: The Power of TR-369

Airties Lite's innovation lies in its 'agentless' approach, made possible by the TR-369 (USP) standard. Developed by the Broadband Forum as a successor to the aging TR-069 protocol, USP was designed for the modern, real-time demands of the smart home. It enables secure, bi-directional communication between devices and management platforms, a significant leap from its predecessor's more rigid request-response model.

By leveraging this standard, Airties Lite can onboard and manage any TR-369 compliant retail gateway without needing a proprietary software agent embedded in the device's firmware. This removes a major barrier for ISPs, allowing them to extend their management capabilities to a vast and previously unmanaged segment of their subscriber base.

Key capabilities of the platform include:

• Connectivity Experience Index (CEI): A real-time score from 1-100 that quantifies the quality of each home's Wi-Fi, giving support teams a simple, actionable metric.
• AI-Driven Diagnostics: The platform's AI interprets data to automatically identify root causes of connectivity problems and suggests solutions for support agents.
• Proactive Campaigns: ISPs can use the platform's tools to identify homes with chronically poor Wi-Fi and proactively reach out with solutions or upgrade offers.

"Retail purchased gateways present a persistent blind spot for broadband operators," noted Martin Scott, Research Director at Analysys Mason, in a statement. He added that standards like TR-369 "offer a more scalable and structured path to extending visibility and control across increasingly heterogeneous home networks."

Redefining ISP-Subscriber Dynamics

The implications of this technology extend beyond simply fixing problems. By providing a unified view of both ISP-provisioned and retail-purchased gateways on a single cloud platform, Airties Lite allows operators to deliver a more consistent and reliable quality of experience across their entire network. This unified approach helps standardize care workflows and reduces the complexity for customer support teams.

"Airties Lite puts our AI-driven diagnostics and intelligence within reach of any operator with retail gateways that support TR-369 to reduce churn and create new revenue opportunities," said Taskin. The platform not only helps retain customers by improving the core service but also opens the door for new value-added services. With newfound visibility into the home network, ISPs could potentially offer premium services like advanced cybersecurity, parental controls, or application prioritization to customers using their own hardware—services that were previously impossible to deploy.

For customers who require more advanced features, the platform provides a clear upgrade path. An ISP can identify a home struggling with a basic retail router and offer an upgrade to a premium, ISP-managed gateway integrated with the full Airties Home suite, which offers features like mesh optimization and client steering.

Navigating Privacy in a Managed Network

Granting an ISP more visibility into a privately owned device naturally raises questions about consumer privacy. However, the use of an open industry standard like TR-369 is key to addressing these concerns. The protocol was designed with security and privacy at its core, mandating robust features that protect user data.

All communication is secured with TLS/DTLS encryption, the same technology that protects online banking. Furthermore, the standard requires mutual authentication, ensuring that only authorized management platforms can connect to a device. Crucially, TR-369 includes granular, role-based access controls, which can be configured to strictly limit the type of data an ISP can access, separating operational network metrics from personal user data. Because the solution is 'agentless,' it relies on the standardized and security-vetted capabilities of the router itself, rather than installing additional third-party software.

Airties will be showcasing the new platform and its full portfolio of solutions at the upcoming ANGA COM event in Cologne, Germany, where CEO Metin Taskin is also scheduled to speak on the financial impact of subscriber churn.