Cable TV and broadband operator ERP & CRM software in Surat — from WhatsApp complaint to closed job

Contents

1. Quick answer and quick facts
2. The business and who this cable and broadband ERP fits
3. The challenge: one complaint, five hand-offs
4. Before vs after and task by task
5. Solution architecture and the ticket lifecycle
6. Module-by-module walkthrough: ticket intake, customers and connections, WhatsApp requests, Network file import, assignment and dispatch, field app, inventory, deposits and devices, renewals and recharge, OLT and network, logins and access, dashboard and reports
7. Business rules built into the system
8. ERP vs CRM for cable and ISP operators and broadband CRM
9. What it does not do: billing
10. AI and automation
11. Custom vs ISP billing software, Tally and Excel
12. Every feature and its purpose and roles
13. How it was built, what was delivered, status and cost and timeline
14. FAQ

What is the best ERP software for a cable TV and broadband operator?

For a cable TV and broadband operator that works as a franchise or local network partner, the most useful ERP is built around service operations: one ticket for every complaint, new connection, shifting and closure, from whatever channel it arrives; customer and connection records that handle several connections under one mobile number, broadband and cable together; team and technician assignment; a phone-first field app with status, photos and materials used; router, ONU and set-top box inventory with serial numbers and refundable deposits; plan renewal lists; OLT, POP and DP fields; and an owner dashboard. Yukti AI, a software company in Surat, built exactly this service operations ERP and CRM for a Surat franchise operator. It is not billing software; subscriber invoicing and collection are a separate, later phase.

Quick facts

Who is this cable and broadband operator software for?

The system was designed around a franchise operator that serves customers on the ground: it receives requests, sends technicians, installs and recovers devices, and keeps customers on valid plans. If you run a local cable operator (LCO) business, a broadband or ISP franchise, a fibre installation partner, a DTH or digital cable service point, a society or campus network or a WISP in Surat, Gujarat or anywhere in India, this is the shape of custom ERP software that fits you.

It is a good fit if most of these are true for you:

• Complaints arrive on WhatsApp, in a downloaded report, by phone and in person, and nobody has one list.
• New complaints from a portal report are found by comparing sheets by eye.
• You cannot say quickly which technician has how many open jobs.
• Routers, ONUs, STBs, drop cable and connectors are issued to technicians on trust, with no running balance.
• Customers pay a refundable deposit for a device and nobody can tell what is held, what is due back and what was never returned.
• The month’s renewal calls are made from an Excel filter that someone rebuilds every time.
• A complaint cannot be tied to an OLT or an area, so a network fault looks like twenty unrelated calls.

The same design suits any field-service business that sends people to customer sites: see fleet management software for vehicles and drivers, and manufacturing ERP software for factories.

One complaint, five hand-offs

These points are our description of the gaps the system was built to close, based on the way the work was described to us and on the shape of the data the franchise handles. They are not quotes from the management, and none of the operator’s business figures are shown here.

• A manual download-compare-copy cycle. The network’s complaint report is downloaded at intervals; someone checks which complaints are new, copies them into another sheet and forwards them.
• Dispatch by phone and chat. Work is passed to engineers, splicers, cable teams, electricians and field technicians by call and message, with no single record of who has what.
• Customers with several connections. One mobile number can hold broadband and cable connections and several addresses; raising the ticket against the wrong one wastes a visit.
• Devices and deposits off the books. Routers and STBs go out with a refundable deposit; closures need the device back, any damage assessed and the refund calculated and paid.
• Material without a ledger. Cable, connectors and equipment are consumed on jobs without a stock balance by godown, technician and customer.
• No network view. Complaints are counted by customer, not by OLT or zone, so a bad OLT or a cut feeder is easy to miss.

If your operation runs on sheets and chat groups like this, see how we replace Excel and Tally with one system.

How does a day in a cable and broadband office change, task by task?

The table walks through real jobs in the franchise and what each looks like in the ERP. The “before” column is a general description of working across sheets and chat, not a measurement, and no time savings are claimed.

The ticket lifecycle: 12 statuses and 9 field statuses

The office sees twelve ticket statuses and the technician sees nine simple field statuses. Each field status moves the ticket to the matching office status automatically, so the office board and the technician’s phone never disagree.

New tickets start as New (office, WhatsApp, phone, website) or Unassigned (imported from the network file). The ticket board has seven columns — New, Unassigned, Assigned, In Progress, Pending, Resolved, Closed — and tickets can be dragged between them; every move is written to the ticket’s activity timeline.

Cable TV and broadband ERP modules, walked through in the order a request moves

Twelve modules in an office web app and a separate phone-first field app, all reading and writing the same records — the scope of a full AI-powered business management system, shaped around a network operator. A department switch lets the owner see Broadband, Cable TV or both; office and field staff are fixed to their own department.

1. Ticket management for cable and broadband

A ticket carries the department, request type, source, customer and connection, address, category and subcategory, description, priority, zone, OLT, current team and staff, status, expected resolution, notes, shifting details, materials used, photos and a resolution note. Ticket numbers are generated in the form XXX-2026-000123.

There are seven request types — Complaint, New Connection, Shifting (address change), Internal Shifting (floor change), Closure, Plan / Service Request and Other — and five sources: WhatsApp, Network Import, Office, Phone and Website. Priority is Low, Medium, High or Critical.

A new-ticket wizard walks the office through the request: choose the type, find the customer, pick the exact connection, choose the category and describe the issue. For a new connection it captures the lead’s name, mobile, address and plan and creates the customer and a Pending Installation connection with the ticket. The ticket list works as a table or a drag-and-drop board, with filters for request type, priority, source, category and team and a search across ticket number, mobile, customer and account.

The complaint taxonomy is editable and was set up as follows:

Every ticket has a detail page with the request, the customer and connection panel, the assignment and its history, work done (materials and photos), the deposit and device if any, and an activity timeline that records creation, linking, assignment, reassignment, status changes, notes, photos, materials, deposits, resolution, closing and reopening, each with who and when.

2. Customers, connections and Customer 360 for ISP and cable

A customer is a person or an organisation (residential or organisation), with a mobile, an optional alternate mobile and email, and an address. Each customer has one or more connections, and each connection belongs to one department. For broadband a connection holds the network account number, the user ID, the plan name, plan amount, status, address, area, zone, technology type (FTTH, LAN, PPPoE or DOCSIS), service zone (Zone 1 or Zone 2), POP, sub-POP, DP, unit, floor, start date and end date. For cable it holds the customer ID, the STB number and the customer serial number. Account numbers are generated if left empty, in the pattern GT plus digits for broadband and CTV plus digits for cable.

Connection status is one of Active, Pending Installation, Inactive, Suspended or Closed. The single search box finds a customer by mobile, alternate mobile, name, account number or customer ID, user ID, STB number or serial number. When a mobile number has several connections, the staff member or the WhatsApp bot picks the exact one, and the ticket is raised against that connection only.

The customer page is a Customer 360: contact details, installation address, package and plan details, network details (technology, service zone, sub-POP/OLT), every connection, the deposit and device, recharges, and the full ticket history. Customers and connections can be added and edited from the office screen or loaded in bulk (see Network file import below).

3. WhatsApp requests: the customer chat flow and inbox

The customer-facing chat flow is built and can be played end to end inside the system as a simulator, so the management can experience exactly what a customer would. The flow asks the customer to choose a language (English, Hindi or Gujarati), then Broadband or Digital Cable TV, then one of four menus: New Connection, Existing Connection (complaint), Shifting or Recharge / Top-up.

• Existing connection. The bot asks for the registered mobile number, finds the connection (and asks which one if there are several), then offers the complaint options — for broadband: Internet Not Working, Slow Speed, Cable Problem, Router / ONU, Other and Close Connection; for cable: No Signal, Channels Not Working, STB / Remote Problem, Cable Problem, Other and Close Connection — asks for a short description and registers the ticket, replying with the ticket number and status.
• Unknown number. If the number is not yet in the records, the request is still registered, as a ticket with no customer attached and the message “our team will verify your details”. After the network customer file is imported, the system links such tickets to the right customer by mobile number or account number.
• New connection. The bot collects name, address, area, pincode and preferred plan and creates a lead: a customer with a Pending Installation connection and a New Connection ticket.
• Shifting. The customer chooses a new address or a floor change in the same building and gives the date; the ticket stores the from and to address or floor and the preferred date.
• Recharge. The bot shows the current plan and validity, lists plans, takes a payment step and extends the validity. In the working version the payment step is simulated.
• Close connection. The bot confirms that a technician will collect the device and that the deposit is refunded after verification, and raises a Closure ticket.

Every conversation is stored in a WhatsApp inbox for the office, with the customer name, registered mobile number, the number the message came from, the problem, language, department, open / pending / resolved status and a link to the ticket. A word on honesty: the working version does not call the real WhatsApp Business API. The flow is complete and the tickets it creates are real records in the system; the connection to a live WhatsApp Business number is part of go-live, and Meta’s template approval and message charges apply (see WhatsApp Business API pricing in India).

4. network complaint file import with duplicate control

This module replaces the manual cycle of downloading the complaint report, comparing it by eye and copying new rows. The office uploads the CSV or Excel file; the system recognises the network’s report columns — ticket number, customer account number, user name, category, sub-category, priority, source, create date, OLT name, status, ticket note, created by, request type, technology branch (zone) and customer status — and analyses the upload before anything is saved.

Each row is classified as new, already imported or invalid. A row is invalid if the ticket number or account number is missing; a row is a duplicate if its ticket number was seen in an earlier import or earlier in the same file. The screen shows the counts, a preview and the column mapping. On confirmation, only the new rows become tickets: Broadband, source Network Import, status Unassigned, priority and category carried across (category names are matched to the system’s own list), the network’s ticket number kept as the external number, and an activity entry recording the import. The system also remembers the last processed ticket number as a checkpoint, and keeps an import history with the file name, who uploaded it, when, and the total, new, duplicate, invalid and imported counts.

A second import handles the network customer report. It recognises headers such as customer account number, user name, customer name, address, mobile and alternate number, plan name, validity, plan amount, start and end dates, status, technology type, zone, POP, sub-POP, DP and unit. Mobile numbers are cleaned to ten digits, validity is read from text like “6 months”, and plan names are normalised to the pattern used in the plan list. Existing accounts are updated and new accounts are created, and any unlinked ticket whose mobile number or account number matches is linked to its customer automatically. The screen reports how many customers were created and updated and how many tickets were linked.

Important scope note: data comes from the network by file upload only. The system does not log in to, scrape or connect to the network’s portals, and nothing is changed in the network’s systems from here.

5. Assignments, teams and reassignment

Nine teams are set up: for Broadband, Office Staff, Engineer, Splicer, Cable Team, Electrician and Field Technician; for Cable TV, Cable TV Office, STB Technician and Line Technician. Each team has a description of what it handles, for example router and ONU diagnostics and LOS checks for the Engineer team, or fibre splicing and OLT-side faults for the Splicer team.

The assignments screen has a team board with one column per team plus an Unassigned column. Dragging a ticket to a team assigns it to the least-loaded active staff member in that team, counted by open tickets, and notifies that person; dragging it to another team reassigns it. If the team has no active staff the system says so instead of guessing. Tickets can also be assigned by form with an instruction note (with suggested notes such as checking the ONU and fibre link, or the signal level and STB, before closing).

Reassignment asks for a reason — Wrong team, Requires engineer, Requires splicing, Requires electrician, Material required, Customer unavailable or a typed reason — and the whole trail stays on the ticket. A technician can also request reassignment from the field, which shows as an alert to the office. A second tab shows each team’s open, in-progress and done-today counts and each staff member’s active jobs and completions.

6. The field app for technicians

Ground staff get a separate mobile-first screen with four tabs — Home, My Jobs, Alerts and Profile. Home shows Today’s Jobs, Pending and Completed counts and the technician’s own jobs. A job page shows the customer, mobile, address, OLT, the complaint, the type of request and any shifting details, with one-tap Call Customer and Navigate (opens the address in maps).

One large button moves the job along the chain: Accept Job, Start Visit, Reached Location, Start Work, Work Completed. Beside it are Not Available, Need Material and Need Reassignment. Notes and photos can be added from the phone camera at any point; photos are compressed on the phone before they are saved.

Completing a job opens a form that depends on the request type:

• New connection: device serial number (router serial or STB number), deposit collected, payment mode (Cash, UPI, Cheque or Bank Transfer) and receipt number. This creates the deposit and device record, installs the device out of stock and makes the connection Active with an end date computed from the plan’s validity.
• Closure: device condition (Returned – working, Returned – damaged, Not returned), an optional deduction with a reason, and a live preview of the refund due to the customer.
• Every job: materials used from a list that shows how much of each item the technician is carrying, photos and a resolution note.

Staff can only open the field app if their login has the Ground role; they see the jobs assigned to them and nothing else.

7. Inventory for routers, ONUs, STBs, cable and consumables

The inventory screen has three views: stock overview, an in/out ledger and a by-staff view. Items have a department, name, code, category (Customer Equipment, Cable, Connectors, Passive, Accessories, Tools), unit, a minimum stock level and an optional unit cost, and can be flagged as equipment such as a router or STB.

Eight movement types make the ledger: Stock In (purchase, with supplier and invoice number), Issued to Staff, Returned by Staff, Used on Ticket, Installed at Customer, Recovered from Customer, Damaged / Written Off and Stock Adjustment. From these the system computes, for every item, the balance in the godown, with staff and at customers:

• Godown = purchased + returned by staff + recovered from customers + adjustments − issued − damaged in the godown.
• With staff = issued − returned by staff − used − installed − damaged with staff.
• At customers = installed − recovered from customers.

When a movement takes an item below its minimum, a Low stock notification is raised for the office. The dashboard shows items tracked, low-stock count, godown value and what was used in the last 30 days. Per-staff holdings are shown, so the office knows what each technician is carrying.

8. Deposits and devices: router and STB deposit tracking

When a router or STB is installed, a deposit record is created with the device type, model, serial, deposit amount, payment mode, receipt number, who collected it and when. The default deposit for Broadband and for Cable TV is set once in Settings and can still be edited per installation. The record has a deposit status — Held, Refund Pending, Refunded or Forfeited — and a device status — With Customer, Returned, Not Returned or Damaged — and a timeline of events from deposit received and device issued to closure requested, device returned, damaged or not returned, deduction, refund initiated and refund paid.

The closure rules are built in. If the device comes back working or damaged, it is recovered into stock (and a damaged one is also written off), the deduction is capped at the deposit, the refund due is the deposit minus the deduction, and the status becomes Refund Pending, or Forfeited if nothing is left to refund. If the device is not returned, the deposit simply stays Held until it is recovered. The office then records the refund by mode and reference. For example, a deposit of 5 units with a deduction of 1 unit for a damaged adapter leaves 4 units to refund — the figures only illustrate the rule and are not the operator’s rates.

The deposits page shows deposits held, devices with customers, refunds pending, refunded so far and devices not returned, with tabs for All, Held and Refund pending and a search by customer, mobile, serial or receipt.

9. Plan renewals and recharge

The renewals screen lists every running connection whose plan ends in the selected month, sorted by end date, with the customer, mobile, account or ID, user ID or STB, plan, amount, area, renewal date, days left or days overdue, and status. It can be filtered by connection status, searched by name, mobile, account, user ID, STB or area, and can include earlier unrenewed connections. Three totals sit on top — the number of renewals, the expected renewal value and the number already expired — and the list downloads as Excel with the full contact details for the calling team.

A recharge extends the plan from the later of the current end date and today: a customer who renews before expiry keeps the days they have left, and one who renews after expiry starts from the payment date. A recharge on an Inactive or Suspended connection makes it Active again, and the office gets a notification. Plans carry the speed and validity in the name, for example a 100 Mbps plan for six months, and the plan list in the working version was built from the network’s own plan sheet, with Cable TV packages kept separately.

10. OLT and network fields

There is an OLT / Network screen with an OLT master (name, zone, POP, sub-POP, DP, status Active, Degraded or Down, connected customers) and an OLT detail page listing the customers and every ticket raised against it. In the current build the OLT list starts empty, and the network details — service zone, POP, sub-POP, DP and unit — are stored on each connection as they come in from the network’s customer report. Tickets keep their zone and OLT, so the dashboard can show OLTs that generate the most open tickets and the reports can show OLT-wise complaints. Network-level problems then show up as a cluster, not as unrelated calls.

11. Users, logins and module-wise access

Staff sign in with a short login ID and password through Supabase authentication; accounts that are deactivated are blocked at login. The owner has a Users & Access screen to create logins for staff already listed under Teams & Staff (name, department and login ID fill in automatically), generate a readable password, reset passwords, link a login to a staff record, switch an account off, and choose what each person can open. Three roles exist:

• Owner / admin — everything, both departments, including Settings and Users & Access.
• Office staff — one department, with module permissions. Twelve modules can be granted: Dashboard, Tickets, Customers, WhatsApp Requests, Network Import, Assignments, Inventory, Deposits & Devices, Teams & Staff, OLT / Network, Reports & Renewals and Settings.
• Ground staff — the phone app only, with their own assigned jobs.

Five presets save time: Office full access (without Settings), Customer care, Accounts / deposits, Store / inventory and Dashboard & reports only. Notifications are open to every office user. The Teams & Staff screen keeps an employee code, name, mobile, email, team, department (or both), designation, zone, address, emergency contact and active status for each person, with a detail page showing assigned and resolved tickets and stock in hand.

12. Owner dashboard, notifications and reports

The dashboard greets the user and shows eight KPI cards — Open Complaints, Unassigned, In Progress, Pending, Resolved Today, New WhatsApp, New Imported (or open Closures for Cable TV) and Overdue / SLA Risk — plus deposits held, refunds pending, low-stock items and items tracked. Below are recent tickets, today’s priority work (open High and Critical tickets), team workload, complaint source breakdown, category breakdown, OLT and area hotspots and a live activity feed.

Notifications cover new tickets, assignments, reassignments, status updates, import complete, ticket resolved, deposits, low stock and recharges, and are targeted by role, department and, for assignments, the specific staff member. Reports include source-wise, team-wise, category-wise, staff-wise, OLT-wise and request-type complaints, material usage, open vs resolved, WhatsApp vs network file vs other, average resolution time and total tickets on record.

Business rules built into the system

The value of an operations ERP is in its rules, not its screens. These are the rules the build enforces, taken from how the system actually works:

ERP vs CRM for cable TV and broadband operators: which one do you need?

An ERP runs the inside of the operation: tickets, technicians, inventory, deposits, renewals and reports. A CRM runs the relationship with customers and prospects: leads, follow-ups, conversations and history. Readymade software usually sells billing, complaint tools and CRM as separate products, so a network operator ends up with one tool for invoices, another for complaints and a chat group for the rest, and no one place that knows the customer.

For a network operator the right answer is one system where customer history and operations share the same records. That is how Yukti AI builds — see custom CRM software, AI CRM and our guide on ERP vs CRM: what a growing business needs first.

Broadband and cable CRM: customer history, enquiries and renewals

The CRM side of the build is already in the same record. A new-connection enquiry from WhatsApp or the office becomes a customer with a Pending Installation connection and a ticket, so no lead lives only in a chat. The Customer 360 page shows every connection, plan, device, deposit, recharge and ticket for a person. The renewals list is a ready-made follow-up queue. Conversation history is kept per customer in the WhatsApp inbox.

A fuller broadband CRM can be added on the same data when needed — lead stages and follow-up reminders for new-connection enquiries, plan upsell lists for customers on short plans, and win-back lists for inactive connections. These are additions, not part of the current build. For a CRM product that already runs WhatsApp, leads and pipelines, see Yukti AI CRM, and for the WhatsApp side see CRM automation.

Is this ISP billing software? What it does not do

No. Searches for “ISP billing software” or “cable TV billing software” lead to products built around subscriber invoices, collection, prepaid and postpaid cycles, RADIUS authentication and CAS or SMS provisioning. This system is different: it is built around service operations, and billing is outside this scope. Specifically, it does not include:

• Subscriber invoicing, payment collection, receipts for monthly fees or accounting.
• Integration with the network’s own subscriber-management or set-top box activation systems; activation and deactivation on the network’s side continue as they do today.
• RADIUS or network authentication, or live OLT monitoring.
• SMS or automated voice calls (these can be added separately).

What it does record is the commercial information operations need: plan name, validity, amount and end date on each connection, recharges, deposits and refunds. A billing and collections phase can be added later on the same customer and connection records, and books can stay in Tally — see Tally integration with a custom ERP.

Automation for cable operators and ISPs: WhatsApp, reminders and reports

Software automation in a network operator means removing re-typing and chasing. In this system, much of it comes from one record: a WhatsApp chat registers the ticket, an import creates tickets and links customers, a drag assigns and notifies, a completed job deducts stock and activates the connection, a closure starts the refund, and the dashboard updates itself.

The next layer is messages and schedules, built with WhatsApp automation and workflow automation:

• Ticket registered, assigned, resolved and closed messages to the customer on WhatsApp
• Plan expiry reminders a few days before the end date, with a recharge link
• Technician job alerts and a morning list of the day’s visits
• A daily summary of open, overdue and unassigned tickets to the owner at a fixed time
• Refund-ready and device-not-returned reminders to the office

These are planned for go-live and are not part of the working version: today the notifications are inside the app. The WhatsApp Business messaging connection, template approval and per-conversation charges are handled through the WhatsApp provider; see WhatsApp AI chatbot in Surat for how we build the customer-facing side.

Custom cable and broadband ERP vs ISP billing software, Tally and Excel

A general comparison of the options a network operator usually weighs. It describes typical behaviour, not any specific vendor.

Many operators will keep a billing or CAS product for subscriber invoicing and run service operations in a custom ERP alongside it. See custom ERP vs off-the-shelf ERP and our guide to moving from Excel and Tally to one system.

Every feature of the cable and broadband ERP, and what it is for

Everything in this table is built into the working version. The right-hand column is the purpose of the feature, not a measured result.

Who works in it

Three roles use the system: the owner or admin, office staff (customer care, accounts and deposits, store, or full office access, each in one department) and ground staff on the phone app. Nine teams exist — Office Staff, Engineer, Splicer, Cable Team, Electrician and Field Technician for broadband; Cable TV Office, STB Technician and Line Technician for cable TV — with job titles for each such as Field Engineer, Fiber Splicer and Cable Technician. Every entry is recorded under the person who made it, and the ticket timeline shows who did what and when.

Status of the build, stated plainly

• What exists: a working system with login, role-based access, a shared cloud database and every module above, extended after the first walk-through to cover Cable TV and inventory. A production proposal was prepared for the client.
• Sample data: early demonstrations used sample records. Sample data has since been removed from the build, and the plan list and customer import follow the network’s own formats.
• Simulated or not yet connected: the WhatsApp chat runs as an in-app simulator (no live WhatsApp Business connection yet), the recharge payment step is simulated, and in-app notifications are not yet sent as WhatsApp or SMS messages.
• Not claimed: no daily-use, user-count, time-saving, revenue or customer-satisfaction figure is published, and there is no client quote. The operator’s customer data, rates, deposit amounts and commercial terms stay private.

Technology

• React 19, TypeScript, Vite and Tailwind CSS 4 — the application, installable on a phone as a web app with no app-store listing.
• Radix UI components, Lucide icons and Recharts — accessible controls and the dashboard and report charts.
• Zustand — every business action (create ticket, assign, complete job, recharge, record stock) runs as one atomic update on the shared dataset.
• Supabase — staff authentication, a role profile table with row-level security, admin-only functions to create users and reset passwords, and the shared database, which is re-checked every 15 seconds so several users stay in step.
• SheetJS (xlsx) — reading the network complaint and customer files and writing the renewals Excel download.
• Deployment — the working version is built and deployed automatically from the code repository; the production plan puts the application, database and file storage in a cloud account opened in the client’s own name.

The next stage

If you send technicians to customers, this is buildable for you

The pattern — multi-channel tickets, customers with several connections, team and technician dispatch, a phone-first field app, equipment inventory with serials and deposits, renewals and network fields — fits:

• Local cable operators (LCO) and cable TV and digital cable service points
• Broadband and ISP franchise partners and fibre installation teams
• WISPs, society and campus networks and enterprise internet resellers
• DTH, CCTV and security installers with a service desk
• Any service business with installation, repair and equipment recovery visits

Start with a free scoping call. See Custom ERP Software in Surat, business management system and software by industry. Related builds: a fleet management ERP with the same dispatch-and-complete pattern, a trading ERP with stock ledgers, a WhatsApp AI sales agent and an inventory system for a stock-heavy brand.

Summary