The growing complexity of the different Internet access possibilities with modems, routers, gateways, set-top-boxes and VoIP-phones makes it more and more difficult for the end-user to configure these equipements. For these reasons a remote management of the end-user devices, called CPE (Customer-premises equipment or customer-provided equipment), by the Internet Service Providers (ISP), was developed. An application layer protocol for the remote management of these end-user devices, entitled CPE WAN Management Protocol (CWMP), has been defined by the Broadband Forum (former DSL Forum) in the technical report TR-069. As a bidirectional SOAP/HTTP based protocol it provides the communication between CPE and Auto Configuration Servers (ACS).  It includes both a safe auto configuration and the control of other CPE management functions within an integrated framework.

The Broadband Forum is a global consortium of a few hundred leading companies covering the telecommunications, equipment, computing, networking and service provider sectors.