Success Stories
National Wireline Carrier Reduces Operating Cost and MTTR with Telstrat’s PUMA Platform
Over several years, a national wireline carrier grew its network by acquiring numerous smaller local exchange carriers or ILECs. The resulting network consists of a large number of central offices and Broadband Loop Carriers’ (BLC) equipment containing a vast assortment of both new and legacy network elements. Many of the central offices are either lightly manned or unmanned for most of the day. In addition, many of these offices are in remote locations, some even on islands, accessible only by ferry. The carrier needed a way to quickly and remotely access all of its network elements over a wide area, without having to always roll a truck.
As with all carriers, the company is faced with the objective of increasing customer satisfaction, shortening repair intervals, and reducing operational expense. To further complicate the problem, the carrier has increased its service offerings from simple telephone service to high speed data, and, in some areas, video service. Over the past two years, the carrier has implemented TelStrat’s PUMA platform resulting in substantial savings in operational cost. In fact, the carrier’s own analysis has shown a return on investment of somewhere between six and nine months.
With PUMA, the carrier can now quickly and easily gain visibility and remote management of every one of the network elements deployed in its remote offices. Network elements that once required a “local craft interface” could easily be accessed from the maintenance center, or even from the homes of on-call technicians.
For this carrier, PUMA has achieved several benefits. First, the average duration of a network outage has been significantly reduced, resulting in greater levels of customer satisfaction. Secondly, a dramatic gain in technician productivity has been realized. The carrier claims that PUMA has enabled them to eliminate two out of every three potential truck rolls. As a result, a typical operating region has reduced its required technicians from 10 to seven, and its trucks from four to two. These operating cost reductions were achieved trough normal attrition and retirement, while substantially reducing average mean time to repair (MTTR). In addition, the carrier was able to renegotiate the terms of its union contract to reduce the minimum overtime associated with an after-hours call from two hours to one if the alarm was cleared through PUMA without the technician having to leave his home, or the technician determined that the alarm could wait to be cleared during normal business hours. Finally, Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) at more central locations are now able to provide immediate assistance in solving complex problems remotely, rather than having to travel to the problem site.
This carrier has now become a true believer in the power and cost savings of TelStrat’s PUMA platform; and is in the process of completing the installation of PUMA SC-8100’s in the rest of its nationwide network.