Subject: [NEXTEL-1] My job is to optimize, analyze and trouble-shoot.

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sat, 22 May 2004 03:08:17 -0400

CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW???? - Cellular Performance Engineers Roam Illinois' Roads, Asking That Question so You Don't Have To Source: Journal Star; Peoria, Ill.
Publication date: 2004-05-11
Arrival time: 2004-05-19

When you hear that all circuits are busy on your cell phone, that's when
Forrest Franckey goes to work.
As a system performance engineer for U.S. Cellular, Franckey spends most of his time behind the wheel of the company car, making calls to a computer.
"My job is to optimize, analyze and trouble-shoot. You watch the system and look for problems," he said.
With two computers recording the progress of calls made from cell phones
mounted in the front seat, Franckey gets plenty of feedback. "A three-second phone call can generate 20 pages of data," he said.
Franckey's main job is to collect the data that then gets reviewed by company engineers always searching for problems, such as locating pockets where service is unreliable or poor sound quality. In an industry as competitive as the cellular phone field, service is not taken lightly by the companies fighting for customers.
Covering an area of the state from the Quad Cities to St. Louis all the
way
to Indiana gives Franckey plenty of driving room. A Eureka resident who
leaves from the Peoria office every weekday around 6 a.m., he's familiar
with the ebb and flow of cell calls in this area. "The heaviest time (in
Peoria) is usually at the end of the week, with the busiest time from 4 to 5 p.m.," he said.
He has seen big changes since he started at U.S. Cellular 12 years ago.  "Twelve years ago, it was like two cans and a string (compared to today).
It was very primitive," said Franckey.
Today there are 57 million cell phones in use in the United States, he said. "Half the population has a cell phone today," he said. That is likely to rise in the future, with an estimated 65 percent of the nation's teen population owning a cell phone.
"The system is growing exponentially. There's no limit to what we can handle, but we're always pulling from that limited bucket of power," he said.
Franckey is one of 14 performance engineers assigned to U.S. Cellular's Midwest region, but his is not the only company out there on the road.
John Kramer is one of three performance engineers that Verizon Wireless employs in Illinois. "My life is a road trip," said Kramer, who figures he logs 1,200 miles a week driving about the state to and from Verizon headquarters in suburban Schaumburg, outside of Chicago.
Like Franckey, Kramer devotes the passenger seat to computer hardware.
His cell phones are stored in back, where computer- activated calls run
constantly. Taped calls use specific phrases such as "The chicken leg is
a rare dish" and "The boss ran the show with a watchful eye" designed by
phonetic specialists to capture the widest possible range of sounds, he said.
"With $300,000 of equipment in one car, I normally don't stop anywhere for too long. I don't like to leave (the car) out of my sight," said Kramer, who finds himself in Peoria about once a month. "I usually cover Peoria in two days," he said.
Verizon's TV commercials where a now-familiar figure closes each spot by
asking, "Can you hear me now?" are closer to truth than people realize, said Kramer. "It's real but it's the computer making all the calls," he said.
All those computer read-outs get analyzed so system managers can get to work on what needs to be done, he added. "We try to have the problems corrected before next month's drive," said Kramer.
Another company that's rolling up the miles while checking the airwaves is Nextel Partners Inc., with an office in Peoria at 7800 N. Sommer St.
"Our people go looking for trouble," said marketing manager Cindy Stedman. Along with performance checks, Nextel performs monthly surveys of customers to monitor the company's performance, said Brian Rule, general manager.
Nextel, which has been in the central Illinois market for four years, is
proud of its track record when it comes to call quality, said design engineer Ryan Mahr. "The national average for dropped calls (calls that disconnect before completion) is 2 percent. We're consistently below 1 percent," he said.
Accountability is key, said Mahr. "Along with the drive testing, we hold
quarterly presentations (on Nextel performance). We hold our people accountable for any statistical issues that might arise," he said.
Since Nextel focuses on business customers, service is a critical issue,
said Stedman. "Business people are less tolerant of system problems because it costs them money," she said.
Working with large companies requires Nextel to be ready around the
clock, said Rule. "With business, there's a 24-hour focus, so we have to
be prepared," he said.
Sometimes being ready means hustling in extra equipment, said Rule. "At large gatherings, we sometimes deploy a Cellular On Wheels when a cell tower is down or there's a lack of coverage," he said.
Such COWs are often set up at NASCAR races where thousands of potential cell phone users may be on hand, said Rule.
After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, Nextel set up two COWs in Pennsylvania, near the crash site of one of the hijacked aircraft, within 18 hours of the accident, he said.
"Since both the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Secret Service use Nextel, we felt it was important to have communications up and running in that area," said Rule.
Publication date: 2004-05-11

© 2004, YellowBrix, Inc.
http://cnniw.yellowbrix.com/pages/cnnmoney/Story.nsp?story_id=51408578&ID=cnnmoney&scategory=Business+and+Finance&

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