By Susana Schwartz

New generation of testing necessary for improved provisioning of services and more expedient troubleshooting

“The field force is somewhat suffering in isolation,” said Sunrise Telecom's CEO Bahaa Moukadam, noting that field workers are disconnected most of the time from their organizations. “Out of sight and out of mind, they are out there doing their own thing.

The goal for test vendor Sunrise, however, is to help those workers “do their own thing” with better tools, facilitating a higher-profile role for field technicians as they become enablers of an overall positive “customer experience,” Moukadam said.

Sunrise’s latest contribution to that field service evolution is the RxT, a modular “workflow-optimized” device that allows techs to test multiple network services and interfaces, eliminating the need for carrying multiple devices or a general purpose laptop. It comes with built-in training widgets designed to help reduce training time for technicians on new network technologies. With RxT, field technicians can email and upload results, access the web, and transfer files using the device’s built-in Wi-Fi connection.

Historically, handheld test instruments used by telco technicians in the field have not been capable of qualifying different types of circuits and equipment. That is starting to become a hindrance to customer experience at a time when encroaching competition from cable and over-the-top players is making telcos pay attention to areas that were previously neglected.

“As networks become more complex and overloaded, the more enlightened CSPs recognize that the field force sits at the intersection between cost and customer satisfaction,” said Moukadam. “As operators in telecom and cable move from copper to fiber and from SONET to carrier Ethernet, and onto Docsis 2.0 and 3.0, the need for test and measurement grows in importance because field technicians need to carry more equipment and need more training, knowledge and skills for measuring and testing new and different types of [network] equipment.”

Because many current field test devices are not integrated into operators’ back-end systems, technicians have to make multiple truck rolls, reschedule with customers, and make multiple visits to resolve one issue.

“The key is for an operator to tie the field force to its back office, to its strategy, and to its business metrics,” said Moukadam. “Second, operators have to optimize workflow. Start scheduling jobs and streamlining the management of what people go where and when. You want to become more efficient and impact the time it takes, and the accuracy with which, installations take place. You want it right the first time.”

Third, according to Moukadam, is the use of testers that qualify as “smart devices,” capable of testing many different technologies and pieces of equipment. According to Moukadam, operators need to seek “modularity” in testers, meaning the ability to add software functionality or hardware modules to a tester as technologies evolve. “You don’t want your field technicians to have to learn all about multiple testers and connections back to the home office from those testers,” said Moukadam.

“You want field technicians to be able to do email and upload results, access the web, and transfer files through smart devices that are less cumbersome than bulky laptops,” said Moukadam.

He believes integration with the back office is the key starting point. “You want asset management, test result management and workflow optimization all working together. Additionally, you need a GUI through which technicians deployed in the field are guided from the home office.”

This, according to Moukadam, can save operators on gas expenses, improve productivity and increase customer retention as problems are more likely to work or get fixed the first time.

In addition to productivity and customer experience, Moukaam contends that accountability and management tracking are also benefits to consider. “With a single device and integrated workflow, you can have better accountability and management tracking so that the compliance of technicians doing the testing is known. And after a job is completed, having a technician save and upload results to a central server helps management assess which technicians or subcontractors are most productive, and which teams on a local or regional level are most adept at what tasks,” said Moukadam.