In a large wireless telecommunications company with millions of US subscribers, troubleshooting network problems efficiently and effectively has always been vital to customer satisfaction and overall quality of service.

The convergence of voice and data created more challenging issues for both data networking and telephony professionals. Meeting high standards for reliability and quality of service in a converged network affects telecommunications companies, service providers, and ultimately the customers. Network outages can cost a company millions of dollars and are not 100% preventable. What companies can do is reduce the length and impact of network downtime through training.

The telecommunications company experienced a nine-hour network outage (an eternity in cellular service time). Once the network had been restored, an analysis of the problem illuminated that the voice and data engineers were simply ill-equipped to troubleshoot the outage. They had not been trained on the foundational networking skills or the interoperability of the multi-vendor products necessary to pinpoint and troubleshoot the problem.

The analysis further determined that the outage could have been resolved within 15 minutes had the engineers been trained prior to the outage. The company realized that an investment in the right training could have prevented expensive network downtime.

We focused on building networking skills by providing a tailored solution to meet the unique needs of the company. After meeting with the operations manager responsible for the outage, we incorporated elements from three of our most popular networking courses:

• Understanding Networking Fundamentals
• TCP/IP Networking
• Voice over IP Foundations

We then blended elements from the curriculum into a five-day training course that focused on the fundamentals of managing converged data and voice networks while minimizing the downtime of future outages.

The training solution has proven successful. With focus on one particular region of the country, the wireless telecommunications company implemented a step-by-step plan to cross-train its voice and data engineers. The plan included skills building for foundational networking, advanced voice and data coverage, and product configuration training.

The company has no doubt saved money and increased customer satisfaction. Now that each department understands the interoperability of the network, there is a decrease in the time it takes to troubleshoot a problem.