Inside AT&T: Mobilizing Field Service Operations

AT&T Business Service (ABS) Field Operations is a leading provider of IP-based solutions servicing premises-based IP infrastructure, installing and maintaining equipment from top vendors. The division's Customer Premises Equipment (CPE) service organization supports voice and data equipment like Nortel and Cisco routers and switches for customers across the United States.

To strengthen technicians' ability to serve customers, AT&T mobilized its field services operations with an application that gets technicians to customer sites quickly. The fast new solution significantly reduced paperwork and improved communication between dispatch and technicians and between the technicians and their customers. Technicians are more efficient, because the solution features work order time reporting, updates to the host ticketing system, Internet access, corporate email access and wireless phone capability.

The 1,500 technicians of AT&T's Business Service Field Operations CPE service organization support customers who cannot function if their voice and data networks go down. Losing connectivity can mean the difference between life and death for some, such as the many regional 911 emergency systems that AT&T supports. Servicing customers' equipment effectively and efficiently has always been important to AT&T. To keep businesses operating smoothly, AT&T has established time-sensitive service level objectives (SLOs). Most critical are those promised to the numerous emergency operations centers AT&T supports, designed to help ensure that police, firefighters and EMTs respond quickly when emergencies strike. To support these time-sensitive SLOs, AT&T automates as many of its processes as practical.