Engineers and marketers shake hands

Wireless customers of the past accepted dropped calls and crackly connections as an inherent part of mobile service. Today wireless customers expect high-quality service, much like what they get from landline phones. As a result, carriers are using more tools to manage their networks, ensure quality and add enhanced services. In addition, the roles of engineers and marketers are changing as the two share these tools and begin to work together.

"The engineers of today are accountants and marketers," said Stuart Rosenfield, senior director of marketing for DSC Communications' AIN division. "They think about [return on investment]." He sees engineers growing responsible for more than building and maintaining networks.

DSC's INfusion Service Management System allows carriers to provision, monitor and access databases of service control points (SCPs) from one central point.

"They buy it as an engineering tool and use it as a marketing tool," Rosenfield said. Engineers now look more closely at data to make changes in how services operate. For example, engineers may notice that certain functions on an interactive voice response list are used most frequently and move those functions to the top of the list.

Not only are the roles of engineers changing, engineering divisions are sharing data with other departments such as marketing and customer care, Rosenfield said. Housing some services at the SCP rather than at the mobile switching center allows carriers to adapt services quickly to the changing marketplace, Rosenfield said.

Objective Systems Integrators also sees more sharing of data between engineers and marketers. "Originally, the RF engineers used the data," said Gary Barton, product marketing manager-wireless for OSI. Using OSI's NetExpert operations support system, which provides tools to build network management solutions, carriers can operate fault and performance management applications. NetExpert was first available on Unix workstations, which explains why mainly engineers used the data it produced. Now, NetExpert is moving toward a PC-based environment.

"What's driving that is that everyone in the company needs the data," Barton said. Customer care and marketing departments can now run NetExpert on thin-client operator workstations on Windows 95 and NT.

Barton notices a trend among operators building new networks to incorporate network management from the start.

Tekelec recognizes the need for engineering and marketing to work closely together but finds they usually don't. "I don't see cooperation between the two," said Richard Fulwiler, regional sales manager of Tekelec's intelligent network diagnosticxws division. Vendors such as Tekelec need to further educate users that network management data can be valuable throughout the company. To do so, vendors should approach multiple groups within a company, not just engineering, he said.

Tekelec rolled out a new network maintenance, diagnostic and surveillance solution, the MGTS 2000, at Supercomm. The tool monitors and maintains SS7 networks, allowing users to study occupancy rates, problems and the type of traffic their networks carry.

MOTOROLA, ADC REFINE SMS

Motorola Computer Group and ADC NewNet will combine Motorola's FX Series fault-tolerant system platforms with ADC's Smserver short message service center solution to increase network uptime for short message services. Northern Telecom is integrating the solution into its switches.

IRIDIUM TEAMS WITH WIRELESS

Iridium LLC has signed 210 distribution agreements with regional wireless service providers and roaming partners, including AT&T Wireless and BellSouth Mobility. Iridium has completed operational readiness trials for its Sept. 23 launch.