Helping Hands

Is your department tapped from long hours, insufficient staff and increased responsibilities? Are you feeling over-loaded with all of the design, deployment and operations work that lies ahead?

There is a group of eager companies just waiting to take the work out of your hands. It includes a host of regional companies that specialize in areas such as site acquisition or engineering and general telecommunications consulting, and larger national companies that offer a complete menu of network analysis and operations.

The latter category is dotted with players that can cater to an a la carte aspect of network design and roll-out, or provide soup-to-nuts service where they help develop a business plan, write the request for proposal, select vendors, oversee build-out, manage operations and plan for growth.

But the network is the heart of your service. Why would you trust anyone else to take over? Surprisingly, carriers are doing just that. These carriers share an urgency to move when the iron is hot but often lack the internal manpower to do so. More than ever before, established carriers and new entrants are funneling out the once tightly held functions of network design, deployment and operations, albeit with some reservations and customized guidelines.

HAND IT OVERThere is a variety of situations where outsourcing makes sense. Prime examples include situations that require short-term jobs, intensive peak network build-outs and upgrades, or 1-time applications such as supplementing existing coverage. For many carriers, it just doesn't make sense to staff up for a wave of building activity that might die down only four months later.

"Given those waves of activity, the prospect of hiring, training and maintaining staff, and downsizing in lag time is a costly venture," said Chuck Sackley, Wireless Facilities Incorporated (WFI) senior vice president of sales and business development. "We have a number of customers that acknowledge we can do deployment quicker and for less money than if they did it themselves."

Ed Kirkland, Alltel vice president of network services, agreed that Alltel saves money when it doesn't have to hire its own full-time employees for peak activity.

"We wouldn't want to have those employees sitting around in non-peak times," he said.

Alltel contracts outside consultants for about 25% to 30% of its current network functions, with the majority of the work focused on growth sites.

"We are not talking about the full replacement of an analog system or a major build," Kirkland said. In those situations, the carrier would select a vendor to help with design and deployment. Typically, Alltel hires contractors for specific portions of a network design and build, keeping the majority of decision-making control in its own boardrooms.

But according to outsourcers such as WFI, some carriers are granting outside parties a much greater role in total network design, build and operations.

"The biggest part of our business historically has been deployment," Sackley said. "Now, we do everything from designing the network, backhaul design, cell design, site acquisition and installation. Everything from planning to turning the last screw or bolt on the last cell site."

Sackley expects the demand for outsourcing network functions will continue to snowball.

"By the year 2002, there will be 100,000 cell sites in the United States," Sackley said. "The mix will be some analog, some digital, but even those will have to be converted to 3G. All this is not going to happen from internal resources alone."

As carriers use outsourcers for quick-fix deployments and upgrades, the trend to use them just as warm bodies is changing as well. According to Art Fuller, Comsearch director of wireless engineering and consulting services, it's not just about supplying workers to complete a project, but providing a consultant role that involves all flavors of planning, build-out and operations.

"We are doing less traditional body-shop consulting and more solution-based consulting," Fuller said. "Companies are looking for more efficient ways to provide the solutions they need, and a lot of them don't want to invest intellectual or capital resources to train staff for short-term business."

This is especially true for many PCS carriers, according to Fuller, because they are still in a heavy build-out mode.

"These companies are trying to evaluate what the competition is doing so they can determine where it's best to build," he said. "We do a fair amount of competitive assessments, collecting data and giving comparisons."

According to Sackley, the wireless evolution from the early days when carriers had a lot of capital floating around and could maintain beefy internal operations to today's tight competitive reality is forcing carriers to re-evaluate their network-operations role.

"Some carriers are still clinging to the RF engineering side, but a lot of the new start-up companies are saying they don't even want to build a deployment arm," he said. "We are going to be their deployment arm. It used to be carriers were doing everything internally, even making their own products. But those same carriers today are pushing everything out."

NOT QUITE EVERYTHINGDespite some outsourcers' claims, Wireless Review couldn't find any carrier to say that it is or isn't considering outsourcing all of its critical network functions. Rather, each carrier draws a different line for what it will and won't outsource.

For example, Western Wireless may bring in additional workers during peak building times and outsource all frequency-coordination services, but Brian Goemmer, Western Wireless director of RF engineering, said the carrier is too busy to consider other types of outsourcing. Too busy and too vested in a staff that knows how to do things the Western Wireless way.

"We are in a fairly mature field," he said. "It's not like we have to go in and build the Dallas metropolitan market from the ground up. We have existing markets in place, and the amount of time it would take to bring someone up to speed with existing nuances and areas doesn't make sense."

Most carriers still hold at least some aspect of network design and operations close to their vests. Such is the case at Omnipoint, which handles all of its network design in-house but contracts out 90% of its new deployments to vendors it selects carefully.

"The network design has a lot of impact on the quality and also the cost, and these are two aspects you don't want to compromise," said John Grotland, Omnipoint spokesman. "We have a number of people who have been doing this for decades, and we have institutional experience not only with how the technologies work but how they work in certain types of environments. These types of decisions are too valuable for us to leave to anyone else."

Jeff Chaltes, Sprint PCS spokesman, said Sprint PCS does not outsource operations functions because it wants to maintain control. It outsources only 5% of its network-design work and 15% of RF engineering work. Although Sprint PCS outsources the majority (95%) of site-acquisition efforts, Chaltes said final decisions are still made in-house.

"We would never allow outsourced help to help make the final decisions on cell-site placements or cell-site designs," he said.

Alltel agreed that actually letting consultants take on the role of selecting vendors and making final decisions is going too far.

"We would let them take it so far and use their input, but we make the final decisions," Kirkland said. "We maintain an engineering force to optimize our systems and handle daily operations. In most cases, we would use those same people to do some design and deployment work with our expansions and growth sites."

Indeed, even most carriers that are embracing third-party contractors for specific domains such as site-acquisition and construction work tend to put on the brakes when it comes to more sensitive network issues. Many carriers even consider the use of outside contractors as competitive strategy. AT&T Wireless outsources a variety of functions, but won't discuss the issue on the record.

Third-party companies are well aware of the issue's sensitivity and are taking extra efforts to reassure carriers they are willing to work within their parameters.

"We work closely with our customers to ensure we are working from the same sheet of music," Comsearch's Fuller said. "As long as everyone is working with the same guidelines, there shouldn't be any issue of who is doing the work. (Carriers) have ultimate control."

If outsourcing seems like a viable option for some or all of your network functions, you should keep a few things in mind as you look for the right partner. At minimum, ask contractors to document their experience and provide insurance certificates and references.

Research all business aspects the company is involved in to ensure there are no conflicts of interest. A company that focuses on building towers might not be the best one to handle site acquisition. Likewise, an equipment supplier might not be the best choice for asset management.

Deciding to outsource is a sensitive issue; deciding whom to work with is just as tricky and can determine how risky your decision really is.

"As long as carriers know how to measure or examine our expertise, they can manage us at a high level and allow us to execute on a plan," said Chuck Sackley, WFI senior vice president of sales and business development.

* Short-term jobs or infrequent, regular analyses that do not require full-time attention

* Intensive, peak-time network build-outs or upgrades

* Capital-intensive projects that require large, up-front costs for equipment, hiring and training

* 1-time applications such as supplementing an existing network at a sports or entertainment venue

* If you're deploying a new technology for which there is not a lot of institutional knowledge.