| A QUICK HISTORY The NOC started life in
April 94, known as the Fault Control Center
and based at unit 216 on the Science Park. It
was manned by a manager and 5 diagnostic technicians. The FCC’s only function at the
time was to provide a 24 hour business fault reporting point. At the outset only Cambridge
customers were dealt with with Anglia being added from July 94. In that year we had 3366
business lines and dealt with a total of 457 faults. East Coast was added from August 95,
boosting the number of business lines to 5165 , with a total of 1214 faults dealt with.
Towards the end of 95 the Fault Control Center
changed premises and names, now
to be known as the Networks Operations Center
and based at Ainsworth Street. The NOC now
provided the 24 hour/365 Network Surveillance function as well as dealing with Service
fault referrals, that went on to the Maintenance department. The number of business lines
had increased to 7349, with 1057 faults being dealt with.
With the added responsibility of residential fault referrals and Network
Surveillance two Fault Receptionists were employed to assist the Diagnostic Technicians
during the day.
Over the years the NOC continued to grow and at one time encompassed switch,
power, datafill and all it's old NOC functions.
In July 2000 the Landbeach Center
opened, the RNMC had new office space, it was
hoped that this would be a new start. But this hope was short lived. sob
The In-Between Years
The RNMC over the years has performed 5 tasks:-
1) 24 hour Network and Business helpline
Manned/Womaned by Andy Mack, Doris Fowell, Terry Cornwell, Neil Jarvis and Nick
Hunter, working on a 5 week 24 hour shift rota, the Diagnostic Technicians possess a wide
range of expertise as they may be asked to deal with any query regarding the workings of
the Cambridge Cable group, from both internal and external customers. They provide a
reporting point for business faults and aim to clear all faults within 4 hours, night or
day. (The CPI target time is 6 hours). They also provide complete Network surveillance for
all Catv and Telco service over the 3 franchises. They are the contact point for any
outages that are happening, receiving either reports from other departments or customers
themselves and directing the Maintenance technicians to the affected areas. This will then
lead to outage reports to be done and also the compilation of a morning daily report ,
that is sent to all senior managers via voicemail, listing any problems from the following
day.
At the end of Business hours they are responsible for looking after the Switch,
Transmission and CATV networks, contacting the relevant on-call technician should any
problems occur.
2) Fault Reception - later to become part of the RNMC as level 1 technicians.
The Fault Reception was initially manned/womaned by Bianca Parker, Andrew Potter
, to be later replaced as they moved on, by other new members - Gary Mansfield, Carl
Robinson, Paul Mason, Natalie Dukker and Dawn Mason, which will enable them to also go to
24 hour coverage. The Fault Reception provide a back up for the Network Operation
Center.
They deal with enquiries from Customer Services and Despatch regarding customers Telco and
Catv services. They also deal with enquiries from Other Licensed Operators (OLO’s),
e.g BT, Cable and Wireless, Vodafone etc., about the working state of telephone numbers in
our number ranges. They are also a contact point for Service and Maintenance technicians
in the field. Also within the Fault Reception was Clare Taylor ,who is the Senior
Administrator for the group. Clare is responsible for compiling the CPI stats for both Bus
and Res faults and any other administrative tasks that arise. Clare has also now now moved
on to other duties.
3) C P E
As the name suggests any problematic business or residential CPE are also dealt
with by the N.O.C. This could mean problems with modems, telephones, P-Phones, Smarttalk/
smart cap etc. They also deal with Radicall systems installed by Cambridge Cable Group of
Companies, helping to configure the switchboards to the customers own specifications. Our
own Voicemail service is also looked after by the CPE department. The two CPE techs at
present are Dickie Davies, who is the Section Leader for the Fault Reception and CPE
departments, and Andy Potter. As the department continued to grow Andy left to become a
switch technician and Matt Bowe and Mark Walters joined.
4) Datafill
There where two datfill employed within the department. David Cooper and Sonja
Kiternas-Jones are responsible for datafilling all residential works orders put onto AIS.
All new,ceased and modified lines are done by David and Sonja. They also deal with any
datafill queries that arise. Both David and Sonja have now moved on, to be replaced by
Natelie Dukker and Becky Goodridge.
5) Network Monitoring
Jo Lynn is our part time Network Monitoring associate. Jo works between the
hours of 18:00 and 22:00, Monday to Friday. Jo looks after the transmission side of
things, either dealing with any alarms that come up during the evening or updating our
transmission equipment records. Jo is also responsible for checking and adjusting
transmission levels to help rectify modem problems. Where would we be without the
multifunctional Jo...
The NOC has a wide range of responsibilities and can deal with most departments
in the Cambridge Cable Group of Companies at some stage.
High points Low points, what I really thought about YOU -
Maybe I will include these at a later date
The above is plagiarized, amended and brought up to date text
from Simon Petts
|
