Sprint/Nextel
Mercury
Customer Challenge:
By 2003, Nextel had assembled and grown its network by acquiring frequencies in the 800 and 900 MHz bands side by side with other Commercial Mobile Radio Systems (CMRS), Business Radio and Industrial/Land Transportation Radio (B/ILT) systems and public safety entities. The result was a network based on fragmented spectrum that often created interference issues with Public Safety. To address these problems, Nextel submitted a proposal to the FCC to realign the 800 MHz band and provide each user segment with access to a contiguous block of spectrum. This proposal required that frequency owners swap spectrum space. In addition to coordination with the FCC, the affected parties needed to reengineer much of their deployed equipment to transmit on the new frequencies.
What we did:
In anticipation of a large ramp-up of activity related FCC-mandated 800-900 MHz rebanding efforts, Ventera performed a business process analysis to help Sprint/Nextel determine business processes and possible technical support tools for the major effort. Ventera recommended and then implemented significant enhancements to Mercury, which is Sprint Nextel’s system of record for use by GDSM to track the acquisition of spectrum for all 800-900 MHz, 1.9 GHz, and 2.5 GHz activities.
Mercury manages and tracks the negotiation milestones, contractual terms including financial compensation, FCC filing information, frequencies, equipment and network retuning activities associated with spectrum activities. As a result, Mercury is the system of record for both money paid for Sprint Nextel’s current portfolio and Sprint Nextel’s contractual ability to use spectrum.
The application manages advanced workflow scenarios which span user roles, departments, processes, and functional layers. An advanced security model implements both role and process based security, secure data transmission and record level database encryption. Core business component groups consists of geo-spatial analysis, multi-system integration, contract management, customer management, asset management, financial accounting and payment information, frequency and asset management, email generation, alert notifications, predefined and ad-hoc reporting, retuning processes and FCC filings.
Results:
- Sprint/Nextel was able to meet time-sensitive government-mandated process and financial control requirements for initiating the large re-banding effort.
- Mercury was a mission critical application for Sprint/Nextel, defining the roles, data, business processes, and reports required to manage the entire rebanding efforts.
- Sprint/Nextel in on-track for successful completion of the 800-900 MHz, 1.9 GHz, and 2.5 GHz rebanding efforts. It would have taken significantly more time, people, and money to complete these large programs without Mercury.