Stanley Final Report

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ANALYSIS OF FIXED PHONE MAINTENANCE PERFORMANCES

IN STADIUM EXCHANGE BUSINESS UNIT

By

Stanley Kadzuwa Mwale PJL 1148

FINAL REPORT

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement of City and Guilds Advanced

Diploma.

DIPLOMA

IN

ADVANCED TELECOMMUNICATION SYSTEMS 2730

As required byCITY AND GUILDS OF LONDON/ MALAWI POLYTECHNIC

ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT.

Project Supervisor

Mr. T. Chadza



ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The idea of analyzing the maintenance performances in Stadium Business Unit washatched from common complaints from subscribers I have personally met who

complained about the procedures of fixed phone maintenance.

Valuable information on maintenance processes and procedures, which I got from the

assistant manager, Mr. J. G. Makina, cannot go unmentioned, because much of the

analysis surrounded his information.

Field technicians were difficult to meet. However, Mr. Mnundo and Mr. Msyali of

Chinyonga and Makata coverage areas respectively willingly come forward to assist in

the information for the analysis of maintenance performances.

The following people; Mr. Abdul of DWS, Mr. Lizgen of Manica, Mr. Pangani, and Mrs.

Chimatiro and Charity Msatiyenda responded to the phone questionnaires favorably,

among the many respondents.

Finally, my appreciations and gratefulness cannot be complete without the name of my project supervisor, Mr. Timothy Chadza for his criticism and encouragement.



ABSTRACT

The Analysis of Fixed Phone Maintenance Performances in Stadium Business Unit, is anattempt to find out the policies and strategies for maintaining a phone as laid down by

M.T.L. phone company, utilized by the Business Unit, and to find solutions to problems

that arise due to time that is taken from the time the phone breaks down to the time it isrepaired.

This project took place in Stadium Business Unit, which has a current capacity of 18,000lines. A sample of two coverage areas of SBU has been selected based on the fact that

one is a Commercial area and the other is a residential area. The selected samples have a

general outlook of the whole business unit as is seen in Table 1 compared with Tables 2

and 3 below.

From the look of things the provider is not putting enough attention to maintenance

performances. The five-day fault reports below shows that some faults have not been

tackled for five days running, and some of these faults have been carried into this five-day record and carried through this five-day period.

This project will benefit Stadium Business Unit in particular and M.T.L as a company, in

that when the phones are maintained promptly, customers will be happy and the company

will realize more revenue. This will reduce the cost on both the subscriber and the

provider. The field technician will benefit in a way, because many people think the fieldtechnician is not efficient, such that some subscribers have abandoned their already

installed fixed phones because of long un-serviced outages that are so costly. The

subscriber will appreciate a phone that is working than to have one that is not working.



TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgment iiSummary iii

Table of contents iv

List of Tables vList of figures vi

Introduction 1

Background Information 2Maintenance Theory 3

Method of Investigation 5

Presentation of Data 6

Discussion on Findings 8Conclusion 11

Recommendations 12

Glossary 13

Reference 14Appendix 15



LIST OF TABLES PAGE

Table one: Faults/ Technicians ratio in stadium and sub exchanges 6Table two: Current capacity of stadium business unit less direct feed 6

Table three: Daily fault report for Stadium Business Unit

from 31st

. March 2007 to 6th

. April 2007 6Table four: Daily fault report for Chinyonga from 31st.

March 2007 to 6th. April 2007. 6

Table five: Daily fault report for Makata from 31st. March 2007 to6th. April 2007. 7



LIST OF FIGURES PAGE

Fig. 1: Setup of a local line from exchange to distribution point 15

Fig. 2: Daily fault report for 31st. March 2007 to 6th. April, 2007,

for Chinyonga 15

Fig. 3: Daily fault report for 31st

March 2007 to 6th

April 2007,for Makata. 16

Fig. 4: Daily fault report for 31st March 2007 to 6th April 2007,

for Stadium Business Unit 17



INTRODUCTION

The Analysis of Fixed Phone Maintenance Performances in Stadium Business Unit, is anattempt to find out the policies and strategies for maintaining a phone as laid down by

M.T.L. phone company, utilized by the Business Unit, and to find solutions to problems

that arise due to time that is taken from the time the phone breaks down to the time it isrepaired.

A fixed phone is one of the old means of communication that is still viable and costeffective. It is indeed scalable and steel has a long way to go especially in the developing

countries like Malawi. However, the phone is subject to breakdowns caused by tear and

wear of both natural and human origin. The new developments in telecommunication

services like Internet, Fax and e-mail are cost-effective and dependable if they are using afixed line as opposed to wireless or mobile communication.

The cost-effectiveness and dependability is well appreciated on a fixed phone that is

continuously available. Maintenance of the phone is an essential element for thecontinuous availability of service. The analysis of fixed phone maintenance performances

in Stadium business unit is addressing this problem of delays in maintenance processes,which is caused by the process of reporting the fault to the technician in the field.

In the procedure of reporting a fault, the technician does not know that a phone is out of

service in a said area until he/ she is informed by the business unit manager. The manager has to be informed by the fault-reporting centre, where the subscriber is supposed to

report. This process of reporting is unnecessarily long.

The fault reporting centre does not report immediately the fault is reported. The fault-

reporting centre gives a reference number to the subscriber and then compiles a day’s

fault report, which is forwarded to the business unit manager at the beginning of thefollowing day.

When the phone is faulty, it becomes ‘expensive’ on both the subscriber and the provider,this is not acceptable hence, it is paramount that maintenance performance be above

average. This project report suggests shortening the process of reporting the fault by

putting all business units on line with the fault-reporting centre so that the manager is

able to access the faults as they occur and inform the field technician promptly. The fieldtechnician should have continuous access to the manager’s office and be able to report

field progress on regular basis. This will help the manager to respond to customers’

queries comfortably. This can be a solution to the problem of delay in maintenance performances.



BACKGROUND INFORMATION

Currently, Malawi Telecommunication Limited (MTL) is the only fixed line phone provider in the country. This gives MTL a monopoly share of the market such that the

demand is far much higher than the provider can meet. The government of Malawi

through the Ministry of Transport and Communication previously provided this service.

MTL has strived to improve the service beyond that of a mere government service by

putting down strategies of management of a private company. One of the strategies is thatof dividing the countrywide company into Business Units. Stadium Business Unit is one

of such divisions across the country. It covers the biggest industrial area in Blantyre and

Southern Region. Its residential coverage area is close to industrial area. This makes it an

important phone coverage area.

For the phone service to be dependable and continuous there is need for a strategic and

consistent maintenance, hence, Analysis of maintenance performances.

Most Industries uses fixed phones in their offices and uses them as part of their addresses.

It is easy for their customers to find them or know where they are. The reason for this isthat MTL is the only phone provider that has readily available Telephone directories.

With this setup the maintenance performances for MTL are supposed to be above

average.



MAINTENANCE PERFORMANCES THEORY

MTL network is composed of local lines, junctions and trunks. (Green D.C., 1981)Stadium Business Unit is a star topology, which originates from the exchange/ switch to

the customers’ premises through CCPs mostly, because some are directly fed from the

switch, and DPs. It is composed of local lines and junctions. ‘Local lines are unamplifiedcircuits that connect individual telephone subscribers to their local telephone exchanges;

junctions are two wire circuits that may or may not be amplified and connect nearby

exchanges together; and trunks are four wire circuits that interconnect more distanttelephone exchanges’. (Green D.C., 1981)

Stadium Business Unit is composed of the Customer Care Center, which is like the

administration of the unit, and the Exchange. These work in collaboration with the FaultReporting Center. This is a common arrangement of a Business Unit.

The local line runs from the exchange to various coverage areas down to the subscriber.

A particular coverage area has a Cabinet (Cross Connection Point, CCP) or two, whichdistributes to various distribution points (DP). Depending on the capacity of the area, a

200 to 400 pair cable or even a 1000 pair cable is laid from the exchange to a CCP or cabinet in the coverage area. In the cabinet the cable is terminated into terminal blocks of

100 pairs. There are two sets of terminal blocks, i.e. the exchange side commonly known

as the E side and the subscriber side commonly known as the D side. From the D side in

the cabinet to the subscribers’ premises there is a distribution point in between.

Most distribution points in the residential coverage areas are pole mount and their

capacity is mostly ten pairs. However, in commercial coverage areas, most distribution points are wall mount. Most wall mount distribution points can carry a capacity of a

minimum of twenty (20) pairs to as much as hundred (100) pairs. From the distribution

point to the customer’s premises, a drop wire is used and here an indoor flexible wire isused.

The cabinet is the test point between the exchange and the subscriber. Most outageshappen between the cabinet and the subscriber. This may be the reason the exchange may

not know whether the customer has service or not unless he/she reports. In every set of

pairs it is good practice to reserve some pairs, which can be used in case there is a

discontinuity in an active pair away from a joint inside the cable. These reservations aresupposed to be done all the way down to the distribution point from the cabinet. A

technician is assigned a coverage area. When a fault is reported the technician will first

go to the cabinet to see if the said pair has a tone from the exchange, so that thetechnician can check which side the fault is and repair it.

The fault-reporting center is composed of personnel who sit on extensions of a toll-freeline 197. A call to 197 will go to any of the extensions, which is idle. The personnel will

record the fault, give the caller a reference number and compile a list of reported faults.

This list is forwarded to the Business Unit Manager who will distribute to the concerned

technician.



The project analyzed Stadium Business Unit regarding the delay in maintenance

processes. The problem at hand is the time that elapses from the point of reporting a faultto the point when the fault is cleared. The movement of information from the customer to

technician in the field has too many stages. The Fault-reporting Centre waits to compile a

day’s list. This list is forwarded at a certain time i.e. the beginning of the following day.This reduces the availability of the phone service.

A fault should be cleared once and for all and within the twenty-four hours it has beenreported ( MTL, 2006).



METHOD OF INVESTGATION

The analysis of maintenance performance was conducted using interview, which wereconducted with various staff of Stadium Business Unit and several subscribers of the

same Business unit.

The first interview was conducted with the Assistant Manager who explained the

policies, strategies and manager’s discretions in the process of maintaining a phone.

During this interview, the manager provided data of faults, which explains about thereported and repaired faults. This is part of the analysis of maintenance performances as

shown in the tables. See Table 2.

Another way was to conduct phone interview with subscribers to fulfill the objectives.Most subscribers from the industrial area responded well and were even giving their

opinion and expectation from the provider in terms of maintenance performances.

The findings from the interviews were compared to the available data and results andconclusions were drawn.



PRESENTATION OF DATA

Table one:

FAULTS/ TECHNICIANS RATIO IN STADIUM AND SUB EXCHANGES

COVERAGE AREA/EXCHANGE

NUMBER OFTECHNICIANS

NUMBER OF FAULTSIN FIVE DAYS

STADIUM 9 <1342

NDILANDE 2 <298

ZINGWANGWA 2 <298

CHILOBWE 1 <149

Table two:

CURRENT CAPACITY OF STADIUM BUSINESS UNIT LESS DIRECT FEED

EXCHANGE NO. OF CCPs. EXCHANGE

CAPACITYSTADIUM 22 15,000

NDIRANDE 7 1,024

ZINGWANGWA 5 1,520

CHILOBWE 2 512

STADIUM BUSINESS UNIT 36 18,056

Table three:

DAILY FAULT REPORT FOR STADIUM BUSINESS UNIT FROM 31ST.

MARCH 2007 TO 6TH. APRIL 2007

DAY Faults Bf REPORTED TOTAL CLEARED Faults Cf.

1 382 42 424 39 385

2 385 41 426 64 362

3 362 36 398 34 364

4 364 48 412 29 383

5 383 45 428 20 408

Table four:

DAILY FAULT REPORT FOR CHINYONGA FROM 31ST. MARCH 2007 TO 6TH.

APRIL 2007.


1 11 2 13 - 13

2 13 3 16 3 13

3 13 - 13 1 12

4 12 1 13 - 13

5 13 1 14 2 12



Table five:

DAILY FAULT REPORT FOR MAKATA FROM 31ST. MARCH 2007 TO 6TH.

APRIL 2007.


1 17 1 18 - 182 18 2 20 - 20

3 20 6 26 - 26

4 26 3 29 - 29

5 29 - 29 - 29



DISCUSSION OF FINDING

The results presented above shows that there is more room for improvements in terms of maintenance performances in Stadium Business Unit. While the Business unit is not able

to meet the required level of maintenance of a fixed phone, there are many would be

subscribers who are waiting to have a phone in their office or home.

The results show that there is luck of commitment on the part of the provider. There are

no enough technicians to handle the faults that accumulate on daily basis. Currently theBusiness Unit has 18,056 lines to subscribers. This is far below the potential of the Unit.

The numbers of technicians who are on the lower side are supposed to do expansion work

besides maintenance work. This means each technician is responsible for 1,200 lines; this

may not be manageable when the level of faults rises. As a mater of policy, eachtechnician is expected to clear six faults in a day. This is not possible if the same

technician is to do expansion work. In tables four and five it is noted that some day’s

faults are reported but no fault is cleared in those days. If a cumulative graph were to be

drawn from the reported faults it will be very steep because the number of cleared faultsis below one third of the total reported faults.

The results means there is need for more commitment by management of MTL as a hole

in terms of supplying resources, both human and other resources, in order to meet the

required level of maintenance performances. It also shows that the Business Unit is not

able to satisfy its market hence, maintenance is jeopardized. It does not have the capacityto meet the rising demand for a fixed phone. Expanding to new subscribers when

maintaining the existing subscribers is inadequate is like planting in the bush. It can also

be termed as an abuse of the customer and the maintenance personnel. However, both thesubscriber and the provider have played a part in bringing down the level of maintenance

performance as discussed below.



PROVIDER’S CONTRIBUTION TO MAINTENANCE DELAYS

The interview with the manager was firstly intended to find out what policies are therefor maintenance performances. Secondly it was meant to find what is at the disposal of

management to help in maintenance process. For the policies, the company requires that a

fault be cleared within the twenty-four hours it has been reported. Each technician isexpected to clear six faults in a day. The technicians are supposed to be in the field by

7:30 am. However, management admitted that the technicians are not in the field on time

due to transport problem. The technicians are also responsible for new installations;therefore they cannot clear six faults in a day. Management also said every technician is

fully aware of his place of work but he/she can collect a map from management if need

be. However, management has taken a big role in the delays by not providing adequate

resources like transport, etc. As regards positioning of technicians, there is no policy,which guides management as to who is supposed to be where; it is at the manager’s

discretion to put a particular technician in a particular area. Due to shortage of

technicians, management has not moved technicians around such that some technicians

have served in one location for over five years. SBU has 36 CCPs, see Table 1. Fourteentechnicians and five vehicles. Of the five vehicles, 2 are in the garage for a long time.

The interview with the technicians from the selected areas was meant to discover any

different opinion between management and the technicians in order to discover his/ her

contribution towards delays in maintenance process. Another reason was to know

different causes of common faults in both residential and commercial areas and also totackle the issue of bribery and corruption, which affect maintenance performances. The

technician has taken advantage over management’s shortfalls. He/ she has blamed

management for most of his/ her failures.

Since the areas of operation for this project were commercial and residential, the

technicians in the respective areas were interviewed with slightly different questions.Both technicians agreed on main causes of common faults as being vandalism and

carelessness of the people using the phones and people leaving in the areas where phones

are. They said the reason is that some wires pass through private properties and this isinevitable. The technicians cited the problem of transport as the cause of failure to

complete day’s work, because they arrive after 8:00 am and have to leave for lunch as

early as 11:30 am, because one vehicle has to ferry technicians of different coverage

areas. In the afternoon they leave the office at 1:30pm. And arrive late also. They said alltechnician have basic tools to enable them to handle any situation of their work and these

are: a portable phone, an oscillator, amplifier, side cutters which have basic screwdrivers

and a ladder and that each technician has all this. They said sometimes they luck supplieswhere necessary replacements are required, like cables and connectors but these

occasions are not common. Both technicians agreed that every technician is aware of the

geographical setup of his/ her place of work.



CUSTOMERS CONTRIBUTION TO DELAYS IN MAINTENANCE

The customer’s contribution is mainly due to ignorance of the procedures. However theinterview shows that most customers know where to report when their phone is out of

order. Problems arises when the customer report and there is no prompt response. This

has lead to bribery, where the customer will divert the technician from his/ her planneddays work to do this particular customer’s work. Both technicians agreed that they do

sometimes receive reports straight from customers but they cannot attend to them because

at the end of the day they are supposed to send a clearance report to the fault reportingcentre and it has to much that which is in the centre’s record. Hence, they only attend to

faults, which come from the centre. This can lead to bribery and corruption. On the

economic perspective, this is counterproductive. Because had the phone been repaired

outside the fault reporting centre’s list, the proceeds gained thereof by the customer’s useof the phone benefits the company. The company needs their service to be used in order

for it to raise revenue. This is a cause for unnecessary delay in maintenance

performances.

From the network map collected it was discovered that any technician could easily follow

lay out of the wire of any phone in the area they are assigned, because the map includesnotable features in the area like buildings or shops. The fault reports, which were

collected, have more evidence, which shows that there is less commitment towards

maintenance performances by management. From the fig3 and Table 3 for Makata CCP 5

for five days apart from the carried forward faults there were 12 faults reported but nofault was cleared in the whole five days.



CONCLUSION

The maintenance performance picture present in the selected coverage areas and thewhole Business Unit is not different as read from the daily fault reports above. The

number of faults is growing to an alarming rate because the number of faults cleared in a

day is below that which is reported, without counting those that are caused by vandalism.The process of reporting a fault, as explained in the project description, is too long. If it

was shortened, the delays in maintenance process could be reduced or even removed.

There is need to increase the maintenance activities and maintain the policy (MTL,

2006 ) that a fault should be cleared once and for all. If this policy was followed, we could

come to a position where there would be no outstanding faults.

It was indeed necessary in the first place to conduct this research because it will shake upthe system and remind management to start to follow the laid down policies and also to

move with time. For example if there is no fault cleared for a week, somebody has been

without the service for a week or even more. The significance of the information given

above is that the Business Unit will revisit its Maintenance performance system. Thismay even go to other Business units. The advantage is that this report can help the

Business Unit at no cost, because it was done without any funding fro Stadium BusinessUnit. The only limitation visible is that since the company is undergoing restructuring

process it may lead to this report being ignored due to the restructuring that is going on.



RECOMMENDATIONS

The problems associated with maintenance performances in Stadium Business Unit areneither better nor worse, compared to other business units. Most of these problems are

due to strategies set by the central management, whose needed resources are not

adequately provided. For example, the central management is the only solver of thetransport problem. However, the analysis has shown that putting all business units on line

with the Fault Reporting Centre can reduce the time that is wasted in the process of

reporting a fault. This means the manager will not wait for the day’s list of reported faultsfor him to tell the technicians to go and repair a fault. The technicians will clear the faults

on line, making the whole process short and simple.

Currently, MTL has the cordless phones, which are in form of desktops and portable pocket size. These can be allocated to the technicians for official use, so that they can be

accessible by the manager at all times.

This paper suggests that all business units should be on line with the fault-reportingcentre, so that the manager should access the faults as they are reported. There should be

regular communication between the technician in the field and the manager so that heshould have a field progress report. This will give the manager a better standing in

responding to customer’s queries.

Finally, it is recommended that there should be a policy that any line that has not workedfor more than a month should be recovered for further allocation. This will maximize

revenue per unit line, because any line that is not working contributes to loss of revenue.

This is against the aim of this project and indeed the aim of MTL and Stadium BusinessUn it.



GLOSSARY

CCP: Cross Connection Point

CLRD: Cleared Faults

MDF: Main Distribution Frame

SBU: Stadium Business UnitTEC: Telecommunication Engineering Centre

Business Unit: Managed Unit composed of the customer care centre, the exchange and

its coverage area.

Engineering Service Circuit: This is a communication circuit provided by management

for use by the technician to talk to the management and vise a versa.

Toll Free Number: This a number provided by the phone company for public service of

a specific purpose.

Subscriber: A service user or customer.



REFERENCE

M.T.L. March 2006 Quality of service report.

Green, D.C. 1981, Longman, Radio and Line Transmission B,



APPENDIX

FIGURES

Fig. 1: SETUP OF A LOCAL LINE FROM EXCHANGE TO DISTRIBUTION POINT

Fig. 2

DAILY FAULT REPORT FOR 31ST

. MARCH 2007 TO 6TH

. APRIL, 2007, FOR CHINYONGA

62FaultsBf

7Faults

report

6Faultsclrd.

63Faults

Cf.

DP

MDF

CHAMBER

EXCHANGE

MANHOLE

East

West

North

JOINTBOX

CCPMANHOLE

CCP DP

MANHOLE

DP

DP



0

CLRD

Fig. 3: DAILY FAULT REPORT FOR 31ST. MARCH 2007 TO 6TH. APRIL 2007,

FOR MAKATA.

110Faults

Bf

12Faults

report

122Faults

Cf.



Fig. 4

DAILY FAULT REPORT FOR 31ST. MARCH 2007 TO 6TH. APRIL 2007,

FOR STADIUM BUSINESS UNIT.

1876Faults

Bf

212Faults

report

1902Faults

Cf.

186Faults

CLRD

Documents

Stanley Final Report