News

BatteryCorp Adds Site Audits

The company that turned battery provision into a high touch managed service adds tower site audits to its list of services.

by Alex Goldman ISP-Planet Managing Editor [April 17, 2006]

Last year, we first wrote about Newton, Mass.-based BatteryCorp and how the company had turned the provision of batteries into a high touch managed service for wireless carriers.

CEO Steve Dworkin told us that in the past, most companies replaced all batteries after a certain number of years (generally three or four years), and that many companies learned, in a disaster, that batteries that had not yet been replaced had already failed. He adds that companies also throw away many good batteries.

"We help companies switch from a policy of 'rip and replace' to 'test and replace' and that saves money. You create a standard so that the test is done the same way across the entire network, and the software applies the customer business rules. The ROI is one to three times the cost of testing."

He told us that BatteryCorp also does the recycling, including the government paperwork involved. "We send them to a certified smelter that meets EPA requirements. Then we give complete documentation to the customer in case the EPA is interested in what the customer did with their batteries."

Now BatteryCorp has taken the logical next step in its service, partnering with Lucent's power group to provide its auditing and testing services to Lucent customers.

The company is now looking beyond the battery. Its Sensible and Sound Emergency Power Audits check the wiring the of the cell site, check the grounding, and provide a key data point that carrier customers have been demanding: hours of runtime on battery only power.

This is more than software. BatteryCorp is now sending teams with hardhats. They look inside cabinets. They check the soil. Dworkin says that the metal used to ground cell towers can deteriorate, putting the towers in danger. In the wireless business, there are few disasters more expensive than a tower whose grounding fails.

"We have a national service network that goes out and does the analysis and uses our Optimization Management Solution (OMS) technology to make the recommendation."

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