Applications

The Backup for the Towers

ISPs looking to upgrade their business from a product to a service could learn something from a battery maker turned service provider.

by Alex Goldman ISP-Planet Managing Editor [November 14, 2005]

Newton, Mass.-based BatteryCorp is more than just a manufacturer of batteries—though it does that too, compromising neither on quality nor price, says CEO Steven Dworkin.

"We are able to manufacture a premium quality product in Asia at a lower cost than in the U.S., reducing customer TCO."

But the company realized it needed to do more for its largest customers, such as T-Mobile, and the company is now a battery consulting firm.

"We help customers understand the health of their network. We show them how they can manage the network as they grow and change and need additional power sites."

Dworkin says that with recent natural disasters and power outages, carrier CEOs are paying attention to backup. CEOs now know the first responders rely on carrier infrastructure, and that loved ones rely on it to contact each other during a crisis.

But a mandate to improve battery backup doesn't always translate into better service in the field. That's because large operations are so complex.

"We created an end to end solution implementing database technology to help customers make business decisions. If you have 50,000 sites, each with between 8 and 24 batteries, and you test the entire network, you could end up with a million data points."

Standardize and automate
So you have to standardize and automate. In the past, most companies replaced all batteries after a certain number of years (generally three or four years). Dworkin says 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."

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

A big, big market
The company also provides battery backup solution for fiber deployments, but at present, that's a small market compared to wireless. "Presently, there are about 260,000 battery deployments at cell sites across the U.S. Each cell site has between $500 and $10,000 of batteries. At each site, the battery is the only component that is guaranteed to fail."

The cellular networks are complex. "Many companies have grown through acquisition and have many different types of batteries and technologies in their towers," Dworkin says. New technologies and subscriber growth will add to power demand.

The company does provide batteries to smaller owners, but Dworkn says that in smaller installations, his company's service doesn't usually repay the investment required. He says companies with several hundred sites can run a spreadsheet, and they'll throw away some good batteries, and won't be as efficient as an automated operation, but that there's insufficient incentive to upgrade their battery process.

And that's how BatteryCorp has become more than a battery provider. What have you done to become more than the Internet pipe you sell?

— End