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Satellite to the rescue: careful planning is required for rebooting call center operations after a disaster - Wireless

Communications News, August, 2003 by David Steele

The complicated nature of voice-intensive operations, generally call or customer contact centers, until now has mandated a hot site-type recovery solution for business continuity. Hot sites, however, which are third-party locations completely configured to allow for the restore of an affected business, can be costly in several ways.

Logistically, there is the time-consuming and costly task of securing transportation and lodging for hundreds of employees within hours. Attrition rates also can be high among employees asked to travel at a difficult time. Therefore, mobile solutions that can be easily deployed are often considered as part of effective disaster-recovery (DR) plans.

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The only other option for these types of operations has been rerouting calls internally, to other locations within an organization. Hot-site and call-rerouting solutions, however, can severely reduce the capability to process calls, especially if the outage occurs during a heavy traffic period or for an extended period of time.

Companies now have a new option to consider: DR vendors who can provide mobile office space that connects to a pre-existing data and voice connection, known as a "hitching post," at a pre-designated recovery location. This allows both the voice and data aspects of a recovery solution to be prestaged. In a DR scenario, this option typically only needs a single link back to the corporate network, often as simple as a fiber link into the building where the recovery is taking place--whether that be a branch office, corporate facility or third-party site.

When planning for an automatic call distribution (ACD) environment, a hitching-post solution has limitations. Among these is a need to plan for ACD capability at an alternate location, either by increasing capacity at that alternate site or investing in a new system for DR purposes only.

THE SATELLITE SOLUTION

Although mobile units attached to hitching posts address the issue of providing functional local recovery, the need to invest in DR ACD hardware or accept drastically reduced functionality can be a daunting issue. In addition, hitching posts may limit geographic flexibility, as they tether a mobile solution to pre-arranged locations that are not easily or quickly altered in time of disaster. If the hitching post is also affected by the regional problem, the disaster solution is compromised.

If this is the case, a satellite-based recovery solution is one option.

Using transportable earth stations, DR vendors can establish T-1 voice/data IP-based links over satellite back to a teleport facility that is geographically removed from the disaster area. While pre-arranged recovery sites are still required for planning purposes, the flexibility exists to alter the recovery site as needs dictate.

Diverse data networking requirements can be accommodated at the teleport, including Internet access, and a variety of pre-arranged WAN connections, such as VPN and frame relay. Using voice over IP (VoIP) allows voice traffic to be presented over the link, as well.

For the VoIP implementation, vendors should utilize an efficient algorithm, allowing for the transmission of as many simultaneous voice calls over the satellite link as possible, without sacrificing quality for quantity. A bandwidth of 6 kbps to 10 kbps is typical, allowing 150 to 250 simultaneous calls on a single T-1. In addition, there may be a need to allocate some bandwidth for data requirements, thereby reducing the number of calls per T-1.

The main remaining issue is ACD capability. DR vendors are able to provide ACD services in two ways: at the mobile unit or at the teleport. If physically located at the mobile unit, all queued calls within the ACD environment will consume satellite bandwidth. When located in the teleport, only calls presented to an ACD agent are sent across the satellite link, allowing for a more cost-effective solution.

Another benefit of teleport-based ACD services is the speed of the initial setup. While a mobile recovery may be ready for use within 24 to 48 hours, the ACD can typically be preprogrammed with a generic disaster message that can provide customers with information as quickly as telco lines are diverted. Alternatively, this message can be recorded at time of disaster, allowing a specific response, such as a timeline for the resumption of call center activities.

CRITICAL RECOVERY COMPONENTS

As part of DR planning, an organization should make a list of the critical components of the call center that need to be handled by a third-party ACD environment, as well as those features that are desired but not necessary if the business is in recovery mode. Among the critical components: multilevel IVR, music on hold, operator function, queue-based routing, skills-based routing, call transfer, call hold, agent groups, agent login and agent portability, and supervisor/barge function.

Desirables might include: personal voice mail, telephone directory, call conference, call recording, priority-based routing, unified messaging, database integration, computer-telephony integration (CTI), wallboard and call statistics.

Technology Industry

Satellite to the rescue: careful planning is required for rebooting call center operations after a disaster - Wireless

Communications News, August, 2003 by David Steele

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