Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Reliable power key issue for cities, high-tech firms

From: Marcel <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 15 Apr 2003 04:06:58 -0400

Reliable power key issue for cities, high-tech firms

By J. PHILIP BLOOMER
 THE NEWS-GAZETTE
Published Online April 13, 2003

CHAMPAIGN – When the city of Champaign agreed to kick in $50,000 last month to
help Amdocs Inc. get reliable electric power, it was a first.  “This was
obviously an unusual situation,” said Craig Rost, the city's deputy to the city
manager for development. “Certainly we've helped with infrastructure
requirements before, though not in this way. And under our policy, we're able to
consider this basic infrastructure. But it's also 500 jobs. We want to keep them
here.”

So with a little help from the city, here they'll stay. For a while anyhow.  But
Amdocs' trouble with Illinois Power, officials say, is merely symptomatic of
wider problems in the delivery of electric power to businesses, many of them
high-tech oriented businesses of the kind the community has and is trying to
attract.

Peter Fox, the developer of Fox corporate office park between Fox Drive and
Windsor Road, said there've been periodic problems with many of the
high-tech-oriented businesses on his properties, including Intel, Volition,
Personal Care, Cisco Systems and even Biaggi's restaurant, whose electrical
service needs don't approach those of a computer-intensive environment.

The extent of the problem as well as the threat to Amdocs is also what drew in
city officials and state legislators to try and broker a solution.  Former state
Rep. Tom Berns was in on several of the discussions.  “It's become a bigger and
bigger problem,” Berns said. “When people are told to just build in backup
power, you're on your own, that's unacceptable. IP's answer is to build squirrel
cages. But that's not ensuring reliable electric power. What Amdocs did on its
own to ensure uninterrupted service is really something. They don't just have
belts and suspenders. Their belt is nailed to their pants.  “This goes beyond
Amdocs. It's an important element of economic development for the whole area,”
Berns said.  Fox has been documenting Amdocs power problems for several years.
Since October 1998, Fox has documented 24 outages, meaning power interruptions
lasting a minute or longer, and 17 “glitches,” or flickers of power. With
Amdocs, he added, power outages have a dominolike effect, with costly
consequences for a company that depends on fluid, uninterrupted service to
monitor customer accounts for its main client, cellphone giant Nextel.

Shirley Swarthout, a spokeswoman for Illinois Power, said the company made some
improvements to upgrade the substation serving Fox properties after nine outages
were recorded in 2001. The improvements consisted of building wire frames over
electrical connections in the substation to keep out animals. Since then, there
has been one outage, in April 2002, she said.
Fox counts two last April, including a substation fire, and six outages through
the rest of 2002.

“Our ultimate goal is not to engage in a war of statistics with Illinois Power,
but to be able to serve the entire Champaign-Urbana community with reliable
power at competitive prices,” Fox said.  Tom O'Brien, vice president of investor
relations with Amdocs, confirmed that reliable power is critical to Amdocs being
able to retain Nextel as a customer, and therefore staying in Champaign. Within
the center itself, he said the company has invested “millions” in electrical
upgrades. But beyond that investment, it required a second transmission feed
from Illinois Power.

“This is one of our main data centers. We've got the people there who know what
they're doing, and we've made significant investments in that facility over the
years,” O'Brien said. “All we needed was good, clean power to the building.”

Swarthout said IP did make an extra effort to improve the substation and showed
good results. Any commercial use is entitled to standard service, which means
overhead service delivered at one point. If a customer wants underground
service, a second delivery point or alternative feed, that's the customer's
responsibility, she said.  “We looked at that situation and made the
improvements we thought would provide the best benefits,” she said. “The
situation has improved significantly.

“Individuals who need higher levels of service pay the cost. That's an issue of
fairness. We cannot subsidize premium service and not charge for that somewhere
else. That said, we believe we are reliable and providing reliable service is a
very high priority.”

One of the problems in this dispute is over the definition of reliable power.
Rost, the city's economic development officer, said uninterrupted power that
doesn't disrupt business operations is a reasonable expectation. He is among
those who have been involved in repeated meetings among IP officials, business
users and local legislators.  “But to have guaranteed, uninterruptible power
according to IP, businesses have to invest in independent, and expensive,
generators and backup systems,” Rost said. “That doesn't seem reasonable.
Continued problems in this regard damage our competitiveness.” Aside from
disputes between Fox, his companies and Illinois Power, Fox two years ago became
part of the partnership that continues to build the University of Illinois South
Research Park. The park includes several computer-intensive uses, most notably
the Motorola research building.  There have been no power interruptions within
the park, said Fox and UI officials.

The power source for the research park is the UI, which severed itself from
Illinois Power several years ago. Abbott Power Plant provides all of the UI's
electricity needs, and the UI has its own distribution network.  Lyle Wachtel,
the UI's energy guru since the 1980s and the director of the Office of Planning
and Budgeting, said cost was a driving reason for the UI to rid itself of IP's
electrical service, just as the university had built its own gas pipeline to
avoid IP's high gas rates.  “But on the electrical side, what added to the
necessity was the reliability, definitely,” said Wachtel. “We really did see a
dif- ference since converting.”

City officials got unanimous support from the city council to kick in the
$50,000 for Amdocs' second power feed. But the support wasn't enthusiastic.

“It's really tragic our community can't provide an employer of 500 people with a
simple commodity like electrical power,” said council member Tom Bruno, the most
vocal of the council members to address the problem.

“The blame for that falls squarely on the utility. I wish we didn't have to
spend this money. I wish we had reliable electrical power. But we don't.” The
city also agreed to help obtain a $75,000 state grant, but that application –
like all state grants at this time – has been frozen until after state budget
decisions clarify themselves.

The total cost of the second feed is $180,000. IP has agreed to contribute
$14,000. Fox Development has agreed to pay whatever balance might be necessary.

City officials are also in the process of organizing a communitywide meeting to
solicit comment on reliability issues from business, industrial and residential
users. The hearing will be conducted with the city of Urbana.

“It's clear it's not an isolated problem,” said Rost. “That's why we want to
open it up to as many interested people as possible.”

http://www.newsgazette.com/story.cfm?Number=13604

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---

From: Marcel <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 15 Apr 2003 04:22:44 -0400

Have you ever wondered why Nextel  can never get your bill right?
Maybe it is because their vendor Amdocs can't keep their lights on!
Every electrical "Glitch" increases your bill by $100! :) :)

Nextel- "How Business Gets Done"
                                                       - We Shock You! (With the bill)

So you say Change Vendors?  Not so easy Nextel signed a 7 yr contract with Amdocs, but
every contract can be broken.

http://www.amdocs.com/hotnews.asp?news_id=280

> <SNIP>

---

From: Bill <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 15 Apr 2003 01:54:00 -0700

So, Is Amdocs new to Nextel or is the new "Ensemble" system something 
that's going to fix Nextel/Amdoc's legendary failure at customer support 
and service?

Should I blame Amdocs for turning off our service because of their mistakes 
or should I blame Nextel?

I'm not really wanting to blame anybody now... I've cooled down. We're 
saving several hundreds a month, paying for our 4 channel UHF trunking 
system, making interconnect calls, saying "Hey Jim, you there?"... and in 
generally happier and thankfull for whoever, Amdocs or Nextel, ticked us 
off so bad we started thinking and went shopping.

But on the other hand.... I was at NAB last week and my pal Scott made a 
Direct Connect call to his son from Las Vegas to Boston. Very impressive. I 
would really like to be able to put up with and/or afford that!

Bill Lieske

At 04:22 AM 4/15/2003 -0400, you wrote:
><http://www.amdocs.com/hotnews.asp?news_id=280>http://www.amdocs.com/hotnews.asp?news_id=280
>
>Marcel wrote:
>
> > lasting a minute or longer, and 17 "glitches," or flickers of power. With
>Yahoo! Groups Sponsor
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---

From: Marcel <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 15 Apr 2003 05:19:22 -0400

Bill wrote:

>
> So, Is Amdocs new to Nextel or is the new "Ensemble" system something that's
> going to fix Nextel/Amdoc's legendary failure at customer support and service?
>
>

Amdocs has had a contract with Nextel since 11/01. Ensemble is the billing
product offered by Amdocs.

Nextel is ultimately responsible for your bill.

>
> Should I blame Amdocs for turning off our service because of their mistakes or
> should I blame Nextel?
>

Nextel-

>
> I'm not really wanting to blame anybody now... I've cooled down. We're saving
> several hundreds a month, paying for our 4 channel UHF trunking system, making
> interconnect calls, saying "Hey Jim, you there?"... and in generally happier
> and thankfull for whoever, Amdocs or Nextel, ticked us off so bad we started
> thinking and went shopping.

Nice you have a "Real Radio" And I bet you even have your own "Direct Connect"
(Simplex).

> would really like to be able to put up with and/or afford that!

Ah, that is nothing I can talk to Australia using IRLP!

And I don't get a messed up bill in the mail that I have to argue about with a
customer services rep from Tele-Tubby. (Oppss I meant Teletech) who perpetrates
as a Nextel employee.

Once you see the results from my 2000 Mile P-T-T test you will think again.
I should finish crunching numbers this week.

---

From: "Dylan Bromby" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 15 Apr 2003 07:44:11 -0700

That might explain their earnings ;-).

-----Original Message-----
From: Marcel [mailto:[email-masked]] 
Sent: Tuesday, April 15, 2003 1:23 AM
To: [email-masked]
Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Have you ever wondered why Nextel can never get your
bill right?

Have you ever wondered why Nextel  can never get your bill right? Maybe
it is because their vendor Amdocs can't keep their lights on! Every
electrical "Glitch" increases your bill by $100! :) :)

                                                       - We Shock You!
(With the bill)

So you say Change Vendors?  Not so easy Nextel signed a 7 yr contract
with Amdocs, but every contract can be broken.

>
> <SNIP>
> Since October 1998, Fox has documented 24 outages, meaning power 
> interruptions lasting a minute or longer, and 17 "glitches," or 
> flickers of power. With Amdocs, he added, power outages have a 
> dominolike effect, with costly consequences for a company that depends

> on fluid, uninterrupted service to monitor customer accounts for its 
> main client, cellphone giant Nextel.

Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/

---

From: Don Root <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 15 Apr 2003 08:40:53 -0700

> Have you ever wondered why Nextel  can never get your bill right?

They use MCI's billing contractor?

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