Powertel Case Study

Summary

Powertel is a PCS wireless service provider that provides 100 percent digital PCS wireless services to 12 states in the Southeast region of the United States. Powertel’s mission statement is "Powertel will attract and retain customers by providing quality services which exceed expectations at exceptional value through a team committed to excellence and honesty." Powertel is a member of the Global Systems for Mobile (GSM) Alliance. Being a member of the GSM allows Powertel the ability to provide its customers with access to quality service in more than 4000 U.S. and Canadian cities as well as abroad. Powertel’s main markets are 34 southeast metropolitan areas with the Atlanta Major Trading Area being the centerpiece.

Problem

In early 2001 Powertel ran in to trouble when the marketing department advertised the following "Pick up the Powertel $40 calling plan today and receive 3,600 all digital minutes with free roaming throughout the extensive Powertel Service Area." The new rate plan was a major success for the marketing department. New customers caused the network traffic grew 40% within the first month. But due to a lack of communication Powertel’s engineers were caught of guard by the promotion and with in a few months all of the new activity caused major problems throughout the network. The network was designed to handle an estimated 4% growth monthly and 48% growth annually. The 40% jump in one month due to the new rate plan caused a lot of dropped calls and busy signals. The intersection of Highway 459 and Highway 280 in Birmingham was a heavy traffic area that saw the most problems with the recent spike in subscribers. This area also had been generating the most customer complaints due to the amount of people using Powertel’s network in that area. The basic solution to this problem was to preform a cell split. This could be done by simply adding a tower in the area to provide a new set of frequencies for users to access in the new cell area. To accomplish this a new tower would have to be placed in the area and that is where the real problem lies. The company had to decide whether to build a new site on a hill or add antennas to an existing site at the top of the Sheraton Hotel.

Analysis

The goal in dealing with this problem area is to get the network to operate efficiently. To solve this problem a cell split is the only option. A cell is the coverage area that an antenna provides cell phone users; each cell also offers a new set of frequency’s exclusive to its coverage area. By performing a cell split in the problem area this will introduce a new set of frequencies to reuse exclusively in that area, thus easing the strain on the current network configuration. The intersection of Highway 459 and Highway 280 in Birmingham offers two options to improve