Bell Mobility

CGI Provides Savings and Increased Levels of Service to Bell Mobility

“CGI has helped Bell Mobility better deploy its UNIX boxes in different locations and so establish a better capability for disaster recovery. They've also helped us in providing cost-effective solutions needed to meet our business requirements and in delivering those solutions on time. For us, this is important."

Bill McGowan Director of Infrastructure and Operation for Bell Mobility and BDI.

In 1999, the directors of Bell Mobility decided to concentrate their efforts on the company's core competency: the cellular network which provides wireless communication and data services to Canadians. They concluded that this could only be achieved by outsourcing the development and management of the network's various supporting environments. So, they turned to CGI…

The Challenge
In the spring of that year, Bell Mobility asked CGI to assume the management of all systems development and maintenance of applications systems. Under this outsourcing contract, CGI would operate and support the company's entire IT infrastructure including mainframe, UNIX and NT systems and provide solutions to help Bell Mobility keep abreast of new technologies. CGI was also given the responsibility for supporting voice and data telecommunications for the company. But the challenge did not stop there. In addition to being responsible for the availability of the mainframe, midrange and UNIX environment, CGI had to ensure the delivery or printing of all Bell Mobility invoices as well as disaster recovery.

The Strategy
CGI did not limit its role to running and maintaining the equipment already in place. Using a team of methodologists and process experts, CGI began planning changes with the view to meeting Bell Mobility's business requirements. This meant developing and running new projects and new applications.

Over the next two years, CGI developed a series of improvements including Automated Application Processing, Computer Telephony Integration, Integrated Voice Response (IVR) and voice activation. Automated Application Processing has proven particularly useful for customers who go to Bell Mobility to ask for a new phone and need the service to be operational almost immediately. CGI made this possible.

With Computer Telephony Integration, Bell Mobility could increase its response time to customer problems. Service personnel now know the client's phone number, where the phone was acquired and other relevant details that assist in determining the right course of action. Moreover, CGI provided Bell Mobility with a Message Processing System (MPS), which allows for the collection of data from any call, the rating and the processing of the call. The data is placed in a data bank accessible to the billing system and customer service people.

CGI also provided a paging system and activation gateway enabling customers to automatically add various services, like caller ID and call waiting, on the Internet.

The Technology

• Environment: 865 MIPS Mainframe; 60 + UNIX Servers (HP and Sun); 6 terabytes of DASD (primarily EMC, some HDS); 300 Intel Servers; 4,000 desktops;
• Full help desk operation

The Results
CGI executed and completed the changes and improvements on time and on budget. All processes were subject to constant review, and progress was assessed on a weekly basis. Once the processes were in place, they were tested to measure their performance against metrics.

CGI's knowledge of the mainframe environment provided for an efficient delivery of invoices. Its knowledge of Unix servers was used to collect call detail data from cellular switches and process it into billing data for the mainframe invoice application. Said Bill McGowan, Director of Infrastructure and Operations for Bell Mobility and BDI, "What we are looking for and getting from CGI are creative ways to improve the environment in which we operate…they provide us with a comfort feeling; they ensure operations are performing well."

Expressing the company's satisfaction, McGowan added: “CGI has helped Bell Mobility better deploy its UNIX boxes in different locations and so establish a better capability for disaster recovery. They've also helped us in providing cost-effective solutions needed to meet our business requirements and in delivering those solutions on time. For us, this is important," he added.

Bell Mobility currently caters to 2.8 million customers in Ontario and Quebec. Each month, CGI processes 4.5 million pages of invoices; each day, it handles 2.5 million transactions on the mainframe and 20 million transactions on UNIX systems with storage capacities reaching 2.5 and 3 terabytes respectively. Under the current contract, CGI will continue managing Bell Mobility's infrastructure until 2009.

• CGI’s knowledge of mainframe environment and related technologies provided efficient invoice delivery
• CGI’s knowledge of Unix servers was used to collect call detail data from cellular switches and process it into billing data for the mainframe invoice application
• 2.5 million flawless transactions/day on mainframe
• 20 million flawless transactions/day on midrange UNIX
• 60% growth in number of calls placed with Bell Mobility
• On time, on budget.

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