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Make the Transition From Analog to Digital
At Prime Communications, Education Is the Key
By Thomas G. Dolan

• Technology challenges
• Apprehensive personnel
• Training strategies
• If I had it to do over &
• Bottom Line

"Ive been in the business for 15 years and thought that making the switch from analog to digital would be routineboy, was I naive," says Scott Shelley, vice president of operations at Prime Communications Inc. in Rockville, Md. "Digital changes the way you do business by 180 degrees."

Advanced service launchessuch as cable modem and digital TV (DTV) service, video streaming, pay TV, near video-on-demand (NVOD), Internet protocol (IP) telephony, and so onplace new and sometimes unexpected demands upon cable companies.

The solution for Prime, says Shelley, has been education, education and more education. Its easy to say, he adds, but difficult to implement effectively. All 227 employees receive at least some degree of training, which varies in terms of the job category. Its taken the company 18 months simply to plan out the training system, and thats only the start.

Technology challenges

"Perhaps the biggest challenge is to get technicians to understand the difference in measuring analog and digital signals and how those signals are represented," says Technical Training Manager William Catlett. "With analog, you can still see a picture. It may be grainy or snowy, and the quality may not be there, but at least theres something to work with. With digital, however, its either there or not there. Also, you have to keep a closer eye on the noise floor with digital signals because once it gets to a certain level, you might compare it to a cliffit just drops off."

Troubleshooting and maintenance also are difficult for this reason, Catlett explains. Ingress and distortion dont affect digital signals in more ways than they do analog signals, but the disturbances are of a different nature and harder to spot. Add to this that with traditional analog TV service, you have only the forward signals to contend with, but with advanced two-way digital services, you have both the forward and return.

Apprehensive personnel

There have been personnel challenges as well. First, because the new technical orientation is so different, there has been some resistance among technicians and even more apprehension. The learning curve has been steep. Yet, on the other hand, the success of the training has led to a new problem.

"Right now, because of the skill level our technicians have achieved, the competition is grabbing them like hotcakes," Catlett says. "Our technicians want us to meet the new salary offers they are getting, but we dont want to get into a salary matching competition."

The solution to these challenges? Although the company does not want to get into bidding wars to retain the technicians it has trained, Catlett says its experimenting with a new incentive/bonus structure, so that employees can make more based on productivity. He adds that the learning curve, though difficult, once completed will not have to be undergone again. He says that the new challenges necessitate instilling in technicians a deeper sense of and pride in craft. Moreover, as they become more confident in their skills, the resistances and apprehensions fade away.

Training strategies

But the key to all of this is training, including vendor training on the new equipment, intensive in-house training using computer based training (CBT) and National Cable Television Institute correspondence coursesalso incorporated into the in-house trainingplus hands-on, on-the-job training with more experienced personnel.

The most intensive training is broken down into the following job categories: contract installers, in-house installers, service technicians, line technicians, system technicians, sales installers, telemarketers, dispatchers and customer service representatives (CSRs).

Contract installers: The outsourced installers are given classes in professional customer relations and the technical aspects of digital. The amount of training varies as needed.

In-house installers: The in-house installers are given two-week new hire classes, also in both the customer relations and technical aspects. This is followed by two more weeks riding with someone in the field, during which time they also receive accelerated service classes.

Service technicians: After a week of classroom training, these technicians spend two to three weeks riding with experienced personnel. They begin accepting two to three calls a week on their own and keep at it for six months to a year until they are proficient and ready to move on.

Line technicians: The ordinary training period here encompasses 16 hours in the classroom and 16 hours in the field. An accelerated course involves two four-hour classroom sessions. The trainees also ride with experienced line technicians and gradually start with a few calls on their own, progressing from there.

System technicians: Here the training is almost entirely in the field working with established system technicians. For each of these levels, technicians go through testing and certification processes. Once a person becomes certified as a system technician, the education is virtually complete.

Telemarketers: These personnel receive a four-hour class on theory, basic TV hookup and troubleshooting.

Dispatchers: Sometimes called field communicators, dispatchers go through a four-hour class as well. Covered topics include cable theory, map reading, meter reading and basic troubleshooting.

Customer service: "This is a big one," says Catlett. "We have a program called Get It Right, in which they are taught troubleshooting to resolve customer complaints and minimize service calls." There are four different levels, each involving a four-hour class.

"Employees have to know the product like the back of their hand so that, just like the installing of cable today, there is a seamless transition," says Shelley. The key to the training is the mastery of the use of the navigator, especially for the sales or customer service representatives who deal directly with customers.

"They have the navigator on their desks, all integrated to one type of remote control, so that questions can be answered over the phone and customers can be literally walked through the system," Shelley says. "It doesnt matter how good your product isif your customers dont know how to operate it, it will fail miserably."

Catlett explains that the navigator is a function of the new digital set-top, which allows the user to access much more information than was possible through the analog system. For example, it allows you to preselect movies, rather than simply channels. "The navigator is not that hard to use," he says, "but it does take a learning curve for a person to understand how to utilize all of its many features."

Cable modems involve an entirely different group of technicians. Training takes a week, followed by a two-week ride with an installer or data technician before a trainee starts out on small jobs on his or her own. Prime teaches these technicians how to install and configure the computer to provide the high-speed data and to troubleshoot. The hardest thing for installers to master, Catlett says, "is the computer configuration and the inherent problems customers have with computers."

If I had it to do over &

What does Catlett wish he had known ahead of time before making the transition from analog to digital? "The training process is good, but whats been hard is implementing it in a timely fashion and trying to coordinate the vendors and various departments to cut down on lag time and frustration levels."

As for the most important advice he could give colleagues in making a similar transition, Catlett emphasizes "education, education and more education. Train your technicians to look upon themselves as craftsmen. Instill in them the right attitude so they will want to do the job right the first time." TB

Thomas G. Dolan is a contributing editor to "Communications Technology."

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