Wholesale: Products & Services

Open Product/Process CR PC092801-2 Detail

Description Of Change

Project Meetings

Attendees: Kathleen Stichter, klstichter@eschelon.com, Eschelon Telecom Deni Toye, dtoye@qwest.com, Qwest Fred Aesquivell III, faesqui@qwest.com, Qwest Don Tolman, dtolman@qwest.com, Qwest Carolyn Mills, camills@qwest.com, Qwest Kate Spry, kspry@qwest.com, Qwest

Introduction of Attendees Kathy, Deni, Fred, Don, and Kate Review Requested (Description of) Change Eschelon asks Qwest to establish and provide a documented, trained and adhered to effective process for vendor meets. Confirm Areas & Products Impacted Areas: Repair Products: Resale, Centrex, UNE-P, and Unbundled Loop Confirm Right Personnel Involved Fred is the ‘owner’ of this CR and will be the point of contact for future problems of this nature until the root cause is established and draft response issued. Deni and Don are available to answer process questions. Carolyn is filling in for questioning for Yvonne Philpot. Kate will coordinate all necessary clarification meetings, complete meeting minutes, and review, forward, and store necessary documentation to database. Identify/Confirm CLEC’s Expectation Eschelon would like Qwest to document a process for vendor meets. There are times when Eschelon calls Qwest repair to report trouble and Qwest says that no trouble was found or that the trouble was past the DMARC and Eschelon does not agree because Eschelon has determined that the trouble is with Qwest. Qwest will close the ticket. Eschelon will then try to reopen a ticket with Qwest and Qwest insists on a vendor meet since they say they found no trouble. Qwest would set up a vendor meet with Eschelon for a specific day and time. Now Qwest is saying that they will not set a specific time that they need a 4-hour window. Eschelon can not have a technician sitting around for 4 hours waiting for a Qwest technician to show up at a customer premise. Eschelon asks Qwest for its definition of a Vendor Meet. Eschelon asks Qwest to establish and provide a documented, trained and adhered to effective process for vendor meets with appropriate associated time frames. This process should state the steps that should take place, from beginning to end, on a vendor meet. It should specify under what conditions a vendor meet is required. It should state a window of 30 minutes or less for the time to meet on a specific date. It should state that a ticket is not closed until the CLEC authorizes the ticket to be closed. It should state that if the Qwest technician is going to be late that the technician is required to call the CLEC so they can advise their technician and their customer. Fred, Don, and Deni all agreed that the rep telling there was a 4 hour window was a mistake and that she just didn’t understand the process. Kathy said this was only a one time occurrence and the woman she spoke with was Linda Rogers out of the Utah Call Center regarding #(801) 546-7493. We currently have an internal process in place which explains the process for vendor meets which Fred will run by legal and verify that we can pass this on to the CLECs. This process was created on 8/31/00. Identify any Dependent Systems Change Requests No related system CR’s were identified. Establish Action Plan (Resolution Time Frame) Fred will clarify this process and will check with legal to verify that he can provide our internal documentation to the CLEC’s which explains the vendor meets process. Fred will give a response at the next CMP meeting on October 17th, 2001. At that time he will gather feedback and create a formal response to be reviewed at the November CMP meeting. This document will be forwarded to Kate Spry for processing. Fred will find out why this information is not posted to the web for the CLEC’s information and will also find out why the supervisor was not aware of this process which has been in place since 8/31/00. After the formal response is created, Kate will review and forward this information to Mike Keegan to store in the CR database. This information can then be reviewed and discussed by the CLEC Community at the December CMP Meeting if needed. Don will also make sure that this information is provided to the different centers for future reference. Kathy can attend the October 17th, 2001 CMP meeting to review verbal response. Additional clarifications can be made at that time.

CenturyLink Response

Kathy Stichter ILEC Relations Manager Eschelon

CC: Terry Meehan Kate Spry

This letter is in response to the following CLEC Change Request Form PC092801-2 dated September 28, 2001. The Change Request is asking for clarification on definition and requesting several process changes from Qwest as outlined below:

* Eschelon is requesting Qwest’s definition of a vendor meet. Qwest’s joint meet definition includes: Qwest responds to CLECs requesting a joint meet to troubleshoot activities at an assigned location. Qwest, CLECs, and possibly third party vendors, meet to isolate hard-to-find faults, verify existing trouble and diagnosis, conduct joint studies on switch circuits and resolve chronic and repeat problems. All designated parties, including Qwest and the CLEC, will meet at a prearranged trouble location to test a particular circuit. Dispatch Out (WFA/DO) joint meets are classified as meets that take place outside the central office. Dispatch "In" (WFA/DI) joint meets take place inside the central office. These meetings are short and informal and result in a corrected fault.

Complex Service customers are requesting joint meet commitments on Service Assurance tickets (trouble reports). The customer is expecting a field technician to be on premise during a specified timeframe.

Note that the above response is from a Qwest process bulletin for Designed Services.

* Eschelon is requesting that Qwest implement a (documented, trained, and adhered to) process for vendor meet (specific date and time) for Plain Old Telephone Services (POTS). Qwest currently has this process in place for Designed Services. Based on initial analysis, given the volumes of POTS dispatched out trouble reports that Qwest processes, Qwest believes that providing all Retail and Wholesale customers the latitude to request a specific date and time would significantly increase the risk of maintaining current repair service performance levels for all customers. Qwest denies this Change Request as written.

* Eschelon is requesting that Qwest will not close any repair ticket until the CLEC authorizes the ticket to be closed. Qwest does not in all cases have direct access to all CLECs to perform “real time” transfer of trouble resolution and completion information. Waiting for a CLEC to clear voice mail and reply back to Qwest that they are authorized to close a specific ticket may result in increased trouble resolution time, missed appointments, and technician idle time. Qwest denies this Change Request as written.

* Eschelon is requesting that if a Qwest technician is going to be late (for the joint meet) that the technician be required to call the CLEC so they can advise their technician and customer. Not applicable unless the above requested process is deployed.

Again, please note that Qwest does have a process in place for joint meets on Design Services where the volumes are considerable lower, and the trouble types are generally more complex due to the nature of complex products and services.

Respectfully,

Frederick M Aesquivel III Director - Local Network Operations Support