Bell Atlantic Mobile Calls on Key Strategies to Make Cell-Site Data Accessible; Custom Intranet Manages Vital Engineering, Geographic Information.

BURLINGTON, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 17, 1998--Key Strategies Inc., a specialized provider of advanced business consulting services, today announced it has built and implemented a custom data management intranet allowing Bell Atlantic Mobile to centralize and access data on 3200 cell sites serving 5.9 million customers.

The Bell Atlantic Mobile Network Intranet, built on an Informix database engine, organizes geographic, engineering and other vital information from 15 states and the District of Columbia extending from Maine to Georgia. A Netscape Communicator front end provides browser-based access to the system via a corporate intranet - and makes critical data available in a common, structured manner throughout the company's seven geographic regions. Netscape Application Server houses the system's logic for business rules and, along with Netscape Enterprise Server, integrates the HTML screens with the Informix database.

"The Network Intranet provides us with a single, uniform interface for inputting and accessing data," said Mike McNicholl, Manager, System Development, Bell Atlantic Mobile. "Each region continues to manage information about its own assets and input data relevant to its region. Only now, it is easily shared between departments. And when employees transfer between locales, they are instantly familiar with the application and business processes, so they can enter information on projects without retraining."

The cellular industry's rapid build-out during the past decade resulted in regions collecting and storing data in ways best-suited to their particular area. The array of systems and applications were not well-adapted to sharing vital data and experience between departments. In a three-month effort, Key Strategies conducted a detailed up-front analysis of Bell Atlantic Mobile's existing technologies, business processes and data resources in all seven regions. Then, in collaboration, Bell Atlantic Mobile and Key Strategies proposed the technical design, and selected the technologies for building the custom data system.

With 1000 engineering projects underway at any one time, Bell Atlantic Mobile faced an enormous challenge: inputting substantial amounts of new data while making existing information available across its engineering, real estate and construction operations. Key Strategies conducted a comprehensive data conversion effort around all active projects, eventually porting information for Bell Atlantic Mobile's ongoing engineering activities to the new system for each region.

"The Network Intranet encompasses both engineering data and qualitative information like local real estate restrictions or zoning regulations," said Michael Clifton, Key Strategies' president and a co-founder of the firm. "When new cell sites are proposed or built, access to this kind of information vastly improves how readily Bell Atlantic Mobile can apply the experience it gained in past sitings to improve their efficiency and cost-effectiveness."

"With Key Strategies, we accomplished in three weeks what normally would have taken us three months," said Bell Atlantic Mobile Executive Director, David Hammond.

About Key Strategies

Based in Burlington, Mass., Key Strategies (http://www.keystrategies.com) helps clients identify and implement solutions to a wide range of business process and IT-related problems. The firm works across a number of vertical markets - including telecommunications, financial services and manufacturing - to solve issues around workflow, document management, imaging and use of Web technologies.