Time Warner Cable

“Cellwatch is constant peace of mind because it monitors every single day.” --Wayne Martin, Time Warner Cable Facilities Manager

Situation

Time Warner Cable (TWC), the second‐largest cable operator in the U.S., serves more than 14 million customers and maintains an Austin, Texas technology center, one of several, that is responsible for transmitting cable services to 1.5 million customers in the Austin area. The Austin hub is a critical site for cable transmission and supports a 300‐person call center. Because so many people rely on TWC for communication, information and entertainment, it is crucial that there are backup power systems in place if an outage were to occur. The Austin site has two UPS systems installed, an Eaton Powerware 9315 and Liebert 150KVA. In an effort to keep costs down while maintaining the highest level of cable service reliability, Facilities Manager Wayne Martin sought a review of facility service contracts to look for areas where they might be able to cut costs, particularly for UPS maintenance.

Solution

TWC engaged power quality experts IET to assist in the review of their UPS maintenance contracts. Together, they immediately discovered TWC could save a significant amount of money and virtually eliminate the chance of downtime by installing a battery monitoring system to replace the current quarterly preventive maintenance battery checks. IET ultimately recommended NDSL’s Cellwatch™ battery monitoring system because it monitors every day.

Results

Immediately upon installation, Cellwatch detected that the new system had bad batteries and alerted key TWC facility personnel. Shocked at the discovery, TWC had IET validate what the Cellwatch system identified. IET engineers also confirmed that there were in fact bad batteries on the newly installed system.

Comments

“Not only did Cellwatch save us from potentially experiencing a devastating outage due to bad batteries when we thought we were protected by our new UPS, the system paid for itself in less than one year. We’re saving more than enough to justify the switch from preventive maintenance to daily battery monitoring with Cellwatch.

“An added benefit we experienced from the Cellwatch system was that it alerted us to increasing temperatures in our control room, indicating our AC unit had failed. This could have been a catastrophic loss had we not received the alert from Cellwatch.

“And, after suffering a $7,600 loss in melted generator batteries, we are now also protecting these vital battery assets. If we had Cellwatch installed on them previously, the loss would have been avoided.”

–Wayne Martin, Time Warner Cable Facilities Manager