At the 2016 NENA Conference in Indianapolis, IN, Jack Kessler of 20/20 Technical Advisors, LLC and Dana Wahlberg of the State of Minnesota Emergency Communication Networks talked about the work 20/20 Technical did building the inventory for the State of Minnesota and how important it has become. A comprehensive network inventory in integral to the daily operation of a 9-1-1 network. As public safety migrates to NG9-1-1, it becomes even more important. This presentation shares the State of Minnesota's experiences of life without that comprehensive inventory, the benefits after completion, and how it is maintained and kept up-to-date.

2. Dana Wahlberg, State of MN 911 Program Manger
Jack Kessler, Managing Director 20/20 Technical Advisors LLC

3. Minnesota’s Situation
• MN paid cost recovery to carriers for network elements to connect
from end offices to LSRs
• Initially meant to be temporary back in the 1980s
• Acquisitions and re-homings have perpetuated the cost recovery cycle
• As contracts with carriers have expired, they have been difficult to renew
• Meet point billing challenges
• Billing discrepancies
• Lack of itemized billing and carrier billing personnel changes over the years
• Circuit segments remaining when a circuit had been disconnected
• Carriers not keeping adequate records and fear of disconnecting active network

4. Minnesota’s Situation
• In 1Q 2014 all MN PSAPs were migrated from the state’s 12 LSRs
upon completion of the the statewide ESInet
• LSRs remain functional network elements serving as aggregation points for carrier
network (ES trunks) demark points
• LSRs are becoming EOS/EOL and the State will go out to RFP seeking a solution to
migrate all carrier traffic to alternate aggregation points
• Need for complete and accurate end to end circuit inventory
• Need for billing discrepancies to be resolved
• Need to resize network more reflective of current customer

5. Minnesota’s Action
• Went out to RFP to seek a vendor to:
• Complete end to end network inventory of all 9-1-1 circuit elements
• Work with carriers to obtain information as needed
• Work with carriers on filing of annual CLEC 9-1-1 plan reflective of actual network
• Assist State with reconciling billing discrepancies
• Assist carriers with preparing electronic itemized bills per statute requirement
• Assist State with renewing carrier contracts reflective of elements and cost
• Assist State with procuring an automated telecom expense and asset management
tool
• Paper process for 100 carriers UNMANAGEABLE and ARCHAIC both for network
adds/moves/changes/disconnects and for managing timely invoice remittances
• Approximately 1000 bills received monthly as many as 120 separate invoices from a single carrier

6. What is a 9-1-1 network inventory?
• End to end network database with associated network diagrams that
identifies
• County (Serving PSAP)
• Carrier
• Circuit ID
• Circuit type
• Overall circuit A and Z location
• Actual A and Z terminations for carrier (meet point)
• Corresponding port charges
• Account number
• Billing number
• Individual components and associated tariff or contract charges

7. Why is it important?
• Securing the 9-1-1 network infrastructure
• Knowledge of all entry points comprising network
• Ensuring network is monitored and protected
• Identifying unnecessary equipment and circuitry which pose security risks
• Fiscal responsibility
• Ensure network no longer in use is disconnected from end to end
• Ensure all disconnected elements are no longer billed on invoices

8. Benefits of a Network Inventory?
• Makes management of the overall network more efficient
• Adds
• Is additional circuitry warranted
• How will it impact the serving PSAP
• Moves (Rehoming)
• Will it improve diversity and/or minimize costs
• Changes
• Addressing a configuration issue
• Disconnects
• Reduces time to identify all carriers on path to disconnect and discontinue billing
• Validate against current invoices

9. How Did We Start the Inventory?
• The State selected and contracted with 20/20 Technical Advisors LLC
to complete the inventory and related projects
• The State provided 20/20 with a LOA allowing carriers to release
network information and associated billing information to 20/20
• We are currently in our 3rd year
• End to end inventory is 90% complete
• Thousands of dollars in MRC has been achieved as a result of identifying and removing
obsolete network elements

10. How Did We Start the Inventory?
• First identified what data was available to us
• There was lots of data available
• Most data was in paper form in file cabinets and some digital
• Invoices, contracts, certifications from carriers
• PSAP plans, CLEC plans, carrier CSRs, LOAs
• Carrier circuit profiles, basic network drawings

11. How Did We Start the Inventory?
• There was incomplete or old data
• The network was swiftly installed in the early 80s
• Two router providers
• One provider had circuit profiles built and the basic network drawings
• Some of the data was obsolete because it was so old
• Some data was not updated as changes had been made

12. Gathering the Data
• The amount of data was large
• Approximately 20 long file drawers of files - very organized
• Hundreds of digital files
• Scanned or collected approximately 7,000 documents

13. Gathering the Data
• Products used
• 20/20 Technical Advisors’ service-desk portal
• Laptops
• Two high-speed portable double-sided scanners
• Secured storage – to prevent data loss during scanning
• As the project went on we used that to share data with the State
• Encrypted USB drives

14. Who Was Involved?
• Minnesota Emergency Communication Networks Staff
• 20/20 Technical Advisors, LLC Staff
• Carriers
• Router providers – IES and CenturyLink
• Carrier engineers – design, maintenance, central office
• Carrier billing staff
• Carrier account mangers

15. Building the Inventory?
• Started with wireline inventory
• The Stete
• Built standardized spreadsheets to house the data by county
• Inventoried carrier circuits between
• Carrier end office and selective router (ES)
• Selective router to the PSAP (EM)
• Data circuits for ALI lookup
• Inter-tandem circuits between selective routers
• Inventoried B-1 POTS lines and routing numbers at the PSAPs
• Developed new comprehensive drawings

16. Building the Inventory
• Currently building the wireless inventory
• Built spreadsheets similar to the wireline
• Drawings will be completed as the inventory is completed
• NG9-1-1
• NG9-1-1 was built to the State’s specifications
• Since it was built from ground up the data and drawings are adequate

17. Product Examples
• Data in the circuit inventory
• County served
• Billing carrier
• Type of circuit – EM, ES, ALI, B1, RTN, Inter-
tandem
• Overall circuit A location and Z location
• Each circuit segment A location and Z location
• Primary segment circuit ID
• Segment circuit ID
• Account number
• Billing Telephone Number
• If disconnected?
• Percentage of circuit owned by carrier
• Mileage
• Total cost of each circuit segment
• Costs that make up segment cost
• ILEC or CLEC ES circuit

18. Drawings
• Previous Drawings
• Some were incomplete
• Some where busy and hard to interpret
• All circuits for a county on a one page drawing
• Showing the number of circuits
• Start and finish
• Did not have drawings for everything

19. Starting
Artifact

20. Drawings
• New drawings
• Detailed
• Each county has a packet of drawings inclusive of end to end network
• Each carrier that has end offices in a county have a drawing in the packet
• Callout boxes that show
• Carrier providing the segment
• The end office supported
• Circuit IDs
• Where each segment starts and finishes

22. Call Out Box Close Up

23. Obstacles
• Missing data
• Carriers did not have info
• Carriers did not know where to get info
• Profiles and drawings lacking
• Billing issues
• Circuit discrepancies

24. Clearing Obstacles
• Missing data
• If circuits are being billed, work with carrier billing
• Work with carrier engineers
• Work with selective router engineers
• Carriers did not have info
• Records lost with system change overs
• Records lost with acquisitions
• Sometimes we had to work with each carrier that had part of the circuit

25. Clearing Obstacles
• Carriers did not know where to get info
• Especially small carriers
• This was the toughest one
• Really had to rely on the selective router carriers to help research
• Profiles and drawings lacking
• We built what we needed for a profile and gave it to the carrier

26. Issues We Found
• Billing issues
• Circuits that were disconnected but still being invoiced
• Carriers had issues with reconciling the invoices when disconnects ordered
• Circuit segments orphaned – the rest of the circuit disconnected but that circuit was
missed
• Invoice did not match contracts or certifications
• Circuits were not being billed

27. Issues We Found
• Circuit discrepancies
• Mileage amounts in a circuit did not total up correctly
• The number of circuits listed were wrong

28. Other Items Noticed
• Carriers are over trunked in certain areas
• Mainly found this in areas with a high concentration of remote central
offices off of a host
• Not all carriers calculated mileage the same way

30. Maintaining the Inventory
• Build good processes
• Processes for moves, adds and changes for any orders
• Tracking and authorizing costs changes – tariff changes, fee increases, circuit change
cost
• Notification of changes
• Who approves the changes
• Who gets notified of changes
• When are they implemented

31. Maintaining the Inventory
• The State of Minnesota is implementing Telesoft
• Telecom Expense Management and Asset Tool
• Tracks and reports on circuit orders in a work flow – adds, moves, changes
• Track invoices, contract dates, contract terms
• Will flag discrepancies on invoices as they come in
• Assists in invoice dispute management
• EDI feeds from carriers for electronic invoices instead of paper
• Carriers email invoices via spreadsheet if EDI is not available
• Cost reporting

32. Summary
• A good network inventory
• Helps with securing your environment
• Increases efficiency of managing your network
• Helps with understanding network costs
• Tracking the inventory assets and costs
• Build good processes for managing the inventory
• Use a good telecom expense management tool

33. Questions – Thank You
• Dana Wahlberg
• dana.Wahlberg@state.mn.us
• 651-201-7546
• Jack Kessler
• jack.kessler@2020technical.com
• 317-249-8100 ext. 1001