Companies performing upgrades and expansions, whether for outside plant or other facilities, must achieve the planned return on investment.  This return can only be realized if the upgrade / expansion project is planned and executed correctly.  Especially in today’s market, the upgrade / expansion must be completed and generating revenue, on time and on budget, or else the company may miss the entire market opportunity.  These upgrade / expansion projects, that seem to be a thorn in the side of everyday operations, are actually the lifeblood of keeping the company alive.

Planning: Benchmark will develop project work plans and schedules that are practical and meet your ROI plans.

Coordination: Benchmark provides coordination with all other stakeholders involved in OR affected by the project (marketing, sales, corporate, legal, network ops, design, headend ops, warehouse, facilities management, OSP construction, customer service, and service techs) to ensure everyone knows what their component is and how it effects everyone else so no one holds up the project.

Design: Benchmark will develop a design plan with a schedule to ensure prompt design delivery that can keep construction moving in the field.

Materials: Benchmark plans and monitors material procurement & utilization to ensure the correct inventory and usage rates are maintained as well as track lead times and reordering so that no component shortage will hold up the project.

Permitting: Benchmark works with the local and state governing agencies as well as the joint-pole utilities to ensure permitting is filed properly and with plenty of lead-time so that permit approvals will not hold up the project.

Contractors: Develop Request For Proposal (RFP) documents and facilitate the construction bidding process as well as provides a certification and testing program to ensure contractor capability.

Construction: Benchmark’s management will facilitate regularly scheduled Team meetings and  report preparation, presenting the status of the program, potential problems, scheduled activities, budget tracking, and forecasting,  for a comparison of actual vs. budget real-time view of capital spending.

Quality: Benchmark Provides a field quality control team to identify and rectify gigs to ensure adherence to OSP specifications and plant functionality.  Benchmark couples this quality control with corrective actions for the contractor to ensure quality assurance.

CATV Rebuild Process Model

Benefits: Benchmark provides services for the Rebuild / Upgrade construction programs at Franchise, Regional, Divisional & National levels.  These services range from management & coordination, to technical field  support, to acting general contractor.  Benchmark has the experience and understanding of project fulfillment, including the three components of all projects that effect success – time, cost & quality.

Revenue Generation Programs

Commercial Services: The Cable Industry’s best source for revenue generation with little to no capital investment is to provide High Speed Data services to small and medium sized businesses.

“The commercial marketplace is enormous: D&B and AMI estimate that the business community in the U.S. spent $102 billion on telecommunications last year.  More than half – about $50 billion – was spent by businesses passed by cable plant.  This exceeds the entire $46 billion in revenue that the U.S. cable industry will generate in 2003.  The biggest question for operators, then, isn’t whether to get involved with commercial services, but where.” CED Magazine – May 2003

But where does existing Cable and the Business Market meet?

Benchmark has developed a system to provide MSO’s a proactive solution for capturing the Small & Medium Business (SMB) Market and capitalize on existing HFC plant with very low cost-per-sub installations.

Bottom Line Results for the Marketing and Sales Program Include:

  • Immediate Sales of “low hanging fruit” in existing HFC area.
  • Complete & current pre-qualified serviceability Business Database
  • Marketing, engineering & construction info w/ costs in one visit.
  • Eliminate “customer called but can we service?” Reactive truck rolls
  • Direct Market & Sales to Only Serviceable Customers
  • Low Program Cost per Business with High Return On Investment.
  • Up-to-Date Business Database providing Serviceability information

System Audit

In today’s world cable theft and miss-tagged drops present a large loss of revenue for MSO’s along with causing noise and other  problems that can become a big issue for today’s HFC content & services.  Benchmark recognizes the need for system audit programs not only to stop theft, but also to make the entire system’s content and service delivery more efficient for customers and MSO maintenance crews.

Field Support Services

Benchmark provides experienced and proficient support services that enable engineering and design to provide efficient, practical, and up-to-date design drawings that communicate clearly with construction.

Project & Construction Management

Construction Services: Benchmark provides experienced and effective construction crews and ensures the quality, coordination, and efficiency of contractors.  Benchmark maintains a vast network of experienced contractor contracts.  Benchmark will undertake full construction contract responsibility or will manage and run contractors providing a straight pass through on contractor costs to the MSO.

  • Provide safety oriented and quality driven crews.
  • Employ contractors by specific capabilities and resources to meet the project target schedule.
  • Certify contractors prior to deployment in the field by capability,
  • Administration of tests, mock-ups, and inspections in the field.
  • Manage production of contractors to meet the Target and 3-Week schedules.
  • Develop construction summaries for comparison of actual construction vs. planned and budgeted.
  • Monitor materials used and material requests to ensure continuance of production.
  • Conduct continuous field Quality Control to ensure Quality of completed plant.

Strand Placement – UG Boring/Trenching/Plow – Aerial Coax/Fiber Placement – UG Coax/Fiber Placement – Coax Splicing – Fiber Splicing – Sweep & Balance – Certification – Electronics Setup & Activation

3rd Party Quality Assurance

Quality Control / Quality Assurance:

  • Contractor Contractual Controls
  • MSO Specific OSP Construction Specifications
  • Contractor Construction Certification
  • Material Usage Auditing
  • Quality Control Plant Walkouts (print corrections & field gigs)
  • Quality Control Corrective Measures
  • Quality Assurance Field Inspection (prior to final acceptance)