Ontario Hydro

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Telecommunications Engineer

As a member of the Telecommunications Operations group, my initial responsibilities were to provide voice telecom support to individual sites. This progressed to include management of the internal corporate voice (Hydrophone) network. The telecom equipment was primarily Nortel Meridian 1 PBXs, Mitel SX–200 PBXs, and Centrex systems.

In a consulting role, projects included; reviewing site telephone requirements; preparing financial evaluations for business plans; definition of toll fraud standards; site security audits; development of ‘fee for service’ models; and analysis of the application of virtual private networks (VPN).

As the prime manager of the Hydrophone network, consisting on average of 150 locations, responsibilities included; definition of the dialling plan; management of tie trunk configuration changes; and detailing the automatic route selection (ARS) programming, including access restrictions.

General services involved; co–ordinating system installations or upgrades; providing call accounting; analysing traffic studies; optimization of long distance calling facilities; educating staff on toll fraud prevention; co–ordination of corporate wide teleconferences; analysing the impact of tariff changes; and the review of equipment records.

Key accomplishments:

Implemented a generational change (upgrade) to operation of the private voice network.

Analysed and implemented necessary changes to maximize operational effectiveness and cost savings in use of toll free (WATS) lines within the voice network.

Recovered six figure dollar savings from vendors through detailed due diligence on billing.

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