Site acceptance from a distance

During a network rollout, the quality of each site must be verified by inspection teams as part of a “site acceptance” process. Traditionally, this has meant that our teams inspect the sites in person along with our customer’s own site inspectors, requiring both parties to physically deploy to each site.

This means that not only must travel and logistics (with accompanying costs) be arranged for all, but customer acceptance inspectors must also often contend with limited availability for the in-person reviews. With even greater accessibility constraints and new potential health risks today as a result of the pandemic, the practice of customers traveling on site for acceptance procedures has become even more challenging.

To address this challenge and improve the way the site acceptance process is conducted, we created Ericsson Remote Acceptance.

Supporting the management, auditing, and acceptance of customer sites, Remote Acceptance enables site verification and acceptance remotely, meaning that our customers no longer need to send teams on site. Instead, using the Remote Acceptance app, customer inspectors can simply connect through their laptops at home or the office while our Ericsson teams carry mobile devices with the same application, performing all on-site checks and capturing and storing photo and video evidence — with date, time, and geolocation stamps — for later offsite customer acceptance. For those reviews requiring more complex checks, Remote Acceptance also allows real-time verification, where customer inspectors can direct our on-site teams as inspections are in progress.

Deployable for any technology and site type, Remote Acceptance is a smart, sustainable alternative that simplifies site acceptance for our customers and enables more efficient field service operations. The solution also saves on time and logistics costs, eliminating the need for customer travel and contributing to a greener environment.

With its digital repository function, Remote Acceptance stores all acceptance evidence in a shared online environment, which can be readily accessed by customer inspectors at any time without the need for back-and-forth emailing of collected data.

Enabling faster acceptance and the quicker initiation of site operations, Remote Acceptance also improves time to market while allowing our customers to accept more sites in less time using the same number of inspectors.

In 2020, we have already successfully implemented Remote Acceptance for 11 major projects in such locations as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Cameroon, Rwanda, Bahrain, Iraq, Botswana, Burkina Faso, and Madagascar.