100th CS ensures teamwork gets voice mail up and running

  • Published
  • By Karen Abeyasekere
  • 100th Air Refueling Wing Public Affairs
RAF MILDENHALL, England --  Teamwork has been the name of the game in getting RAF Mildenhall's voice mail system - which has been inoperable since January -back up and running.

The 100th Communications Squadron worked together with members of the 48th Communications Squadron, RAF Lakenheath, the 83rd Network Operations Squadron and Detachment 4 from Ramstein Air Base, Germany, U.S. Air Forces in Europe's Communications Directorate, and one of their commercial partners to brainstorm and come up with technical solutions.

Best of all, the solution implemented only cost in terms of time, rather than money - a huge bonus in these times of reduced budgets and doing more with less.

"RAF Mildenhall lost voice mail capability in January, so we started shopping around for an affordable solution," said Master Sergeant Michael Bitson, 100th CS Cyber Transport NCOIC, in an e-mail.

"We collaborated with 48th CS and agreed to attempt a solution to use their voice mail capabilities; The 83rd NOS Det 4 and Integrated Network Operations and Security Center at Langley Air Force Base, Va., configured the actual connection between RAFs Lakenheath and Mildenhall, while [the commercial phone company] worked day and night on a solution, so we could use the 48th Fighter Wing's voice mail - even though they are separate networks," he said. "Now that the service is available, the 48th CS creates the mailbox in their server, and the 100th CS programs the service for the phones themselves."

There were several reasons the service was unavailable for almost the past year.

Back in January this year, the telephone contractors and server administrators from 100th CS attempted to rebuild the voice mail server when it stopped working. Then in March it was found to be beyond repair by local means, so complete troubleshooting control and responsibility was handed over to the company who owned the original system that crashed, said Capt. Jichul Song, 100th CS Operations Flight commander.

However, after presenting RAF Mildenhall with a quote of $650,000 to fix the issue and restore services, the 100th CS Cyber Transport section took matters into their own hands, determined to save the base from having to pay such a huge bill.

They immediately began working hand-in-hand with their RAF Lakenheath counterparts, working the planning, coordination and paperwork side of things with higher level cyber agencies in Germany.

"The great thing about this is that everyone came together to figure out a way to make this happen - and it didn't cost the government a dime," Sergeant Bitson said. "Whoever said 'Comm' doesn't communicate definitely wasn't around for the coordination of this effort."

With communications including phone calls, e-mails and teleconferences between the agencies here, at RAF Lakenheath, Germany and in Virginia, the 100th CS technicians were in constant contact, making things happen to get the voice mail ball rolling again.

The cyber transport NCOIC explained that the INOSC and 83rd NOS Det 4 agencies configured the network path between RAFs Mildenhall and Lakenheath. Then, the 83rd NOS Det 4 folks programmed the accessibility for RAF Mildenhall in the Lakenheath voice mail server.

After that, 100th CS and 48th CS worked together to create individual voice mail boxes and switch on the capability in the phones.

Now working, the initial push has been to establish voice mail for commanders, chiefs, first sergeants, other key leaders and vital 100th Air Refueling Wing sections, said Sergeant Bitson.

"Telephone control officers in each unit have now been given direction on getting voice mail to everyone else who needs or requests it," he said.

Captain Song said working together as a team and achieving the results they have means an annual savings of $250,000.

Voice mail will be set up for anyone who has a valid need for it, and requests it through the unit TCO.

"We are unable to set everyone up with voice mail at the moment, because of limited space on RAF Lakenheath's server," Sergeant Bitson said.

Captain Song added that there's a Defense Information Systems Agency enterprise solution in the works that will have capability to have voice mail on every phone.

"Essentially, this means there will be a centrally managed voice mail system for the United Kingdom, and every base in the UK will be getting services from that location," he said.

That is expected to come about between late 2011 and early 2012.

"I couldn't be prouder of the team effort between 48th CS and the 100th CS to once again realize voice mail capability for Team Mildenhall," said Lt. Col. Gene Mattingly, 100th CS commander. "While not necessarily the permanent fix - and right now only 300 boxes or so are available - this is much better than none at all."

The squadron commander added that it's important for high-call volume customer service functions to have this capability. He said the Airman and Family Readiness Center takes calls from across the military community, and it's essential that customers are able to leave a message so that the A&FRC staff can return important phonecalls.

"While I think much of the RAF Mildenhall work force found ways to work around the 'voice mail void' the past few months, the utility of voice mail, when used appropriately, is a great tool and is a welcome return of good technology," he said.

"Like many information technology solutions, voice mail has great utility when appropriately managed. I'm glad that the team of military - and our industry partner - were able to come up with a solution that didn't cost us additional funds, and makes efficient and effective use of existing technology between RAF Mildenhall and RAF Lakenheath.

"I'm simply super-proud of our 'Cyber Warriors' at both bases," Colonel Mattingly said.