More than Connectivity: Rob Russell, AT&T

The communications industry offers countless solutions and services to consumer goods companies that extend beyond cell phones and Internet connections. In fact, the market is booming with patents that can have a profound effect on connecting people and businesses in sustainable ways. Here, Rob Russell, Industry Solutions for the Consumer Goods and Retail practice of AT&T, explains how the right mobility products and services can positively impact your business, the environment and the economy.

How can communications providers help consumer goods (CG) companies with their sustainability objectives?

Russell: Telecommunications services and solutions can help save fuel costs, reduce emissions and reduce paper in field operations such as sales, merchandising, maintenance and repair, and fleet management. Specifically for fleet management, a wireless service coupled with compatible GPS devices can provide commercial fleet managers with near real-time data that can improve dispatching and routing efficiency, which can result in reduced drive time, mileage and fuel consumption. By using these wireless solutions, both the CG company and the environment can benefit. AT&T also provides GPS-enabled solutions that assist with vehicle tracking, workforce management and engine diagnostics.

Aside from fleet management, what other sustainability solutions exist in the communications market?

Russell: CG companies can reduce employee travel time and expenses with technologies such as video conferencing, network-based VPN, remote broadband access and wireless capabilities. These solutions help keep employees productive while on the road, effectively bringing work to the employee instead of bringing employees to work.

Video conferencing technology, like the AT&T Telepresence solution, creates high quality, in-person experiences that are a much more acceptable substitute for travel. For global CG brands and multi-national marketing campaigns, this can help improve productivity and time to market while also reducing emissions and fuel consumption.

Centralized Internet Data Centers (IDCs) can often use energy more efficiently and enable "cloud computing" with a service called Synaptic Hosting from AT&T. This allows capacity to be modulated for demand and also allows users to plug into the system -- wherever they are in the world -- and seamlessly gain access to the full range of available applications.

Other solutions, like virtual call centers, can reduce employee commuting and make domestic employees a more cost-effective alternative. Telemetry and machine-to-machine communication can also be used to prevent unnecessary maintenance visits to ice cream freezers or vending machines.

AT&T also supports smart grid solutions, which allow utilities companies and their customers to closely monitor energy use and cut back when the availability of electricity is stretched to its limit. Smart grids depend on two-way communications between devices producing, distributing and consuming electricity. We are collaborating with other companies to provide this two-way connectivity. As a result, homeowners and businesses can use electricity as efficiently and as economically as possible, and utilities can provide better service because smart meters allow for remote account changes and enable a more efficient response to outages.

When it comes to managing the AT&T fleet, do you have sustainable best practices to share that may also be applicable for CG companies?

Russell: We connect more than 300 million people a day, which requires a significant amount of service and support. As a result, AT&T operates one of the largest commercial fleets in the United States. We recognize the economic and environmental implications of maintaining a fleet that size which is why reducing fuel consumption and emissions is an ongoing priority and challenge for us. Finding cleaner, more efficient methods of power our fleet is one of the most important steps we can take.

One commitment AT&T made this year was to spend $565 million to deploy more than 15,000 alternative-fuel vehicles over the next 10 years. The Center for Automotive Research (CAR) in Ann Arbor, Mich., estimates that the new vehicles will save 49 million gallons of gasoline and reduce carbon emissions by 211,000 metric tons over the 10-year deployment period. That is equivalent to removing the emissions from more than 38,600 traditional passenger vehicles for a year.

But it goes beyond our fleet of vehicles. We employ Mobile Resource Manager (MRM) capabilities for about 56,000 service vehicles. GPS capabilities are installed in all technician vehicles in construction, installation and repair, U-verse and mobility cell site maintenance vehicles. These are used in a variety of ways to increase visibility into operations and improve efficiency.