Supra Products Inc. won a contract from AT&T Wireless Services Inc. to provide its TRACcess electronic access control system at AT&T Wireless cell sites in its central region, said the companies.
The contract follows a previous contract with AT&T Wireless covering the carrier’s Western region cell sites. Supra said AT&T Wireless is installing its TRAC-Lock product at cell sites in Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Cincinnati and Minnesota.
The TRAC-Lock system consists of locking devices and pager-sized electronic keys that can access any of Supra’s locking devices. The keys, which are powered by AAA batteries, record the location, date and time of entrance and exit each time they are used. The information then is transmitted to the TRACcess Information Manager using a touch-tone phone, whenever the key is renewed.
Dan Ostlund, marketing director at Supra, said AT&T Wireless’ sites represent about 4,000 of the 10,000 wireless sites at which its system is installed. Supra has installed its system in four of seven of AT&T Wireless’ field service areas and is working on an individual basis to secure contracts in the carriers’ other regions, said Ostlund.
Chip Aiken, Illinois operations manager for AT&T Wireless, said one of the main attractions to Supra’s system is that it eliminates the need to completely change out traditional lock-and-key systems to avoid security breaches. Aiken estimated the cost to install new locks over the three-state Central region which includes about 1,000 sites would cost about $100,000.
“When you have a large number of cell sites, if security is compromised and you have given out keys, there is no way of getting those keys back,” said Aiken, who noted that ex-employees, contractors and others can find ways to duplicate keys even if they are stamped `Do Not Duplicate.’ “The only solution is to re-core the whole system, and that can be very costly.”
The TRACcess system “gives us better control and limits our exposure to the time that we have authorized the key,” said Aiken.
In the wireless industry, controlling and tracking access to sites is becoming more important as the use of subcontractors increases and employee turnover continues. Supra’s Ostlund said there have been a variety of incidents where someone has accessed a site and used a fire extinguisher to vandalize cell site equipment.
“Without a tracking record you don’t know who did the vandalism,” said Ostlund. “With a tracking system, self accountability skyrockets, and either these incidents won’t take place, or if they do, you can identify the culprit.”
