Corporate & Business · NPO & Social Impact · Telecommunications & Technology
An asset count is not a single number
Equipment charged, equipment physically present and equipment visible on the network answer three different questions, and they disagreed. Reconciling them is what separates a technical problem from a billing problem instead of arguing both at once.
- 15
- locations physically surveyed
- 3,534
- service tickets analysed
- 5
- invoice lines isolated for reconciliation
- 10–45%
- of contracted bandwidth observed
Proof context: A distributed multi-site care environment
This is the technical half of a mandate already in the library
The survey work documented here produced the evidence behind the ICT Contractual Claim — the same fifteen locations and the same 3,534 fault tickets appear in both.
That mandate describes what the evidence was worth commercially. This one describes how it was established. They are two views of one engagement rather than two engagements.
The approach
A site survey should establish more than whether the Wi-Fi works
The method combines physical inspection, network evidence, equipment and cabling checks, resilience testing, fault-history analysis and commercial reconciliation — to produce one verified picture of what exists, how it performs, whether it suits its environment, how it is supported, and whether the commercial records agree with any of that.
The last part is what distinguishes it. Comparing signed schedules against physical counts against network-visible devices against invoices is how a technical problem and a billing problem get separated, instead of being argued about together.
Commercial findings
Five invoice lines where billed quantity exceeded the signed baseline
Scroll table sideways →
| Item | Signed | Invoiced | Variance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Large racks | 15 | 16 | +6.7% |
| Small racks | 34 | 37 | +8.8% |
| Brush panels | 246 | 261 | +6.1% |
| Patch panels | 246 | 254 | +3.3% |
| PoE switches | 77 | 83 | +7.8% |
| Aggregate | 618 units | 651 units | 33 excess units, +5.3% |
The 5.3% is a unit-count variance, not a percentage of spend. It says how many more items were invoiced than signed for, and nothing about what they were worth.
What the provider accepted, and what remains open
Provider correspondence records that a full reconciliation was required and that credit would be paid where due. The principle was acknowledged.
The final credit value is not evidenced in the pack, so no recovered monetary result is claimed anywhere in this publication.
Technical findings
What the measurements showed
Scroll table sideways →
| Area | Finding | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Connectivity performance | Contracted headline profile was 20 Mbps per branch; cited measurements ranged from 2 to 9 Mbps — between 10% and 45% of the headline rate. | Diagnostic |
| Historical service incidents | 3,534 tickets reviewed, 141,667.8 cumulative incident-hours, average repair duration around 40 hours. | Diagnostic |
| Long-duration incidents | 166 tickets exceeded the prolonged-downtime threshold, averaging above 400 hours — approximately 4.7% of those analysed. | SLA exception |
| Equipment failure | 689 incidents grouped under equipment failure; 178 resolved by replacement, averaging about 42 hours. | Diagnostic |
| Legacy service billing | Continuing billing for legacy communications equipment reportedly unplugged or no longer required, with migration status uncertain. | Identified — recovery not evidenced |
What the survey covers
Seven workstreams
- Physical inspection of network cabinets, access points, switches, routers, UPS units, cable routes, terminations and power arrangements.
- Suitability and installation quality — indoor and outdoor equipment use, environmental exposure, ventilation, ingress protection, mounting, cable management and labelling.
- Network scans and functional tests comparing physically observed assets against devices actually visible and operating on the network.
- Coverage, dead zones, connectivity performance, and the relationship between contracted service and measured delivery.
- Fault and ticket history, for repeated causes, long-running incidents, inconsistent classification and possible SLA failures.
- Reconciliation of signed schedules, physical counts and invoice quantities, so discrepancies isolate at line-item level.
- A prioritised remediation framework defining the closure test for each issue — so a fix can be independently verified rather than assumed complete.
Evidence discipline
Identified means the pack supports a discrepancy or exposure. Diagnostic means a measured result explaining performance. Acknowledged means the provider accepted that reconciliation or credit action was required.
Achieved would require evidence that the corrective action or financial recovery was completed, and the supplied pack does not support an achieved monetary saving.
Supporting documents