Prime Communications hones clients' IP skills through Prime Academy
October 31, 2008

When we speak of value-added services in telecommunications, you don't normally think "classes" or "training." You think size of mailbox space, anti-virus or anti-spam features, web-hosting and other standard offerings imbedded with the basic access or connectivity service, .

Prime Communications is challenging the concept of value-added and after-sales services by offering unique technical training to some of its select and most-valued clients through Prime Academy.

Prime Academy is a learning center specially designed as a venue where the company shares its expertise in IP technology with its corporate clients. Prime Academy's lead instructor Mark Aquino explains it as a "synchronization of knowledge between the company (Prime Communications) and its clients."

How it works

Training in Prime Academy is extended on a "by invitation only" basis to valued clients. Companies earn learning credits based on the services they subscribe to with Prime Communications. Learning credits entitle clients to send its representatives, usually IT managers and administrators, to the classes which cover the essentials of Internetworking, switching, and the like.

The classes are nothing to sneeze at. Teaching is taken seriously by Prime Academy instructors, all of whom are Cisco-certified engineers.

Usefulness of the classes

Darius Manabat, an IT administrator at Taishan Insurance Brokers, is impressed with the Prime Academy curriculum. "The modules are really helpful," Manabat says, "because they refresh the things I learned from my college IT days."

With the never-ending changes in technology, it is important to keep abreast of the developments. Unfortunately, this is easier said than done. One needs time and an environment conducive to learning. However, we all know these two conditions are difficult to come by. The time constraints make it hard for IT professionals to continue to reinvest in their education, not to mention financial constraints.

And while there are classes for those serious in expanding their IT knowledge, the review classes and further studies tend to cost a fortune.

"The training from Prime Communications is very valuable," says Manabat. "There are things," he explains, "that can be easily solved over the phone, say router configurations. You can access the device and troubleshoot over the phone if you understand each other."

What is taught in Prime Academy then is a language and a way of doing things. "Other technicians," Manabat complains, "tend to complicate a simple trouble-shooting issue with their complex explanations. The instructors at Prime Academy, as well as their online support team, have a good grasp of IT and are able to give us good analogies." IT jargon can be confusing even to those who already practice it.

Birthing the Academy

Prime Academy was a project that grew gradually. At first without a formal name, it really began as Prime Communications' training program for its own engineers to improve their skills and prepare them for Cisco-certification, a coveted seal of competence in the IT industry.

"One of our corporate values at Prime Communications is Passion for Excellence," Network Operations Manager Mark Aquino notes, "As such, we constantly find ways to raise the bar. One such area for constant development is our engineers' technical abilities. So we decided to train all of them to become Cisco-certified." The training has been so successful that Prime Communications' engineers have a 100% passing rate on the Cisco-certification exams. "After training our own engineers, however, we also identified the need to share this knowledge with our customers," Aquino elaborates. There was a compelling need to make the same information and grasp of IT concepts accessible to clients. Aquino terms this "knowledge synchronization."

Student reviews

Randy Lopez, a network systems administrator in La Salle, enjoys Prime Academy classes and finds the material useful. "What Mark, our instructor, is teaching us about sub netting is very important because we are trying to do precisely this at work," Randy says. "We are trying to separate the networks of our buildings by using LAN."

His La Salle-Lipa colleague JC Luna agrees, "What we're learning here will have a significant impact in our work because this is all about application." JC and his Prime Academy classmates are learning about routing and subnetting, but JC is really looking forward to their discussions about switching.

Pride from the inside

Prime Academy's lead instructor Aquino is happy at how warmly their training program has been received. "So many are interested in joining us in Prime Academy that we have increased the number of slots for students and we are even fully booked until next year!"

Keeping pace with change

Whatever your profession or industry, it is always important to keep up with the changing times. The challenge to grow professionally is met not only with fervor to learn, but also with encouragement to do so. Prime Communications institutionalizes learning with Prime Academy, not only for its own engineers, but for clients as well.

For further information, contact the Prime Academy Secretariat via primeacademy@prime.net.ph , (fax) 631 4950 or your Prime Communications SRM or CRM. You may also visit Prime Academy's website at www.prime.net/primeacademy .

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