DOMESTIC gas heating specialist Potterton has signed a three-year contract worth £225,000 to use the RAM Network for nationwide wireless data communications. The RAM Network will transmit 120,000 UK-wide service calls each year and handle all wireless e-mail communication between Potterton's 90 field service engineers and its call centre in Warwick.

The engineers are equipped with Psion Workabouts which connect to a RAM radio modem in their Mercedes 208 Sprinter vans. Office-based staff will use the Psion Mobile Service and Information System to allocate jobs over the RAM Network, while field-based engineers will use RAM to report work progress, order parts, check stock and send information back to the call centre for automatic updates on the service management system.

RAM won the contract against competition from GSM, Cognito, Paknet and NB3. Potterton's priority was to improve customer service. Potterton's systems manager (service operations) Chris Thewlis said: 'Customers expect instant service when the heating and hot water is off, so faster engineer response and quicker fixes are the name of the game. RAM makes life a lot easier for our engineers; they can fix faults much more quickly because they have live access to information from our service management system as and when needed - and it's 100% accurate.