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CFP keeps deployed Airmen plugged in

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Bahja J. Jones
  • 379th Air Expeditionary Wing Public Affairs
SOUTHWEST ASIA --  Whether it's sending an e-mail, making a phone call, or searching the web - these are all communication channels marshaled and maintained by the 379th Expeditionary Communications Squadron here keeping the 379th Air Expeditionary Wing plugged into the mission.

The 379th ECS Communications Focal Point is at the center of this effort. They are the hub for processing help desk tickets for all communications issues at the 379th AEW, 24/7.

"Anything using the internet or intranet, a telephone, a computer work station, a radio, a satellite, or postal service here would be operating at an increased risk and absent of timely service support without the CFP," said Tech. Sgt. Joseph McMillan, the 379th ECS CFP assistant NCO in charge deployed from Kadena Air Base, Japan. "They work to diagnose the issue and route it to the appropriate service team to have the issue resolved."

Capt. Branden Lynam, the 379th ECS client services and radio frequency transmission officer in charge, explained the process as comparable to a visit to the doctor's office.

"When you go the doctor, the first person you talk to is the physician's assistant," he said. "They take down all of your symptoms and relay that information to the doctor so they can make an official diagnostic. In the same way, the CFP is like a physician's assistant and they filter the issues to the 'doctors' who actually resolve the issue."

On an average day, the 379th ECS CFP takes more than 100 calls and has between 300 to 375 tickets open and active each week. Once a call is received, the CFP Airman creates the ticket and assesses the priority of the issue: critical, high, medium or low. They route the tickets to one of eight different work centers to have the ticket resolved.

"Priorities are in place to ensure critical issues affecting wing leadership, entire work centers or mission essential task are aggressively handled," McMillan said. "Regardless of the priority, we want to ensure that issues are resolved in a timely manner."

Though more involved computer issues are typically routed to communications technicians within the 379th ECS, the CFP directly handles troubleshooting for computer issues that can be resolved by the customer.

"Working at the CFP can sometimes seem like a thankless job because we work behind the scenes," said Senior Airman Keith Bock, a 379th ECS CFP client systems technician deployed from Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska. "The thanks usually goes to the technicians, but it's fulfilling to know we take part in resolving every helpdesk ticket received. It's a team effort."

The 379th ECS team has a large mission here and they all work together to keep communication flowing throughout the 379th AEW to more than 8,500 users.

"We provide about 13,000 non-classified and secret internet protocol router networks and accounts across the 379th AEW domain and three geographically separated units," McMillan said. "We are the cyber heartbeat for the largest U.S. Air Forces Central Command Network."