Comcast has connected city hall, schools and libraries throughout the city of West Haven, Conn. with its Ethernet and trunking services.
Comcast is providing West Haven with high-speed Internet access and voice services that connect city hall to 17 municipal locations, including West Haven’s three libraries, six firehouses, the high school, beach patrol offices and the police department. The city’s network support vendor, The Business Network Group, is providing local and wide area design and network integration services to support the services.
Located in southwestern Connecticut, West Haven has a population of 55,564 and occupies 10.6 square miles, including nearly four miles of public access beach. As its population continued to grow, the municipality found that its T1 and DSL lines weren’t able to scale with the growth.
Comcast said the city’s libraries were unable to provide wireless access to their patrons, and the city’s existing beach security camera system was slow in sending back critical video footage to the police department.
West Haven issued a Request For Proposals (RFP) to find an Internet and telephone provider that could replace its legacy voice and data connections. Comcast responded with a network design that was capable of connecting all the key municipal offices. Comcast’s proposal was cost-effective for the original eight locations that were outlined in the RFP, and then West Haven opted to add the six firehouses and three libraries to its contract as well.
“Comcast’s network was everywhere we needed it to be, and the local team worked so closely with us throughout the process that we were able to complete our entire network cutover in no time,” said Alan Olenick, IT manager for the City of West Haven. “We now have a state-of-the-art technology infrastructure that is impacting our citizens in numerous ways, from transferring security footage from our shoreline cameras to the police, to improved Internet access at our facilities, to enabling City Hall to be more responsive to inquiries – all of which are dramatically helping to further reinforce the quality of our public services.”
West Haven currently has a combination of 10 Mbps and 20 Mbps Ethernet Network Service (ENS) connections from Comcast that link City Hall with its 17 municipal locations. The city also now has a 20 Mbps Ethernet Dedicated Internet (EDI) connection to City Hall, and, in addition to expediting the transfer of administrative files like team minutes, agendas, permits and licenses, is also the basis of the municipality’s web-based Reverse 911 system.
West Haven also is using several Business Class Trunks that automatically forward incoming calls to the appropriate attendant.
“Municipalities are engaged in a constant struggle to deliver key services to their residents while still being cognizant of costs – but an increasing number are finding that partnering with a service provider that already has the technology infrastructure in place can help them do this quickly and cost-effectively,” said Charlie Tzoumas, Comcast’s vice president of Business Services in Connecticut. “Comcast has invested decades of research and engineering into building infrastructure to make its advanced network broadly available to meet the high-speed, high-capacity needs of business, education and municipal customers around the country, and we are looking forward to continuing to offer new and innovative services to local governments of all sizes.”
