Network Gold Mine

Found in: Case Studies

Mar 2006 , Sponsored by AT&T

Placer County, Calif., is among the fastest-growing communities in the country. Situated between Sacramento and Lake Tahoe, the county is home to gold-rush era cities that once again are becoming boomtowns. Explosive growth means the county must continually improve its IT infrastructure to meet the needs of an expanding population.

Placer County needed to confront a huge demand for services and accommodate continued population growth that's predicted to last another quarter of a century. Having reached the end of a contract for fiber-optic data transport services with an existing provider, officials in Placer County's Administrative Services Department began searching for a technology provider that could prepare the county to overcome these challenges.

"Our mission at the Department of Administrative Services is to cost-effectively provide a wide range of technology-related services that are essential for customer departments to efficiently deliver quality and timely support to the citizens of Placer County," said Richard Colwell, director of Administrative Services. "We take that very seriously."

The new service provider would need to supply comprehensive network transport services and network infrastructure equipment that would improve both operational efficiency and support. Under the previous contract, Placer County managed multiple vendors and multiple points of contact, resulting in service that would be inadequate as the jurisdiction's requirements increased.

Forming a Team
The county's exhaustive search for a provider led it to choose the new AT&T family of companies. With a firm grasp on what was at stake, Placer County officials decided that AT&T companies could help them develop the secure, efficient, and perhaps most importantly, highly scalable network required to sustain the county in the face of unprecedented growth.

"Prior to signing with AT&T companies, we used multiple vendors and contractors to support our network," said Colwell. "The AT&T team provided the most comprehensive services in the areas of infrastructure, network management, future growth capability and support for all the requirements of Placer County."

Considering Placer County's unique needs, AT&T companies designed an equally unique set of solutions. These tailored solutions meshed to deliver a broad, secure, stable and efficient network that streamlined the transfer of data and strengthened overall communications processes. The services include:

• nationwide data transport service to provide high-speed performance and exceptional reliability, as well as on-demand scalable bandwidth;
  
• comprehensive network management, including infrastructure and engineering services;
  
• mission-critical virtual private network services;
  
• synchronous optical network (SONET);
  
• specialized equipment to support wide- and local-area networks (WAN/LAN) for leading-edge, 5 Mbps Internet connectivity;
  
• a calling plan for local, toll and long-distance; and
  
• telephone services, which provided a 50 percent reduction in the county's previous per minute rate.
  

To date, AT&T companies' comprehensive voice and data solutions have saved Placer County millions of dollars in direct costs related to implementing the high-speed, wide area asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) network. In addition to savings, the county enjoys the benefits of having a state-of-the-art network infrastructure. With such technology in place, county officials can rest easy knowing they have a reliable and extremely flexible foundation to support them.

"Over the past three years, our technology partnership with AT&T companies has saved Placer County more than $3.5 million," said Colwell. "This relationship has contributed to increased network reliability, higher speeds, technical flexibility and overall customer satisfaction."

Staking Their Claim
In the last few years it has become apparent that the days of 9-to-5 government services are history. A growing number of government processes operate all day, every day. Understanding this, Placer County's enterprise network is available and reliable 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

But having a top-of-the-line network is worthless if it isn't secure. As such, security concerns were vital to Placer County's decision-making process and another reason the jurisdiction partnered with AT&T companies. Beyond financial savings, AT&T technology delivers greater efficiency and stronger security. Furthermore, the network surpassed what county IT officials considered a lofty goal of 99.5 percent uptime.

"Due to the excellent infrastructure support services from the AT&T team, and the effective partnership between county staff and the AT&T family of companies, we exceeded our yearly average system uptime goal with an overall annual average of 99.9 percent," Colwell said.

These results stem from an arrangement that goes beyond a mere customer-provider relationship. Instead, Placer County and the AT&T companies work together in seamless conjunction to achieve substantial cost-saving efficiencies while upgrading the performance, security and reliability of the county's technology infrastructure.

"Since establishing the relationship with AT&T companies in 2002, we have saved a considerable amount of time and money," Colwell noted. "In fact, we've experienced greater efficiency, stronger security and continued cost control of telecommunications services. We consider the AT&T family of companies to be an integral value-added partner for Placer County."

Like much of the Sacramento metropolitan area, Placer County expects its enormous growth to continue well into the future. County officials face that challenge with confidence thanks to dedicated leadership and a reliable partnership with AT&T companies.

"As we look to the future, we will continue to plan, expand, maintain and improve the countywide infrastructure," Colwell said. "That includes voice, data, radio and waste-management monitoring networks, each of which the AT&T team will play a significant role in supporting and maintaining."

Note: SONET services are provided by SBC California.

For additional information visit www.youratt.com/gov

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