City of Missoula, Mont., Selects Anti-Spam and Virus Protection Solution

The city of Missoula, Mont., will use Qwest Communications' wide area networking (WAN) solution, known as iQ Networking, to help it control and eliminate unwanted spam and viruses that present a strain on the city's network.

With approximately 300 employees, many of them with public e-mail addresses, the city of Missoula was challenged by the very large volumes of spam on a daily basis. The large volume of spam imposed resource constraints on the city's network, but the city never had the expertise or tools to adequately block or measure spam and email viruses. Qwest delivered a gateway-based anti-spam/anti-virus managed security service that filters and cleans e-mail from the Internet prior to reaching the customer's network. The service also can block inappropriate content and can prevent e-mail worms from infiltrating the customer's network.

"We didn't realize the sheer amount of unwanted email we received until we implemented this solution and could track this problem," said David Boring, information network manager for the city of Missoula. "The iQ Networking service was extremely simple to implement and ultimately, we're saving valuable resources, both in terms of management and costs."

The city's solution offers a wide variety of WAN services including a managed security service requiring no additional hardware or software. The security solution helps ensure that all encountered spam, adult content and viruses are quarantined and can be managed by the customer 24 hours per day. Qwest also obtains virus updates 24 times per day and constantly updates scanning techniques, providing the latest in e-mail spam and virus protection. A secure custom Web site allows authorized administrators access to the quarantined messages to define filtering preferences, create safe lists and black lists, view message reports, statistics and search the quarantine database.