Comcast Business Services Lights Up City of West Haven by Connecting City Hall with Public Safety Locations, Schools and Libraries

WEST HAVEN, Conn., Feb. 27, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Comcast Corporation, a global media and technology company, today announced that it is providing Business Class Ethernet and Business Class Trunks to the City of West Haven, Connecticut. As part of this agreement, Comcast is providing a complete network solution featuring 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 this endeavor.

Located in southwestern Connecticut, the City of West Haven has a population of 55,564 and occupies 10.6 square miles, including nearly four miles of public access beach, which is the longest stretch in the state. As its population continued to grow, the municipality became increasingly frustrated with its existing T1 and DSL lines. 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 feeding 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 comprehensive network solution capable of connecting all the key municipal offices that was so cost-effective for the original eight locations that were outlined in the RFP that 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 are now helping to create a more customer-friendly environment by automatically forwarding 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."

About Comcast Business Services 
Comcast Business Services, a unit of Comcast Cable, provides advanced communication solutions to help organizations of all sizes meet their business objectives. Through a modern, advanced network that is backed by 24/7 technical support, Comcast delivers Business Class Internet, TV and Voice services for cost-effective, simplified communications management.

Launched in 2011, the Comcast Business Class Ethernet suite offers high-performance point-to-point and multi-point Metro Ethernet services with the capacity to deliver cloud computing, software-as-a-service, business continuity/disaster recovery and other bandwidth-intensive applications. Comcast Metro Ethernet services are significantly faster than standard T1 lines and other legacy technologies, providing scalable bandwidth from 1 Mbps up to 10 Gigabits-per-second (Gbps) in more than 20 major US markets.

For more information, call 866-429-3085 or visit http://business.comcast.com/enterprise. 

About Comcast Cable
Comcast Cable is the nation's largest video, high-speed Internet and phone provider to residential customers under the XFINITY brand and also provides these services to businesses.  Comcast has invested in technology to build an advanced network that delivers among the fastest broadband speeds, and brings customers personalized video, communications and home management offerings.  Comcast Corporation (Nasdaq: CMCSA, CMCSK) is a global media and technology company.  Visit http://www.comcastcorporation.com/ for more information.

SOURCE Comcast Cable