Resource Details

Business Need

"As the network needs increased and the operational expectations for our data network increased at The Doctors' Clinic, it became apparent to me that I needed to add available bandwidth between sites. We had previously put in fiber connections with a local provider for approximately half of our company back in 2005. But there was still a large portion of our company that were connected with T1s, and so we needed to find a better way or a more efficient way to provide available bandwidth for things like Picture Archival Communication System, which in the medical community is PACS, or digital imaging, and then also set the foundation for future deployment of electronic medical records."

Why Qwest

"The reasons we chose Qwest to provide additional bandwidth centered around, I would say, six benefits. The first benefit as I recall the process is we had current DS3 and T1s that we were committed to contractual arrangements out to anywhere from spring of 2007 out to 2008. Some of these T1s would be replaced with this new service, some of these T1s had already been replaced or found that we didn't need them but, because of contractual commitments, they were still a financial obligation for us. So going with Qwest allowed us to roll over from those current commitments into the new Qwest® Metropolitan Optical Ethernet product.

The second benefit was around the Qwest service. I knew that Qwest would provide around-the-clock service through their network operations center and their cast of thousands and they would always be available to help us out in case of network outages, network emergencies, so I felt that there was a strong safety net with Qwest.

Further reasons were: There was a very low build-out cost for this service for our three sites as compared to the other service providers that I went to. The time for the service to be brought up was favorable with Qwest; it was much shorter than some of the other service providers where I think they had fewer resources to build out their networks. And also, with the Qwest product you only have to pay for the bandwidth you need whereas the other providers were willing to bring in, say, dark fiber or 100MB service, but right now that's not the level of service that we really require--but with Qwest, we have the ability to increase that service as the operational needs dictate.

And then finally, there was a successful implementation for our area hospital and they came to me with a strong positive reference for this product."

Customer Service

"When Qwest notified me that QMOE was ready for me to connect to and configure my customer end devices, I first set a maintenance period for the first site I was going to cut over from our legacy T1 to our QMOE and, working late at night, trying to configure the network device on my side, I had forgotten a couple of configuration items just due to my own maybe shaking out the cobwebs for that type of activity. And I had put in a call to the project manager and there was a technical resource within Qwest that called me almost immediately and helped me out and I was able to successfully complete that cutover. For the other two sites, they went absolutely seamless, and since we went live with QMOE, I've had no episodes of downtime, no episodes of network degradation, so hence I have not had to call service."