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Suncoast Schools Federal Credit Union Installs 51-site tw telecom IP VPN

Posted on: Monday, 2 March 2009, 13:14 CST

-Service delivers dramatic monthly savings

-Enterprise wide access to critical data enhanced with MPLS services

TAMPA, Fla., March 2 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- tw telecom, (Nasdaq: TWTC), a leading provider of managed voice, Internet and data networking solutions for businesses, today announced the successful installation of a 51-site IP VPN (Internet Protocol Virtual Private Network) for Suncoast Schools Federal Credit Union in Tampa, which includes offsite data center connectivity, Ethernet Internet Service (EIS) and voice services.

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The multi-year contract enabled Suncoast Schools Federal Credit Union, the largest full service credit union in Florida, to upgrade its network, improve member service and reduce monthly communications expense.

"We were seeking a provider that could increase our connection speeds, boost our network capabilities and enable us to reach all of our locations with a single provider," said Michael Parks, vice president of Information Systems for Suncoast Schools Federal Credit Union in Tampa. "We looked at several providers and the decision to select tw telecom was based on how well they could support us in serving our members. Suncoast is extremely member focused, so we don't tolerate downtime well. If a location goes down, serving our members becomes much more difficult, but the tw telecom IP VPN gives us an extremely reliable network."

"We elected to reinforce our offsite datacenter connectivity and the dual entry MPLS allowed us to achieve that goal," said Parks. "The new circuits provide much better usage capabilities than we had with our previous DS3s. In fact, data back-up that used to take up to four hours daily to complete, now takes about 20 minutes. In all, the new services save us a great deal of time, provide significantly better service than we had before and reduced our monthly expense by about $40,000."

Suncoast's 51-site IP VPN, with Class of Service (CoS), replaced a limiting, point-to-point architecture with a robust, fully-meshed, SONET-protected network with any-to-any connectivity for all of its locations throughout Florida. tw telecom's network delivers Class of Service capabilities allowing Suncoast to maximize their IP VPN to not only transport critical data as needed but also allows them to prioritize voice traffic on their network. tw telecom connected all Suncoast's location that were within easy access to tw telecom's network, and built fiber into eight locations including a 120 seat call center and their remote data center.

Suncoast also utilizes tw telecom's newly introduced MyPortal customer portal on a daily basis to monitor their traffic utilization for both voice and data services. They have the ability to monitor jitter, latency and bandwidth utilization at all sites.

"Our teams worked closely with Suncoast Schools Federal Credit Union to design a solution that would provide them the connectivity they needed as well as the flexibility and reliability they wanted," said Rich Santoro, vice president and general manager for tw telecom in Tampa. "IP VPN is a great solution for businesses that need connectivity for multiple locations. IP VPN is versatile since not only can it connect locations throughout a city, it can also connect to locations across the country."

About tw telecom

tw telecom holdings inc., a unit of tw telecom inc., headquartered in Littleton, Colo., provides managed network services, specializing in Ethernet and transport data networking, Internet access, local and long distance voice, VoIP, VPN and security, to enterprise organizations and communications services companies throughout the U.S. As a leading provider of integrated and converged network solutions, tw telecom delivers customers overall economic value, quality, service, and improved business productivity. Please visit www.twtelecom.com for more information.

About Suncoast Schools Federal Credit Union

Suncoast Schools Federal Credit Union, chartered in 1934 as Hillsborough County Teachers Credit Union, operates 50 full-service branches and serves more than 473,000 members in the following Florida counties: Levy, Citrus, Sumter, Hernando, Pasco, Hillsborough, Pinellas, Manatee, Hardee, Desoto, Charlotte, Glades, Lee, Hendry and Collier. With assets of more than $5.9 billion, Suncoast Schools FCU is the largest credit union in the state of Florida and the 7th largest in the United States. For more information visit: www.suncoastfcu.org.

SOURCE tw telecom

Source: PR Newswire

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