About
The City of Fairborn is a community of an estimated 33,780 residents located in in southwest Ohio, close to the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.
Challenge
In 2012, the City of Fairborn was using a large, national cable company for their network and was experiencing a variety of issues – including dissatisfaction with the level of service this company was providing.
Their low bandwidth Internet connection also caused slow network performance, and since they had plans to grow, the City began looking for an alternative that would provide better connectivity at a more affordable price.
Evaluation
During the network provider evaluation process, City of Fairborn ITS Manager Mark Neuman and Network & Telecommunications Administrator Jon Petty met with Independents Fiber Network.
“We were impressed by the quality of service they could provide at the price they were offering,” Neuman said. “What struck us was that they came in with one of the technicians that works on their network – the guy we’d personally be calling.”
“We liked how Independents Fiber Network was aggressive, forward-thinking, and had someone right on hand that could handle our needs,” he added.
The City of Fairborn was so impressed by Independents Fiber Network’s proposal that they decided to switch service providers.
High-Performance, High-Capacity Connectivity Services
After the City’s contract with the national cable company ended and Independents Fiber Network had finished building a fiber route through the City, Fairborn began a connectivity partnership which continues more than five years later.
The City switched to a private, Dedicated Internet Access (DIA) circuit from Independents Fiber Network.
In order to connect different sites together, the City also accessed Independents Fiber Network’s E-LINE service, which is a point-to-point, private-line Ethernet service, as well as an auxiliary website at their facility.
Results
“Independents Fiber Network multiplied our broadband 10 times from 10 Mb to 100 Mb at about a third of the cost,” Neuman stated.
This has not only given the City a high-performance network to meet their current and future needs, but has proved to be imperative for public safety. Now, communications for emergency situations for the police and fire departments are shared across their network easily due to the higher amount of bandwidth they have.
“It’s been rock-solid for us,” Neuman continued. “We have a high degree of confidence in Independents’ ability to deliver connectivity to our entire city. We know we can call and get someone who is knowledgeable and can solve any problems right off the bat.”
Partnership for the Future
Independents Fiber Network has also been an exemplary partner for the City’s future growth and economic development initiatives.
In 2017, Neuman and his team came up with a plan of where they would like to see fiber installed in the city as they continue to grow. After this plan was finalized, they met with Independents Fiber Network to discuss how Independents could be a resource for these plans.
Thus far, they are working together to roll out new fiber for the City and the surrounding area which will only continue to positively impact the connectivity in southwest Ohio.