City of Salisbury Bolsters Security Using 3Com Switches in a Metropolitan Area Network

Business Wire, Feb 6, 2003

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 6, 2003

Western North Carolina City Accelerates Emergency Responses, Webcasts City Council Meetings and Saves $14,000 in Network Management Costs

3Com Corporation (Nasdaq: COMS) today announced that the City of Salisbury, NC, is using 3Com(R) Gigabit Ethernet switches in a metropolitan area network (MAN) to fortify its law enforcement, planning and administrative operations. Driven by a 3Com SuperStack(R) 3 Gigabit Ethernet core switch, the MAN delivers Fast Ethernet desktop connections city-wide, enabling Salisbury to deploy a host of advanced, multimedia services that enhance emergency responsiveness and communications.

"3Com's affordable array of scalable SuperStack switches gave us the communications infrastructure we needed to improve our security, planning and administration," said Mike Crowell, technology services manager, City of Salisbury. "With our Gigabit Ethernet MAN, we now have the networking power to utilize today's most advanced applications to serve and protect our constituents."

Advanced, Secure Communications

Salisbury chose to leverage existing multimode fiber connections between buildings to create its new MAN - enabling Salisbury to centralize key data and applications for the first time. Chief among these is its Geographical Information System (GIS) data and digital survey photo archive, used by several city departments. Beginning this fall, 3Com switches will accelerate the city's emergency responsiveness by instantly delivering up-to-date aerial survey photos via the Open Software Solutions, Inc. (OSSI) police backoffice application to the desktops of Salisbury Police and 911 dispatchers. Using these photos, dispatchers will be able to quickly provide emergency workers crucial information such as key landmarks and building escapes, entrances and exits. Police are already leveraging the GIS photo archive for crime analysis over the 3Com network.

The 3Com MAN also distributes GIS data and photos to Salisbury's Engineering, Zoning and Utilities departments. Using ESRI GIS and Mapping software to access the archive, these city departments are gaining better visibility into land use and terrain features, making them better able to plan, build and manage roads, pipelines, buildings and utilities. Also, the Fire Department relies on fast network access to the photo archive for evacuation and emergency planning.

The 3Com MAN additionally allows Salisbury to use streaming media broadcasts to improve public and internal communications. City employees now monitor City Council meetings on their office PCs while continuing to work. The city is currently promoting its 2020 strategic growth program and several constituent services via 3Com-driven webcasts, which will include City Council meetings this fall.

The 3Com solution further enables Salisbury to gain the management and cost efficiencies of placing all city departments on a single networked phone system. The 3Com MAN also supports a XIOtech data storage solution that the city uses to manage its data storage needs and UltraBac's data backup solution for servers and desktops. Salisbury will soon launch an intranet, giving employees the ability to access and manage their benefits programs online.

"3Com systems are allowing us to improve public safety and communications across the board," said Crowell. "Using our 3Com MAN, we're fully prepared to capitalize on the opportunities and respond to the challenges of 21st century government."

21st Century Communications Needs

Salisbury's selection of 3Com systems was driven by its need to increase its bandwidth to accelerate its emergency response capability and to introduce webcasting and other multimedia services. The city previously relied on Avaya Ethernet switches to links sites and power its departmental local area networks (LANs). However, the connections faltered as network usage increased, and the city incurred more than $1,150 each month in licensing and service fees. To rectify this situation, Salisbury sought an enterprise MAN that would lower its costs, centralize its servers and upgrade all its network ports to Fast Ethernet.

Salisbury considered solutions from Hewlett-Packard, Cisco, SMC and 3Com. After ruling out Cisco due to switch and network management costs and SMC due to insufficient support capabilities, Salisbury chose 3Com's Gigabit Ethernet solution because of its superior price/performance, simple management and variety of switching options. The city was impressed with the SuperStack 3 Switch 4924's ability to flexibly deliver Gigabit Ethernet over fiber, long-haul fiber and copper links. Salisbury also appreciated the SuperStack 3 Switch 4400's intelligent traffic management, ensuring latency-free voice and video for City Council broadcasts and other services.

The city was also able to eliminate its costly licensing and service fees required by Avaya and other vendors by using 3Com's browser-based 3Com Network Supervisor 3.5 management utility.