NVT Phybridge Case Study – Dinwiddie County

Located just 25 miles south of Richmond, Virginia, the municipality of Dinwiddie County serves nearly 25,000 constituents. The local government needed to modernize communication in the buildings that several departments worked out of, including Law Enforcement, the Board of Education, Parks & Recreation, and the Health Department.

Challenge

County administrators wanted to move approximately 160 users across multiple locations to an IP unified communications solution to improve voice and collaboration capabilities. However, layering voice applications and IP phones onto the County’s local area network (LAN) presented significant physical, financial, and operational barriers. The County did not want to be responsible for the ongoing management of a complex network, across multiple locations. This strategy would also require significant infrastructure changes and re-cabling efforts to accommodate a new IP phone system. Re-cabling costs were estimated at $26,000, a hefty price tag for any municipality striving to deliver optimal service at a reasonable cost. The County needed a simple, non-disruptive, and cost-effective solution to maximize taxpayer dollars and improve its return on investment.

Solution

Dinwiddie County turned to its telecommunications partner for advice, who recommended NVT Phybridge Power over Ethernet switch innovations. The NVT Phybridge PoE switch delivers Ethernet and PoE over a single pair of UTP wiring with up to 1,200ft (365m) reach, which is four times farther than standard PoE switches.

The NVT Phybridge switch solution allowed the County to leverage its existing and proven voice infrastructure to create a robust IP backbone for the new IP phone solution. Since the County was using its existing voice infrastructure, it was able to keep voice and data on physically separate networks to reduce cost, improve network design, and simplify ongoing LAN management.

Result

The NVT Phybridge switch allowed Dinwiddie County to quickly modernize its locations due to the repeatable, predictable, and scalable deployment methodology. Deployment was smooth and straightforward since the existing voice infrastructure was standard across every site.

Additionally, ongoing network management is simple, thanks to the physical separation of voice and data traffic. The NVT Phybridge solution also provided plenty of room for future expansion, if necessary.

Dinwiddie county took a proactive approach to find new and better ways to achieve its IP modernization objectives in a financially and socially responsible manner. The County was able to modernize communication capabilities for its 160 users in record time while saving over $26,000 in network infrastructure costs. Government employees experienced no disruption during implementation.

 

“We easily disconnected the old phones and installed the new IP phones; simplicity was key.” Norman Cohen, Jr. Director of Information Technology, Dinwiddie County

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Summary

Blanchard Valley Health System (BVHS) has more than 100 years of experience serving the people of northwestern Ohio. Based in Findlay, BVHS is a non-profit regional health system that has experienced substantial renovations and expansions throughout its history. Today, it consists primarily of two hospitals—one with 150 beds, the other with 60—and one assisted living facility that serves as many as 300 residents. In addition, BVHS has several small campuses for outpatient clinics, research facilities, urgent care facilities, and various other offices. In all, the health system is spread out across approximately 25 locations.

Problem

Work can be a matter of life and death in the healthcare industry. With this in mind, communication is of the utmost importance. When Jeff Kelley, the telecommunications system administrator for BVHS, joined the team a few years prior, he encountered a problem – the hospital hadn’t upgraded any software or firmware in the switches that powered the communications network. Shortly after that, Siemens contacted BVHS to let them know that the phones and infrastructure they were using had reached the end of their lives, and the company would no longer be offering support for them.

After about 10 or 11 years of not upgrading the infrastructure, BVHS had no other choice. The health system needed communications infrastructure upon which it could rely because of the severe nature of its business mission: caring for its patients across the entire span of their lives. BVHS needed a cost-effective, dependable solution for its 2,000 phones spread out across 25 geographically disparate campuses, and it required redundancy and resiliency to ensure open lines of communication in case specific networks were ever knocked offline. Having had the same phone infrastructure in place for about a decade,

BVHS began to weigh its options and started by looking at the equipment it already had in place to decide what—if anything—could be salvaged or whether it should instead go ahead and acquire all new equipment. What the health system had on hand dated back to 2002, so after analyzing the demands of the end-users—who wanted IP telephony, unified communications, and other advanced features—it decided to go with new equipment. The old phones didn’t have those capabilities. After comparing solutions from vendors like Siemens, AT&T, and Cisco, Kelley says he was ultimately attracted to a Mitel offering through BSB Communications because of the versatility that the solution provided. That pair also provided BVHS with tons of research on various offerings that the health system could peruse to determine what worked best for them. “Cost was important. I wasn’t pinned down to a specific brand,” Kelley says. “Mitel gave us the flexibility to use third-party equipment, whereas [the other brands] forced you to buy proprietary equipment.” Because of the spread-out nature of BVHS’ 25 locations, the health system needed a vendor that could offer a high level of customer support.

Kelley explains that few vendors were willing to drive four hours to offer support at a distant site. But BSB Communications was ready to provide the service the BVHS needed. Because of the health system’s desire for redundancy and resiliency, BSB suggested using solutions offered by NVT Phybridge. NVT Phybridge PoE solutions deliver Ethernet and Power over a single pair of wires four times further than traditional switches. “In the event of failure, I need to know how we could keep our systems alive,” Kelley says. “That’s when they presented the NVT Phybridge solution.” Such switches allow organizations to migrate to IP telephony while leveraging their existing, reliable communications infrastructure. In addition, the solutions provide an extra layer of redundancy, as voice and data lines can be kept separate so that if data were to fail, voice would remain online—something very attractive to a healthcare provider.

Solution

After his due diligence, Kelley decided to go with BSB’s offering of Mitel phones and NVT Phybridge switches. With this solution in place, BVHS can fulfill its mission of delivering quality care to its patients. “NVT Phybridge was essential for our disaster recovery plan,” Kelley explains. “If we lose a certain portion of network connectivity, how do we maintain our telephones? NVT Phybridge fit the bill for that. We have designated all those phones in the hospital with a red handset cord so that employees know that if a network goes down, those phones are on a backup system that should be in good shape.”

The migration process took six months, a period Kelley says was “very reasonable” considering BVHS has hospitals that need to stay online 24/7. Work scheduled in certain areas has to be postponed from time to time because other things in the hospital were deemed more important. The migration was done floor-by-floor on a department-by-department basis. After finishing a section of the project, Kelley and his team reached out to end users to ensure they were comfortable with the product before moving on to the next department because they didn’t want to look back after getting one done. They didn’t. “When we began to deploy, it was pretty seamless,” Kelley says. “The departments were unaware.”

Result

Kelley says he’s delighted with the quality of service BVHS enjoys, thanks to its chosen solution. “I don’t have a lot of service issues,” Kelley explains. “I’ve maybe had a problem with 20 of the phones, and half of those were because of end-user issues like someone spilled a drink on one. The system just works. We’ve got failover in place that always keeps us alive.” The NVT Phybridge solution also resulted in substantial cost savings. Kelley estimates that NVT Phybridge’s switches cost about half of what Cisco offers. On average, the health system had to spend $3,500 to $4,000 on NVT Phybridge’s solutions, compared to $7,000 to $9,000 for Cisco. Installation was essentially “plug and play,” Kelley continues. The factory specs indicate the switches deliver power and Power over Ethernet 1,200 feet, but they reach further at some BVHS campuses. “I have some deployed well over 2,000 feet working just fine,” he says of a handful of phones still running Category 3 cables in out-of-the-way locations. Kelley says he was—and continues to be—very pleased with BSB’s professionalism. Employees at BVHS are also pleased with their new communications infrastructure. “The end-users are absolutely satisfied with it,” he says. “The solution provided a lot of flexibility for them regarding things they couldn’t do before. With the new features [like unified communications], you can do anything you want.”

Problem

The combination of old and new architecture presented real challenges for Vermont Law School in maintaining a reliable IT infrastructure that allowed employees and students in each of the 19 buildings to stay connected. It was not uncommon for the school to experience power outages from 3 hours to 3 days. With so many students on campus at any given time, concern was growing that increased power outages, combined with an IT infrastructure that couldn’t communicate well between buildings, was unacceptable. Even 911 dispatch capabilities were unavailable across all the phones or building locations.

The historic buildings were equipped with copper wiring, and knocking down walls to re-cable these heritage facilities was not an option. Vermont Law was looking for a networking solution that could support the migration to IP communications in an economically-viable manner. Given the multiple buildings and unique features of a campus environment, they were looking for a solution to enable a quick and straightforward IP migration.

Solution

Vermont Law School’s Director of Technology, Jeanne Eicks, was introduced to the NVT Phybridge solution and immediately related to the value proposition. NVT Phybridge provides the only network switch to deliver power and data over a single pair of telephone-grade wire with four times the reach of traditional data switches. She consolidated all the switches in a single location to support the endpoints in all buildings, significantly reducing cost, risk, and disruption. “NVT Phybridge allowed us to adopt a modern technology in a situation in which we wouldn’t have been able to otherwise,” says Jeanne. “NVT Phybridge proved to be the only solution on the market that could allow us to meet our objectives.”

Result

With its signature ease of deployment, the NVT Phybridge solution was up and running in just five hours, connecting all the phones on campus through the central switch in the school’s communications room. The resulting centralized power provides sustainability to the previously unreliable system. Vermont Law School used the NVT Phybridge solution to migrate to IP Telephony and Unified Communications easily. The school’s mandate is “to educate students in a diverse community that fosters personal growth and enables them to attain outstanding professional skills and high ethical values to serve as lawyers and other professionals in an increasingly technological and interdependent global society.” With the NVT Phybridge solution, Vermont Law School is fulfilling that mandate by becoming a more technologically-advanced campus.

Campus environments typically have connectivity between buildings, supporting their current telephony solution. NVT Phybridge provides solutions that can transform existing infrastructure into an ideal platform for IP Telephony, significantly reducing cost, risk, and complexity. The standard topology across all buildings allowed for a repeatable, predictable, and scalable experience, regardless of the number of endpoints. Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.

NVT Phybridge Case Study: El Paseo South Gate

El Paseo South Gate is a large shopping center, located in South Gate, California. Guests visit to enjoy the shopping, food, and entertainment amenities while enjoying the stunning modern architecture and large outdoor murals.

El Paseo South Gate relied on an analog surveillance system that was installed in the late ‘90s. The system became increasingly unreliable and could no longer meet the organization’s modern-day security needs. The center tried replacing the cameras and the DVRs, however, this did not provide the ideal level of quality that was needed. El Paseo South Gate wanted to modernize its surveillance capabilities and deploy a new IP security solution.

Problem

Several challenges needed to be addressed before implementing the new IP security system. El Paseo South Gate wanted to deploy IP cameras to get complete surveillance coverage throughout the mall’s interior and in outdoor areas, including parking lots and the parking garage. Many desired endpoint locations were well beyond the 328ft (100m) reach limitation of standard Ethernet switches, and installing IDF closets would add cost and complexity to the project.

A Coax-based infrastructure supported the existing analog camera system. The customer was concerned with the potentially high cost, complexity, and disruption from ripping out the Coax and replacing it with a CAT6/Fiber backbone. Additionally, there was minimal cable route location information due to a lack of documentation from the original installation. Many environments, including the parking garage, had concrete walls, making re-cabling even more difficult. The customer needed an innovative solution to overcome its IP modernization challenges.

Solution

OC Tech Innovations (OCTI) met with NVT Phybridge at ISC West, one of the largest North American security events, and discovered the CLEER24 long-reach PoE switch. The enterprise-grade CLEER24 switch is an EoC (Ethernet over Coax) innovation that delivers Ethernet and PoE+ over any new or existing Coax cable with up to 6,000ft (1,830m) reach. That’s 18 times the reach of a standard Ethernet switch. OCTI connected with the local NVT Phybridge team and arranged a proof-of-concept to test the solution.

After a few simple setup steps, the CLEER24 transformed the customer’s existing and proven Coax-based infrastructure into a robust IP backbone for the new IP cameras. OCTI and NVT Phybridge worked together to deliver several pre-sale demonstrations for the customer to ensure it was the right solution for their needs. El Paseo South Gate was impressed with the solution and decided to move forward with the modernization initiative.

Result

Reduced infrastructure Costs for Better ROI

El Paseo South Gate was completely satisfied with the entire experience. OCTI used the CLEER24 switch to enable several IP cameras, including those in hard-to-reach places, such as the parking garage. “The CLEER24 switch was especially helpful when connecting IP cameras on the fifth level of the parking garage”, said Behzad Faridnia, Founder and Chief Innovator, OC Tech Innovations. “These runs were originally done via encased conduit without pull strings. If new cabling were needed, this would have required a new surface-mounted conduit system to be installed.” OCTI estimates that El Paseo South Gate saved approximately $465,000 in infrastructure costs using the NVT Phybridge CLEER24 switch; a total cost reduction of 71%. “We are confident this would not have been possible without the NVT Phybridge EoC product line,” said Behzad. “The client is very satisfied as they were able to avoid costly trenching and unsightly conduit runs to install these new cameras.”

Simple and Fast Deployment

By leveraging the NVT Phybridge CLEER24 switch and avoiding the rip-and-replace process, the total deployment time was reduced by two months. “The NVT Phybridge solutions were easy to deploy,” said Behzad. “Their wide range of adapters allowed us to include multi-sensor and PTZ cameras (pan-tilt-zoom) with higher Power over Ethernet requirements while auto-negotiating PoE within the same system from the same switch.”

The slim form factor of the CLEER24 switch was easily incorporated into the customer’s existing rack and ensured plenty of open rack space for future expansion. “The NVT Phybridge extenders are slim and fit easily into the pole mount and enclosures where space is at a premium,” said Behzad. “The NVT Phybridge extenders are far slimmer than the other brands on the market.”

Simple LAN Design

OCTI consolidated all cable runs to the customer’s main server room without the need for costly intermediate distribution frame (IDF) closets. “This significantly reduced network costs for El Paseo South Gate and simplified network design as we utilized all original conduit runs, removing the need for costly trenching,” Behzad commented.

Superior Performance at Greater Lengths

The NVT Phybridge EC4 adapter can connect up to four IP devices over one long-run Coax cable. OCTI and El Paseo Plaza plan to add IP-based annunciators using the existing Coax cable runs and the EC4 adapter.

When assessing the customers existing infrastructure, OCTI found that many cable runs had several splices with BNC couplers. “At first, we were concerned that these splices would degrade the overall signal,” said Behzad. “However, the signal had no issue passing through, even with an 8-splice run.” The CLEER24 switch could support high-demand cameras at great lengths, even in the toughest environments. “Even when connecting the longest cable run, we had no issues getting the IP camera online,” commented Behzad.

Physical Network Segmentation

OCTI was able to maintain a physically separate network for the new IP camera system. This will enhance network security, reduce ongoing costs, and simplify LAN management. “For security reasons, the system is “air-gapped” with the Video Management System (VMS) acting as the middleman between the surveillance network and the local LAN network for other devices”, said Behzad. “The NVT Phybridge admin portal was easy to configure for alignment with the surveillance-only subnet.”

Industry-Leading Pre and Post-Sale Support

“Pre- and post-sales support were beyond the level we expected in terms of detail and personalization,” said Behzad. “This was a breath of fresh air as far too many companies disappear once the project is won. We appreciate the support and look forward to adding NVT Phybridge as our go-to solution for IP modernization projects. We are already exploring using other products for other challenges we are facing”.

About OC Tech Innovations

OC Tech Innovations (OCTI) provides full-service Low-Voltage Electrical, Information Technology, Surveillance, and Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems (sUAS) services to private businesses and all levels of Government Entities. Their priority is on providing exemplary customer service that exceeds expectations. OC Tech Innovations work with their clients to generate long-term creative solutions that save time, money, and energy by using a combination of hardware, software, and next-generation technology. By providing free workshops, custom presentations, and incorporating the use of Artificial Intelligence into their projects, they are able to provide a unique perspective on the world of today while preparing for the challenges of tomorrow.

NVT Phybridge Case Study: Food Company

One of the world’s largest food companies was relying on an analog communication system that could no longer keep up with the company’s needs. The organization wanted to modernize to IP. However, the company needed to overcome critical network readiness challenges to support a new IP voice solution.

Challenge

A CAT3 network infrastructure supported the existing analog phone system. Based on traditional LAN design thinking, the food company believed it needed to rip-and-replace the network infrastructure and install new Ethernet to support IP. Additionally, the organization was uncertain how to support the IP phones in all areas of the manufacturing facilities, given the 328ft (100m) reach limitation of standard Ethernet switches. The customer was not interested in the IDF closets required to extend connectivity to all areas of the buildings. The project was critical for business growth – but the network requirements appeared to be too costly, complicated, and disruptive to the business. The customer needed a modern solution to overcome its challenges.

Solution

Given the customer’s digital transformation challenges, JT Global Enterprise, the reseller partner, introduced the food company to the NVT Phybridge PoLRE® switch. The PoLRE switch delivers Power over Ethernet over any new or existing single-pair UTP (CAT3) infrastructure with up to 1,200ft (365m) reach. That’s four times farther than a standard PoE switch. The customer was satisfied, as the innovation would eliminate rip-and-replace requirements and allow for a smoother modernization experience. In just a few simple setup steps, the PoLRE switch transformed the customer’s existing CAT3 infrastructure into a robust IP/PoE backbone with more than enough reach to support the new IP phones exactly where the customer needed them.

Result

The food company leveraged the NVT Phybridge PoLRE switch to deploy over 4,000 Avaya IP phones across 47 locations. JT Global Enterprise was able to leverage the existing and proven voice infrastructure to maintain a physically separate network for the new IP voice solution. The customer was also pleased with the simplicity of the solution. “Achieving IP connectivity first to support our new solution was where we exhausted most of our planning time. When we learned about the NVT Phybridge PoLRE product, we were able to move straight into implementation,” said the Sr. Telecommunications Manager for the food company. “The PoLRE switch solved every concern we had, especially around costs and complexity. Its simplicity, stability, and ease of deployment quickly provided the IP and PoE we needed to support our new system and features for all of our users.”

The food company took a pro-active approach to find new and better ways to support its IP modernization objectives in a financially and socially responsible manner. The customer leveraged Modern LAN design and NVT Phybridge PoE innovations to:

• Create a secure and robust point-to-point network topology for the new IP phones to improve application performance and quality of service
• Reduce infrastructure costs by more than $1.2 million
• Deploy the PoLRE solution in just four months; compared the original 18-month forecast
• Avoid rip-and-replace requirements to eliminate any potential business disruption
• Leverage the existing infrastructure to prevent over 12 tons of e-waste

NVT Phybridge and JT Global Enterprise

We are committed to staying at the forefront of innovation to help our customers simplify the modernization to IP and the Internet of Things. Choose NVT Phybridge and JT Global Enterprise as you prepare your organization for the future of communication. JT Global Enterprise is focused on helping you drive your strategy for Customer Engagement, Digital Transformation, and Smart Retail, by delivering Network, Security, UC, and Contact Centre solutions.