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WirelessDevNet.com Press Release
Craven County, North Carolina Selects WindChannel for Wireless Implementation
Atlanta, GA - WindChannel Communications announces that it has been selected by Craven County, N.C. for design, implementation and support of its wireless mesh network. Craven County, whose county seat is the historic City of New Bern on the majestic Neuse River along North Carolina's coast, has a population of approximately 95,000.
The wireless mesh project will initially provide connectivity to five schools located in rural areas throughout the County and will provide first responder capabilities to law enforcement, fire and rescue at many hot-spot locations. The wireless will also provide redundancy to over 60 miles of newly installed fiber optic cable that connects 23 schools in the Craven County School system, the Craven Community College main and secondary campuses, plus the majority of buildings and facilities for the local governments of Craven County, the City of New Bern and the City of Havelock. Long range, the wireless network could provide primary service for municipal locations that were not connected to the initial county fiber installation, like libraries, EMS sites and Voluntary Fire Departments.
"Due to the geography and access, not all Craven County locations could be connected to fiber at the onset of the fiber project, which unfortunately included a few schools, all the fire departments, EMS departments and public libraries," said Dennis B. Holton, Director of Craven County Information Technology. "With the implementation of this new municipal wireless network, the county is able to now connect these locations to the benefits of our fiber network and create the wireless mesh that will serve as our backup network and access for mobile staff. In our case, rather than competing technologies, we believe fiber and wireless to be highly complementary technologies working together in our design. Fiber provides our core infrastructure, and wireless fills in our gaps and provides us with high speed redundancy and the ability to reach out to other entities at much lower costs."
With regards to the selection of WindChannel, Mr. Holton stated, "I was impressed by the knowledge and amount of resources the WindChannel team brought to the table. They listened to our needs and offered up many suggestions and options to our initial design. Because WindChannel responded with aggressive pricing and had high recommendations from neighboring entities that recently chose them for similar products and services, our selection of WindChannel was an easy and unanimous choice.
Implementation of the new wireless network began in February, and this initial phase will be completed in May. Eventually, the County plans to use the network to service its emergency personnel including police and fire.
"We are delighted to have this opportunity to work with Craven County and our partner Cisco on this large mesh implementation," said Randy Choplin, President of WindChannel Communications. "With this installation and the addition of some other applications we are reviewing, Craven County will have one of the most sophisticated and comprehensive wireless mesh installations in the country, and we are excited to be involved."
"We selected WindChannel Communications because of their superior reputation in delivering highly scalable wireless solutions and for their superior customer service," said Wayne Beasley, Special Assistant to Superintendent of Craven County Schools. "Craven County will be utilizing the latest wireless mesh equipment from Cisco Systems, and we appreciate the strong working partnership that continues between Cisco and WindChannel across the Southeast."
About WindChannel Communications
WindChannel Communications provides over twenty local government entities in the Southeast with wireless technology solutions that deliver high-speed Internet connectivity and data transfer. With offices in Atlanta, Georgia and Raleigh, North Carolina, WindChannel operates in nine states and continues to deliver on its vision of a world without wires, WindChannel supplies local government with flexible, quickly deployable and high-capacity substitutes for more costly wired links. Wireless technology expertise combined with
world-class customer care, places WindChannel Communications at the forefront in meeting the rising demand for secure, reliable and flexible bandwidth solutions for local government across the Southeastern United States.
For more information please visit www.windchannel.com .
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