BOCA RATON, FL, Feb. 28, 2006 -- Siemens Communications Inc. today announced that the city of Chaska, MN, has selected Siemens HiPath® Managed Services to provide support and continuous monitoring of the city's wireless network. Chaska, located just outside the Twin Cities area, is one of the first communities in the country to deploy a citywide Wi-Fi network and the first to operate a municipally hosted ISP over a mesh Wi-Fi system.
Siemens is now providing its HiPath Managed Services Service Desk and Network Operations Center (NOC) support of the chaska.net network, a wireless Internet service provider owned and operated by the city. The NOC also took over the management and support of a separate wireless, point-to-multipoint network service - not based on Wi-Fi -- which the city offers its business customers.
Additionally, Siemens now monitors performance of the mesh wireless system and back-end network infrastructure, which includes the supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) components that continuously manage the city's water supply from the NOC. By monitoring and managing the SCADA components, city officials say they have improved performance, have better control of the delivery of water throughout the municipality and minimized the risks of system failures.
"We needed a partner to manage contact center calls and responses, as well as network performance," said Dave Pokorney, city administrator for the City of Chaska. "Siemens demonstrated that it could provide the level of experience and skill needed to deliver end-user and technical assistance services as well as isolate and eliminate network problems through proactive remote monitoring."
By outsourcing the support and management of its network to Siemens, the City of Chaska has been able to provide a level of network reliability and customer service to help increase customer satisfaction and expand chaska.net's subscriber base.
"With Siemens HiPath Managed Services, we know that any problems related to the network itself are being resolved," Pokorney said. "The overriding reason we created the partnership with Siemens was to take our Internet service to the next level. We were providing good service before, but to provide great service we needed to improve our overall network support and management."
As one of the wireless industry's most experienced solutions providers, Siemens also offers its end-to-end mesh Wi-Fi solutions for fixed network operators (FNOs) and Mobile Network Operators (MNOs). Siemens' wireless network portfolio includes base stations as well as self-installing residential customer premises equipment (CPE) and outdoor mounted business CPE. Mesh Wi-Fi can be used for a number of applications such as last-mile broadband connections, wireless digital subscriber line (DSL) services, voice over Internet protocol (VoIP), hotspot backhaul and high-speed enterprise connectivity for small, midsized and home-based business.
Based in Essen, Germany, with multiple U.S. offices for a variety of North American business units, Siemens AG (www.usa.siemens.com) is one of the largest global electronics and engineering companies with reported worldwide sales of $96 billion in fiscal 2005. Founded nearly 160 years ago, the company is a leader in the areas Medical, Power, Automation and Control, Transportation, Information and Communications, Lighting, Building Technologies, Water Technologies and Services and Home Appliances. With its U.S. corporate headquarters in New York City, Siemens in the USA has sales of $18.8 billion and employs approximately 70,000 people throughout all 50 states and Puerto Rico. Eleven of Siemens' worldwide businesses are based in the United States. With its global headquarters in Munich, Siemens AG and its subsidiaries employ 460,000 people in 190 countries.
Siemens Communications Inc. (www.usa.siemens.com/communications) offers its customers a broad portfolio of communication products and services and is a leader in convergent technologies, products and services for wireless, fixed and enterprise networks. The company's portfolio ranges from devices for end users to complex network infrastructures and complementary services for enterprises, carriers and service providers. Siemens Communications Inc. is headquartered in Boca Raton, Fla.
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