Business Spotlight:
For more than 125 years, UGI Utilities, Inc. has been an energy service provider throughout central and eastern Pennsylvania. Headquartered in Reading, UGI currently supplies natural gas and electricity to more than 540,000 customers. The company has chosen D&E Communications for voice and data solutions including local and long distance services, toll-free numbers, and a new and more efficient Wide Area Network (WAN) to replace outdated 56k and ISDN technology.
In 2007,UGI was looking for a service provider who understood their network requirements and could provide a solution to accommodate future IP services and augment their existing WAN. This solution needed to be:
- Efficient
- Support prioritization of network traffic
- Fully meshed
- Scalable
- Support geographically dispersed locations
After reviewing their immediate needs and understanding the future requirements of UGI, D&E made the recommendation for a Layer 3 MPLS VPN solution.
Shaun Gomez, Sales Engineer for D&E Communications, explains that the WAN in place at UGI wasa mesh of Point-to-Point circuits, Internet-based VPN, and MPLS. "Now with a MPLS based VPN solution, UGI has the capability of any-to-any connectivity between their remote locations," says Gomez. "This opens up the possibility of dynamically re-routing traffic according to network conditions. In addition, the Point-to-Point circuits have been eliminated and there is no longer a single failure point for a cluster of remote offices."
"As we go into new technologies such as MPLS and VoIP, we greatly value D&E's expertise and guidance."
Steve Miller
Manager of Infrastructure Services
UGI
According to Gomez, UGI is reaping the benefits of reduced latency, any-to-any connectivity, end-to-end traffic priority (QoS), and the ability to easily add new offices regardless of their geographic location (within the continental United States). UGI has also added the capabilities of a solid WAN foundation to support their IP Telephony project and is in the process of implementing an IP Telephony solution. Gomez further explains, "Together, we have laid the foundational building blocks to support this project and ensure that the network is reliable, scalable, and efficient."
Steve Miller, Manager of Infrastructure Services and Scott Culbertson, VP of Information Services at UGI, both are pleased with the partnership that has developed with D&E Communications - one of a Trusted Advisor. "As we go into new technologies such as MPLS and VoIP, we greatly value D&E's expertise and guidance," Miller notes.
Gomez sums up the partnership this way, "UGI has really come a long way, with our help, growing and improving their network. It wasn't too many years ago that they had many 56k connections between sites. We're honored to work with them to develop the most efficient and effective solutions available."
