City of Rockford

West Michigan

The City of Rockford was looking to upgrade its aging telecommunications infrastructure with a full featured, scalable next generation communications system that integrated electronic communications, multi-location voice, real-time video surveillance and city-wide wireless over one standardized system. ISI represented Cisco Systems for the solution, as they are the only vendor that can provide a completely integrated one-vendor solution.

The Problem:

Like most organizations, the City of Rockford suffered from the following:

1. An aging phone system that was at or beyond its "End of Life"
2. A cobbled together data switching, routing, and wireless platform that was limited in capabilities
3. Lack of integration between voice, data, and video systems

In addition, the town's board and administration were very interested in how to leverage technology to provide additional safety and emergency response throughout the city, so it was important to provide a solution that enabled next generation converged solutions such as real time wireless video surveillance.

The Solution:

When first engaged, ISI consulted with the City of Rockford to adequately determine the business requirements of the upgrade. Some of these included:

1. Easy administration of the entire converged solution including data, voice, wireless, and voice
2. Voicemail to E-mail for instant remote connectivity
3. Advanced outdoor wireless mesh capabilities for municipal services and citizen access
4. Real-time video surveillance of critical hot-spots
5. Integrated switching, routing, and security
6. Voice and Data VPN connectivity to other city sites
7. A new voice call recording system

To meet these requirements, ISI installed the following:

1. A Cisco 2821 Router with integrated security and voicemail
2. A Cisco 3560 48 Port Power over Ethernet Switch to power Voice over IP phones, wireless access points, and power over Ethernet cameras
3. 7960, 7940, and 7912 Voice over IP Handsets
4. Secure wireless throughout the town hall and the downtown district
5. TelRex IP-based voice recording software to record all police, fire, and emergency calls
6. A VPN to the DPW building located two miles away enabling voice, video, and data integration

In addition, ISI's business partner Vision Technologies installed cameras throughout the downtown area to pipe IP video directly to the City of Rockford's primary Microsoft Windows Server. This enabled the City of Rockford's entire voice, video and data system to be totally integrated and accessible to employees working in city hall but also to city and county employees working in the downtown area. These workers can use and 802.11x standard equipment to view live footage on cameras while maintaining a real-time connection to the city's internal network and Internet connection.

States Jeff Dood, "The guys at ISI were on-time, delivered what they promised, and enabled us to really scale out our operation to wherever we need it. We're totally pleased."