Email: @   Password:
 

Case Study: Pinkerton Retirement Specialists - Download PDF

Company: Pinkerton Retirement Specialists
Location: Coeur d'Alene, ID
Contact: Matt Weed, IT Director, Client Service Professional
Industry: Financial Planning, Wealth Management
Number of employees: 12

Snapshot
Pinkerton Retirement Specialists (PRS) is a private wealth management firm with clients all across the country. As a national firm based in Coeur d'Alene, PRS is constantly keeping abreast of technological innovations to make sure their office is efficient and their communications with their customers and the financial markets are uninterrupted. As PRS was growing and moving to a high-tech VOIP product for their phone system, they projected the need for more bandwidth and more flexibility in how they allocated that bandwidth. By turning to Intermax Networks the firm was able to triple the amount of bandwidth they received, give redundancy to their network broadband connections to eliminate internet downtime, and reduce their costs while doing so.

The Challenge
Pinkerton Retirement Specialists (PRS) has as their mission "to empower clients to make informed financial decisions through communication, education, and service that exceeds expectations." Matt Weed, IT Director, manages the internal networks and the connections to their financial management and estate planning software. The company is healthy and growing both in revenues and in staff numbers. They manage three servers, use terminal services for remote access and host their own domain software. "Our major issue is that we were looking for more bandwidth," explained Weed, "to be able to bring on additional staff and to facilitate the large data transfers that come with backups and our online professional resources." A regional phone reseller with whom PRS had a long-term contract provided their T-1 data lines and phone lines.

The Solution
Intermax was asked to provide options for additional bandwidth and other possible solutions. In assessing the situation Intermax looked at the specific technology issues in their office, contemplated the current and future bandwidth needs of the company, redundancy and backup issues and the opportunities to improve the overall online services for PRS.
Being online at all times was critical to the PRS office's functionality, so Intermax introduced the concept of a "load-balanced" router that allowed two different internet sources - Intermax and the copper wire phone reseller - to provide both the increased bandwidth needed and provide a bulletproof backup system. Their existing T-1 line was augmented by an additional bandwidth feed of 2.5 Mbps from the Intermax microwave data network. "The new dual-wan router that Intermax installed allowed us to have two completely different paths to the Internet for the first time so that if either service were to go out for some reason, the other service would still be online and functioning through the outage," said Matt Weed. "This gives our customers even stronger confidence that we are always available for them - in person and technologically."
By directing their Internet traffic through specific ports on the router, PRS can prioritize bandwidth to the most mission critical applications first - like their VOIP digital phone system. Technical problems with their copper wire phone reseller that produced dropped or broken phone calls are a thing of the past now.

The Results Weed says that the new configuration tripled their online bandwidth and subsequent speeds, reduced their costs by creatively reallocating their data and voice contract with their existing phone provider, and provided the company with more flexibility than they ever had before.
"We have had literally zero business interruption since bringing Intermax into the mix, and we are very pleased with the service," Weed stated. "Intermax installed the service without our business being impacted, implemented the changes after hours, and made sure we had no down time," Weed continued.

Related Links

  • www.pinkertonretirement.com
  • www.intermaxnetworks.com

      Glossary

      Bandwidth A broad term that describes how fast your internet service runs. Sometimes the word is also used to describe the high speed data service product.

      Phone reseller Companies who rent Verizon lines and resell them. Examples are X-O, OneEighty, Time-Warner Communications, etc. Sometimes these companies are called CLECs which stands for Competitive Local Exchange Carrier.

      VoIP This stands for 'Voice over Internet Protocol'. It means a digital phone connection where your voice calls go over the internet as digital signals and do not go through the phone co. analog switching network.

      WAN This is a computer network that covers a broad area (i.e., any network whose communications links cross metropolitan, regional, or national boundaries). Or, less formally, a network that uses routers and public communications links.

      Router A router is a computer whose software and hardware are usually tailored to the tasks of routing and forwarding information.

      Dual Wan Router This is a more sophisticated router that allows for use of more than one WAN at a time - used in this case to allow internet access on the same unit from two different bandwidth providers for backup redundancy.