University Federal Credit Union  

Why Qwest?

"We specifically chose Qwest because after looking at other vendors, the nationwide presence was a major factor for redundancy—natural disaster, disaster recovery; it was built in.

There was also scalability in the future that as we would expand and need more bandwidth, we didn't have to purchase new equipment; we could just flip a switch. The infrastructure was already built in, and so we could scale it up on a moment's notice; we wouldn't have to plan that out for next year's budget and purchase new equipment and get it installed. It was basically flip a switch and we could scale it up.

Another factor in there was also where the switching stations were located. Since we are doing point-to-point [meshed network] and we are looking for disaster recovery, if the switching station was only in one place and they had a disaster, that wouldn't do us any good. So with multiple switching stations, we are covered for any type of natural disaster.

We also looked at the cost efficiency. The net effect out of this was that we would save a substantial amount of money per month—about 15 percent per month on our telecom costs that we have. That also came into play after the dependability, the reputation, and the service that we would get. But as an added bonus on it, we will be saving money, we will have an ROI on this within two and a half years, which is very substantial for telecom for a credit union of our size.

As you know, with the economy—there are a lot of companies starting up in the past and with the economy as it is, they are not surviving.

One major factor [we chose Qwest] was Qwest's robustness. They're nationwide, they're large enough to take on any of the challenges of the economy right now—so once we invest all of this money for the buildout and to actually entrust all of our data communications through one company, a major factor was will this company be around in five years?

I do believe they will be; they are nationwide; they're robust; they have enough switching stations that we can actually sleep well at night knowing that we're not gonna have to go through this process ever again on there."

Overview of solution

"Currently, we're using the Qwest QMOE; we are also using the [Qwest] Internet access and then also the [Qwest] voice [service]. This has—so we have bundled everything into one package.

Our branches need access to both the data from our servers for transactions and also Internet access for both the members and for the employees to be able to go out to some of the different businesses that we have a relationship with. So they need access—quick access and reliable access.

Also, a major part of our business is communications. We have roughly about 200 phone lines all together. We have a service and information department that they are on the phone every day, all day [with customers]; we actually take about 18,000 phone calls per month in just that one department alone, so communication is a very major part for the telephone for both our members and also to resolve any issues that we have on there.

The third part of it is the Internet access. Since we have to pull credit reports, we have to have Internet access to some of the dealers for some of our loans, we need 24-hour coverage for Internet access that does not have any lag time and that is up at all times so that we can actually get the information that we need from some of our outside vendors that we have used."

Non-financial benefits

"Before when we were just on copper, we were starting to hit our limits on the capacity. When everybody would come in the morning, log in, we'd have to do a download to their PCs—it started to take some more time on there.

With the Qwest QMOE, we've increased our bandwidth and our capacity from 1.5 to 5 megabytes. So issues like that are not an issue anymore; we don't have to worry about scheduling people to come in at certain times. Everybody can come in; there is enough bandwidth and capacity so that all the branches can do it at the same time without any issues of lag time or them waiting around until everything is done.

With the QMOE network, besides scaling everything up for our current needs, we also have the option—we've done the buildout, we have the fiber in it, we've upgraded our copper so that we do have scalability for our future needs and our growth on there.

If we see that one branch is starting to max out their bandwidth, all we have to do is call Qwest; they will flip a switch and we'll go from 5 meg up to 10 meg. At that point, we can do that individually per whichever branch needs it depending on the branch growth on there.

With the QMOE, we have had seamless [vendor management] integration with both our data transport, our Internet access, how we're hosting our sites, and then also with our telephone, our voice communications. Everything has been seamless.

With IT, we're dealing with quite a few different vendors all throughout the country for different products and services; sometimes it is a challenge to just know which vendor is doing what for us without having to do a lot of research.

If it's anything to deal with data, data transport, telephone, or Internet access, we just call one number and then we know that we're with the right company. We don't have to call somebody and say 'Do you do this for us?' We know exactly who we're dealing with and they will route us to the correct department.

That's taking a big load off because if you're dealing with quite a few different vendors, it is a challenge to keepup with all of them, and sometimes as we're moving contracts from one vendor to another it is a challenge to just keep on top of 'Have we added service here? Have we disconnected over here?' With this [Qwest service], it's one-stop shopping.

Also with the QMOE, we do have reliability. We did not really have issues in the past with reliability except for if somebody would hit a power pole and we had a single point into our admin building.

There has been a great improvement over reliability in both bandwidth and the capacity to where the branches aren't calling in saying 'I'm trying to do my download; when is it going to be done?'

We have the [application performance] reliability built in from the bandwidth, and plus with the redundant connections we have, now if one connection goes down, that is not an issue; we don't have to stop service to our members or to our employees, we just move everything over to our other site and then it goes seamlessly over there and nobody really notices any difference on there."

Measurable benefits

"From the executive level, one of the most measurable benefits has been we've reduced our data communication cost by 15 percent per month; that adds up to a very substantial amount. We are -including the buildout, we are going to have an ROI in two and a half years on this, and at that point we will be saving money plus we've increased our capacity and we'll also have the scalability for future use.

Since we are into finance and everybody is into Internet banking, Internet loan applications, checking your balances, checking your history, bill pay, we do have to have an operation that is up 24x7; people can do it from their home or they can actually do it from their phone.

So the members do not accept slow lag time on it, so at that point we have to have enough bandwidth and enough lines coming in that the network is not an issue anymore; that people are like 'Well, it took me five minutes to get into this application' or 'It just sat there and sat there.' At this point, our servers are the last defense on there. The network is not an issue; we have plenty of bandwidth for our members and also for our employees.

When they're doing a loan, they have to do a credit check, they have to do an online loan app from this other spot, and they have to go out and browse to about three or four different companies and gather all the information so that they can make a decision. They don't have to worry about 'When will it come in? Is it gonna be in in five minutes?' It is instantaneous. So it has streamlined our loan process somewhat on there.

We had to build in a big pipe between our main server room and our disaster recovery server room because that's where we do our backups.

It needs to be a scalable pipe; we were having some conflicts with the amount of time that it took to transport the data from one server room to the other, and this solution actually incorporated that to where we have cut down on our time substantially and we're not having the conflicts in the scheduling of the backup of the data.

We also are mirroring our main server room to our disaster recovery and with the communications in there, if anything ever happens to our point of connection at our main server room, we can—since we're mirroring all of our data over there, we can just flip the switch, go over to that server room, and we can have everything back up within half an hour communication-wise and data-wise without any of our members or our employees noticing any degradation in service.

Ease of implementation has been an absolutely both measurable and immeasurable benefit in the respect that we were walked through the project from start to finish; we did not have any downtime on it, which is absolutely measurable on there.

We have to have communications up 24x7. When we first moved over one branch, we were down for 30 seconds for the swap-over- that is it. The other is after that, all the branches, it was basically just walk and plug and play. We actually had it up to where we could do two branches per day; the driving distance between the branches was the biggest issue on there."