Download our free Monitoring Fundamentals Tutorial.
An introduction to Monitoring Fundamentals strictly from the perspective of telecom network alarm management.
1-800-693-0351
Have a specific question? Ask our team of expert engineers and get a specific answer!
Sign up for the next DPS Factory Training!
Whether you're new to our equipment or you've used it for years, DPS factory training is the best way to get more from your monitoring.
Reserve Your Seat Today
Founded in 1894, Consolidated Communications is a family of companies providing advanced voice, data, and video services to both residential and business customers in Illinois and Texas. Consolidated Communications offers a wide range of services over its technologically advanced network, including local and long distance, high-speed Internet access, digital television, private line, and carrier services.
Billy Young is a Central Office Engineer for Consolidated Communication's Texas operations, and he recently found himself face-toface with a tricky monitoring challenge.
Young was searching for an RTU that would function reliably in the 110-degree Texas heat. "We wanted to monitor our cabinets, and there was nothing hardened out there that worked within our network architecture," Young said, adding "We were limited on space. We only had one rack unit."
And Young was looking to squeeze a lot of functionality into that one rack unit. "We wanted a T1 interface with Frame Relay support. We wanted an Ethernet hub in the back, and we wanted it to be T1-fed," Young said. "We wanted to have 16 scan points, some control relays and some analog relays, and we wanted it web-based."
Young's search for a solution took him to several vendors. Some of them saw his desire for Frame Relay support as more of a nuisance than an opportunity.
The response from one was, "Absolutely not," recalled Young. "They said PPP was their existing design and they weren't going to change it."
