First Federal Bank

The Customer

First Federal Bank is an 11-location bank headquartered in Kansas City, Missouri. With a rich history spanning 70 years, First Federal knows that nothing is more important in the banking business than earning the trust of their customers. In today’s ever-changing technological marketplace, banks must operate with top-of-the-line, hacker-proof technology.

First Federal’s contract with their current service provider was up for renewal, and they first thought that sticking with the safe, familiar telecommunications giant would be the easiest, safest path. But the bank had no relationship with their provider, so when a Windstream sales representative approached First Federal with a customized solution, they were ready to listen.

The Challenge

In an industry dependent on technology, having the ability to store sensitive data and communicate with other branches is extremely important. Implementing amore secure network was very important to the livelihood of First Federal.

First Federal needed to be confident that their data would travel a network as secure as their vaults. So, the Windstream team set out to prove its total network reliability. Bank officials, along with their telecommunications consultant, started by touring Windstream’s Network Operations Center.

The Solution

From the start, officials at First Federal were impressed with Windstream ’s Tier 2 capabilities that would automatically re-route data traffic if the primary connection went down. Additionally, Windstream impressed First Federal with a cost-effective Multi Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) meshed solution in place of their costly, slow, and outdated point-to-point connections. This solution allowed the bank to make customer information available over their own private network to all bank branches without compliance complications that come with the public Internet.

Windstream also impressed the bank with the benefits of the company’s VoIP and Data Bundle, which allows voice and data to reside on the same T1, with voice always getting priority. Further, the Windstream network’s dynamic bandwidth capabilities would take First Federal from 512K of connectivity to a full T1 (1.544 MBS). Additionally, they could secure extra voice lines, in effect tripling their bandwidth while cutting costs of the overall network.

Windstream’s Hosted VoIP and Data Bundle also provides an easy-to-use web portal, which allows the bank to instantly forward phones and manage other calling features.

After two tours of Windstream’s Network Operations Center, a meeting with the Windstream customer solutions engineer, and discussions with Windstream’s CFO and CTO, the bank was ready to make a decision. Bank officials were so impressed with Windstream that when their provider called to renew their contract, the bank would not even honor the phone call. Just as First Federal is providing great service to their customers, Windstream was able to deliver security, reliability, and peace of mind.