Windstream Enterprise & Community Dental Partners Earn 2021 SD-WAN Implementation Award

The SD-WAN Implementation Award honors service providers delivering on the promises of the digital age and the companies embracing this era of change. This year, the INTERNET TELEPHONY team is happy to celebrate Windstream Enterprise (WE) and Community Dental Partners (CDP) with the 2021 SD-WAN Implementation Award.

CDP has 28 locations throughout Texas, and its legacy network systems were no longer able to deliver the level of service expected by its doctor-owner clients and their patients. Frequent outages across voice and network services were a regular disruption – almost daily. An unreliable backup network circuit frequently failed to engage. CDP was paying for redundancy that didn’t always show up when needed. Inadequate network bandwidth created subpar experiences on the network. And, lackluster support from its legacy provider left CDP clients, patients, leadership and team holding the bag.

WE delivered a high-touch managed network solution packaging the high bandwidth and availability, the flexibility and resiliency to avoid outages as well as cost efficiency and security promised in selecting SD-WAN: SD-WAN Concierge.

CDP now has a dedicated and consistently accessible technical service manager and support team to monitor the network, make suggestions to optimize performance, offer troubleshooting assistance and other operational guidance. WE put in place managed multi-layer security, featuring Virtual Network Function (VNF) Next-Generation Firewall (NGFW), end-to-end encryption, PCI DSS compliance, multi-factor authentication (MFA) and Fortinet’s (News - Alert) next-gen firewall.  The WE Connect network management portal and app provides CDP with the ability to manage the SD-WAN Concierge experience with real-time insight.

When CDP selected WE, the SD-WAN provider dove headfirst into the dental practice’s operations to better understand network needs and business priorities. WE then crafted a customized implementation plan starring SD-WAN Concierge.

Since implementation, CDP has gained twice the network bandwidth, 30% less cost for bandwidth, greatly reduced outage frequency (nearly zero) and even when there is an outage, it doesn’t disrupt the network. Now, members of the CDP IT team are able to address higher value work. And, CDP is enhancing customer experience by beginning to offer free, secure and reliable WiFi (News - Alert) to patients.

Moving forward, CDP will continue to see tangible results in the deployment, measuring success by reduced total cost of ownership, improved network uptime, time saved by IT handling the network and the ability to provide CDP (and customers’ patients) with elevated services,  like free WiFi for patients.

For more information on entering to win the 2022 SD-WAN Implementation Award, please contact Michelle Connolly.