City Wi-Fi Contract Big Boost for Firm
7/18/2005
Source: San Fernando Valley Business Journal
By Jeff Weiss
Beating out 14 competitors, Chatsworth-based systems integration firm PCC Network Solutions, has been approved to install a pilot outdoor wireless program for the City of West Hollywood. The deal comes on the heels of PCC’s recent installation of a wireless network for the City of Lompoc. Though the current value of the West Hollywood deal is only worth approximately $50,000, it has the opportunity to be worth much more if the city decides to expand the wi-fi service beyond the pilot program.
Slated to go live this fall, the wireless project will be the second wireless program to be enacted by a municipality in Los Angeles County (Cerritos being the first). The system will consist of seven wireless access points mounted on street lights at the top of traffic signals, spread out across a one mile area stretching along Santa Monica Boulevard, from Fairfax Avenue to La Brea Avenue. Those equipped with wireless devices will be able to log on to the Internet without the use of phone lines or other traditional wires that tether most Internet use to the office or home.
Daniel Faurlin, PCC’s vice president of marketing, stressed the importance of the deal to the company.
“It’s certainly a high visibility deal and it’s very important to us that our solutions work to the city’s satisfaction right from the get go,” Faurlin said. “One of the main criteria that helped us win the bid was the city's interest in looking at integrators who had performed this type of systems integration before, and we had recently designed and installed the city of Lompoc metro Wi-Fi network.”
Faurlin believes that in all likelihood, West Hollywood will expand the wireless systems to include the entire city relatively quickly after the systems go into effect.
"They indicated their interest and desire to light up the whole city in the RFP. We designed the system based on that assumption; the network can easily be expanded to include the whole city,” Faurlin said. “If I were a betting man, I’d say that once the pilot is up and running, and everyone sees the value of this service, the city will move to the next step of providing broader access.”
Systems integrations such as the West Hollywood project have stimulated PCC’s growth rapidly. The company was named to the Business Journal’s 2004 list of fastest growing companies, with a 32.2 percent growth rate between 2001 and 2003. In 2003, the 160-employee company claimed $19 million in revenues. While Faurlin said that the company’s financial data for 2004 is currently still being audited, he said that it exceeded the number for 2003. He also added that the company’s 2005 revenues would also exceed those of the previous year. According to Brian Ganley, the information technology manager for the City of West Hollwood, PCC’s reputation and experience with systems integration played a crucial role in the city’s decision to grant them the contract.
"I would like to take a minute to thank your team for their outstanding customer service at the Apollo University Services new building in Tempe...It was a pleasure working with the PCC team. "
-Paul Chapman, Apollo Group
