Arvig Communications Maximizes their T/Mon Monitoring System with DPS Factory Training

Arvig Communication Systems (ACS) is a localized communications provider company based in Perham Minnesota. From the early life as a small independent telephone company established in 1950 as East Ottertail Telephone Company, ACS has been one of the progressive risk-takers, delivering cutting-edge technology to residential and business customers in the rural communities surrounding Perham, Walker, and Twin Valley, Minnesota.

Gary Schattschneider Central Office Technician Arvig Communications Systems

New Equipment Acquisitions Demanded New Monitoring
During their recent expansion, the company acquired several other phone companies and now has a service area of over 7,000 sq. miles and serves 38 local telephone exchanges. ACS provides voice to over 44,400 customers and video and data to over 16,700 customers.

Along with the new acquisitions, ACS has also acquired a substantial amount of new switching and transport equipment and needed to expand its monitoring system.

NetGuardians Provide Mission-Critical Visibility
To give them the site visibility they needed, the company deployed NetGuardian 832 RTU remotes at their CLEC sites. Later, they added a T/Mon NOC to their system and integrate their alarms on one screen.

Gary Schattschneider is a Central Office Technician at Arvig Communications. He needed to familiarize himself with DPS monitoring equipment, as he was responsible for the deploying the T/Mon NOC at company headquarters.

Factory Training Provides Hands-On Experience Prior to System Deployment
To maximize the effectiveness of ACS's new monitoring system, Gary traveled to DPS headquarters to attend a regularly scheduled Factory Training Event. Here, he was able to familiarize himself with the DPS equipment, and discover new ways to leverage his monitoring investment.

With the hands-on training provided by DPS technicians and engineers, clients at Factory Training are able to become skilled T/Mon users. "It was a very good training course," Schattschneider said. "I liked the mix of the hands-on labs and lecture. The instructors were very knowledgeable and really knew the products inside and out."

Timing for training was perfect for Gary, as he will be launching the T/Mon monitoring system just weeks after he returns. "Actually getting to touch it and play with the T/Mon was a real benefit for me. Now when I go back, I've still got a week or two before our system goes online where I can make changes based on things I've learned here.

T/Mon Provides Advanced Monitoring for SNMP and ASCII Devices
One of the lessons taken away from Factory Training was how the T/Mon can interpret alarms from SNMP and ASCII devices, in addition to many other protocols.

Currently, the new ACS sites forward the alarms from their NetGuardians to an SNMP manager. However, Gary sees an opportunity to use T/Mon to make ACS's monitoring more effective. "We plan on bringing in all the alarms from our DMS and MetaSwitch networks into the T/Mon. Other company departments currently using the SNMP manager can also be brought into the T/Mon for monitoring. The plan is to use the T/Mon NOC as the single alarm collection point."