Vail Valley Chamber Announces High Speed Capability

Client Profile
The Vail Valley Chamber of Commerce represents over 500 member businesses in the communities of Vail, Avon, Beaver Creek, Edwards, Minturn, Wolcott, Cordillera, Eagle-Vail and Arrowhead. Since 1982, they have been dedicated to supporting the businesses of the member region and contributing to the positive economic growth of the Vail Valley.

Client Problem
As the Chamber's membership has become more technologically sophisticated the need for the Chamber to have a presence on the Internet, to be able to communicate with its membership, and to provide tools for its membership to communicate with one another has grown.

Like most businesses, the Chamber developed a web site and used several dial-up modem accounts to access that site and update its information. However, as the volume of information that needed to be updated over the network grew, so did the Chamber's need for multiple staff members to be online at the same time. Multiple dial-up connections with limited speed were hampering the Chamber's ability to effectively work in this new media and support their membership.

The Chamber defined a goal of streamlining Internet communications to more effectively provide up-to-date information to members, residents and guests.

VailNet Solution
As a non-profit organization, the Chamber's financial resources were limited. Internet connectivity technology in the area was limited as well. VailNet met with the Chamber and designed a cost-effective ISDN solution to connect all of the computers in their office as well as their public conference rooms to the Internet.

The Result
All Chamber staff is now online all the time, enabling them to provide members and guests with better, faster response and service. The ISDN connection eliminates time spent waiting for a dial-up modem to connect; is much faster than a dial-up connection; and makes time spent online is much more efficient.

The Chamber has also installed six Internet hookups in their conference and training room to provide members with the same speed for their Internet use during meetings. In past years, use of the Internet in this room usually required Chamber staff giving up a phone line or two, causing an interruption in their work. The new connection eliminates any such interruptions, allowing staff to continue their work while also allowing meeting room users to share in the high-speed connection.

"Over the last year we've found that the bulk of the inquiries we receive are from the Internet. We've also had many requests for Internet access in our conference room," said Jen Brown, Executive Director of the Chamber. "VailNet really understood our needs and was able to help us painlessly migrate from dial-up modems to our new dedicated connection. This not only let us speed up our Internet connection to help with all of our mission critical business needs, but it also eliminated the recurring costs of several slower modem connections and the telephone lines we were using to dial in on. VailNet really expedited moving our office into this new technology, and in today's world you have to keep up with technology or you'll be left in the Dark Ages."