Washington Municipality Transitions to Remote-work Environment With Support From Comcast Business

The City of Sumner Quickly Deploys Broadband Service to Keep Remote Employees Productive

SUMNER, Wash.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Comcast Business today announced a partnership with the City of Sumner, Washington, to provide increased bandwidth and high-performance connectivity to support the municipality’s ongoing remote-work plan.

Following a swift transition to a remote workforce as the COVID-19 outbreak worsened, the City of Sumner soon realized its data connection — which had been suitable for day-to-day, in-office purposes — did not have the capacity to support voice calls and upload speed requirements with the majority of employees now on VPN connections from home.

The city of approximately 10,000 residents, and longtime Comcast Business customer, urgently needed to increase capacity to keep its distributed workforce productive and serving the public. Within a few days of Sumner’s service request, Comcast Business upgraded the data connection, giving Sumner the bandwidth it needed to meet its employees’ remote connectivity needs.

“We expected it would take several days to a week to get everything up and running for our new remote workforce, but Comcast Business pushed it through quickly without any snags,” said Brian Cunningham, IT manager for the City of Sumner. “This increased capacity more than satisfied our new requirements with a reliable connection. Our city staff is now able to work remotely while continuing to provide the citizens of Sumner with the same high level of service as before.”

Following the success of its recent upgrade, Sumner aspires to further enhance its connectivity infrastructure, with plans to install a Comcast Fiber connection to City Hall, once non-essential upgrades can take place.

With Comcast Business providing connectivity for its distributed workforce, the City of Sumner has stayed up and running through the pandemic. The mayor, city council members and staff experienced successful video-conference public meetings, including city council meetings, study sessions and planning commissions, allowing city employees to safely conduct municipal business without the health risk of coming to City Hall in person. Residents, too, have benefited: With all requests and forms now web-based, the public can access the same city services and participation from the safety of their homes.

“Modern municipalities are constantly challenged to provide the IT infrastructure that supports successful operations, constituent services, and government transparency, and this becomes even more critical during a time when many organizations have been forced into all or partially remote-work environments,” said Rob Brenner, Vice President of Comcast Business for Comcast’s Washington Region. “Comcast Business is proud to partner with the City of Sumner to deliver advanced internet solutions that will support employees and citizens alike, even as work environments continue to evolve.”

Throughout the sustained COVID-19 surge, the Comcast Business network continued to deliver reliable speeds across the country, even in areas that were most dramatically affected. In March and April of 2020, network teams made network enhancements to help ensure customers’ service remained fast and reliable.

For more information, please visit http://business.comcast.com.

About Comcast Business

Comcast Business offers Ethernet, Internet, Wi-Fi, Voice, TV and Managed Enterprise Solutions to help organizations of all sizes transform their business. Powered by an advanced network, and backed by 24/7 customer support, Comcast Business is one of the largest contributors to the growth of Comcast Cable. Comcast Business is the nation’s largest cable provider to small and mid-size businesses and has emerged as a force in the Enterprise market; recognized over the last two years by leading industry associations as one of the fastest growing providers of Ethernet services.

For more information, call 866-429-3085. Follow on Twitter @ComcastBusiness and on other social media networks at http://business.comcast.com/social.