International Excess Alliance Bandwidth Drives the Business

CHARLES LARDOMITA

CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER, IEA

Bandwidth Drives the Business

IEA, a fast-growing insurance wholesaler, had no time to wait for slow downloads.

THE CHALLENGE: International Excess Alliance (IEA), a national insurance wholesaler and program manager headquartered in Richmond Heights, Ohio, was growing fast. It was also fast outgrowing its T-1 service.

IEA has 20 offi ces and a thousand independent agents nationwide, so moving large digital fi les, fast, is critical. “We are a paperless organization, meaning we do almost everything with digital imaging,” explains Charles Lardomita, IEA’s chief technology offi cer. “But our bandwidth shortage was exacerbating a common insurance-industry technology hurdle: email-attachment bloat.”

Employees were losing valuable time as they waited for fi les to transfer. In addition, when a client wanted to send a large attachment, such as a 25MB PDF, IEA had to say that it simply couldn’t accept fi les of that size. Clients had to use FTP or online fi le-sharing sites instead.

As the business grew, the addition of more remote users increased the load on the T-1 circuit, leading to company-wide performance issues. These problems, coupled with unsatisfactory voice service, prompted Lardomita to begin a search for a new service provider.

THE SOLUTION: IEA moved from its outdated T-1 service to an up to 100 Mbps Dedicated Internet Access (DIA) circuit from Time Warner Cable Business Class (TWCBC). The quick, hassle-free installation process meant IEA experienced no downtime and was up and running with its new TWCBC service in a matter of days. “I was promised our service would be implemented within two weeks, which is unheard of in this industry,” Lardomita says. “Sure enough, they delivered.” IEA also began to run its voice services over its powerful new DIA circuit. THE RESULT: The new service has driven major productivity gains, including:

• Dramatically reduced downtime.

“Employees who used to wait minutes to download and upload policies are now doing it in half the time,” Lardomita says.

• Seamless review of PDF documents

with remote-offi ce agents. “Our prior

T-1 service required waits of 5 or even 10 seconds to click to the next page,” says

Lardomita. “With our new TWCBC DIA service, there’s virtually zero lag. It’s click, click, click, as if everyone is working in the same offi ce.”

• The ability to accept large fi les

directly, omitting the extra step of using fi le-sharing sites.

• Reliable voice connectivity with coworkers, customers, and partners.

“There’s no more static, echo, or jitter.

The connectivity is as clear as day,”

Lardomita says.

Along with increased productivity has come increased satisfaction. “Once we moved to the 100 Mbps DIA service, my phone rang, I got emails; everybody was just thoroughly pleased with the upgrade,” Lardomita says. “It was like night and day—a 100 percent improvement across the board. We couldn’t be happier with the service and support we receive from Time Warner Cable Business Class.”

Our bandwidth shortage meant waits of 5 to 10 seconds to click to a new page.

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