Quebec community is ready to deliver new, innovative services to citizens after future-proofing its network with Avaya Fabric Connect

Markham, ON . – January 26, 2017 – The City of Shawinigan, Quebec has transformed into a Smart City, implementing Avaya Fabric Connect to create a future-proof network solution that’s reliable, secure and capable of delivering innovative technologies and new services to citizens.

Looking to breathe new life into its community, Shawinigan started the project in 2014 to help revitalize its economy, grow new employment opportunities and improve overall quality of life. The Avaya solution allowed Shawinigan to gradually upgrade its outdated, disparate equipment linking City Hall to warehouses, fire halls, the library and water distribution systems, rather than replace their whole network at once. This phased implementation helped ease budget demands and reduce disruption to ongoing operations as well as demands on IT personnel.

Needing a reliable, secure way to manage the network, Shawinigan also liked Avaya’s approach to hyper-segmentation, which isolates traffic for day-to-day operational services from other traffic, such as that for communications around critical services. This prevents unauthorized access by hackers or other extensive damage from viruses that may be released onto the network.

Today, with the backbone of its new network complete—and working seamlessly with the remaining older equipment—Shawinigan is looking forward to expanding its public Wi-Fi network service, which will offer to citizens and visitors free Internet access points, and its recently-announced urban DEL street lighting project, which will be controlled by an automated management system.

For more details on how Avaya is helping Shawinigan transform into a Smart City, click here for the case study.

“In addition to modernizing our network, Avaya technologies are helping us do more by investing in a sustainable infrastructure. The equipment selected guarantees transparency, redundancy, segmentation capabilities and the security we need, all while paving the way to the introduction of new services for our citizens.”

Lyne Vallières, Director of the Office of Information Technology, Town of Shawinigan

About the City of Shawinigan

Shawinigan is a municipality located in Mauricie in Quebec, along the St-Maurice River. It counts almost 50 000 citizens and reaches across 737 km2. The City employs nearly 490 people, including 380 full-time employees. The Office of information technology, whose mandate is to oversee the IT equipment and services, caters to about 225 employees from different divisions on its territory.