Alaska Communications Reaches New Heights with Network Monitoring from Intermapper

Alaska Communications is an internet service provider (ISP) supporting communications infrastructure in Alaska. Their team provides critical network services to customers—oftentimes, in remote locations. The company was in the midst of developing plans for a new site—one which was located on a mountaintop. With this remote site, they knew they were in for an uphill battle regarding maintenance and management.

The remote site is only accessible by helicopter, and completely inaccessible in poor weather conditions. They quickly realized the need for a solution to help with remote network management. The challenge was to maintain service to the location without having to make the costly and sometimes dangerous trek to the top of the mountain. So they turned to Intermapper, a powerful network monitoring solution from Fortra.

Intermapper gives the team greater visibility into their network infrastructure to see the full picture of how the site is operating. And thanks to Intermapper Remote Access, they can monitor performance and manage their network from anywhere. “Intermapper is our single pane dashboard,” Frank Knapp of Alaska Communications says. “It allows graphing as well as displaying important Internet of Devices (IODs) direct to the device icon.”

Without having to travel to the top of the mountain, they can map all the devices within their network to ensure everything is up and running. The status of all remote power feeds, heaters, transfer switch positions, power, voltage, oil pressure, fuel level, and more are available on a dashboard using a computer or smart phone with Insite for Intermapper.

Alaska Communications is also able to integrate Intermapper directly with their telecom site automation application, SiteBoss. Coupled with Intermapper’s monitoring and alerting capabilities, they can send automatic alerts to their chopper service if the site goes down or is on the verge of a power failure.

The level of visibility Intermapper provides helps Alaska Communications know when they need to make a site visit for maintenance so they can go less frequently—saving both time and money. And with the network performance data Intermapper provides, they can spot potential issues faster to make their visits even more efficient.

But for Frank, one of the biggest benefits is in how user-friendly the solution is. “Intermapper is simple to use and provides all the functionality required without a PhD in network management systems.” And when you have a challenge as big as a remote mountain, such a helpful solution is priceless.