Business
Jordan's Furniture Moves Into More Bandwidth With Comcast Business
Boston, MA
A robust ethernet network service will link multiple sites across four states in New England to support point of sale applications, improve loss prevention policies and enhance disaster recovery initiatives.
Comcast Business today announced that Jordan’s Furniture, an iconic furniture retailer in New England, will use Comcast Business Ethernet across all of its five retail stores, warehouses, headquarters and data center locations in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut and Rhode Island. This powerful network service will help the company to expedite its enterprise applications, improve its video surveillance program, expedite order processing, and support a more virtual disaster recovery environment – all with a fully meshed network that allows all locations to interact with each other directly.
Founded in the early 1900s, Jordan’s Furniture is now owned by Berkshire Hathaway and provides its customers with a unique retail experience that combines entertainment with shopping. Its five storefront locations offer a mix of eclectic activities for adults and children, including IMAX 3D theaters, a full-service restaurant, ice cream and candy store, and the Enchanted Village in Avon with an indoor skating rink that operates from November through the holidays. With more than 1,000 employees, the company also prides itself on its philanthropic efforts, offering financial support to dozens of local charities across the East Coast. These initiatives have made Jordan’s Furniture a household name across New England, contributing to its rapid growth over the past decade with its recent expansion into Rhode Island and its planned expansion into Connecticut in 2015.
As a result of this growth, Jordan’s network demands quickly outpaced the capabilities of its existing point-to-point bonded T1 lines, which only delivered 3 Megabits-per-second (Mbps) of bandwidth capacity. Not only do employees rely on this network to locate, move, scan and receive inventory – both via desktop computers and wireless devices – but Jordan’s also needed a way to reliably support a comprehensive video surveillance program to assist with loss prevention, building security and customer safety. To compensate for slow connection speeds, the retailer invested in expensive compression and acceleration software to help support the various enterprise applications that were necessary for day-to-day business.
"Comcast Business offered us substantially more bandwidth than what we previously had, coupled with a fully meshed network that lets our employees across all locations connect with each other and our corporate office in East Taunton," said Peter Clark, Director of Information Systems at Jordan’s Furniture. "This new network has truly brought about a transformational change in terms of connectivity, performance and cost. Not only has it opened the door for new opportunities in the disaster recovery and video surveillance areas, but it has also saved us money."
Jordan’s Furniture now has a fully meshed Comcast Business Ethernet Network Service that connects its corporate office and 800,000-square-foot company warehouse in East Taunton, Massachusetts. Its retail locations in Massachusetts (Avon, Reading, Natick), New Hampshire (Nashua) and Rhode Island (Warwick) are all linked back to headquarters and each other, and an additional connection to a multi-tenant data center for disaster recovery purposes. A separate Comcast Ethernet Dedicated Internet line at headquarters supports Jordan’s internal company email and product library, and the retailer expects to add its planned store in Connecticut (New Haven) to this network before the end of the year.
"For a major retailer like Jordan’s Furniture, being able to respond to customer requests in a timely manner – both on and off the showroom floor – is paramount, which is why some organizations are forced to compensate for limited bandwidth by investing heavily in other technologies to try to speed up their systems to meet their business needs," said Steve Walsh, vice president for Comcast Business in Greater Boston. "Our extensive network has the capacity needed to support these business demands, and our wide geographic reach gives us the flexibility to work with our customers as they grow – even if it means beyond state borders, as in the case with Jordan’s – to ensure that they can focus on their expansion efforts instead of worrying about their technology infrastructure."
About Comcast Corporation:
Comcast Corporation (Nasdaq: CMCSA, CMCSK) is a global media and technology company with two primary businesses, Comcast Cable and NBCUniversal. Comcast Cable is the nation's largest video, high-speed Internet and phone provider to residential customers under the XFINITY brand and also provides these services to businesses. NBCUniversal operates news, entertainment and sports cable networks, the NBC and Telemundo broadcast networks, television production operations, television station groups, Universal Pictures and Universal Parks and Resorts. Visit www.comcastcorporation.com for more information.
About Comcast Cable:
Comcast Cable is the nation's largest video, high-speed Internet and phone provider to residential customers under the XFINITY brand and also provides these services to businesses. Comcast has invested in technology to build an advanced network that delivers among the fastest broadband speeds, and brings customers personalized video, communications and home management offerings. Comcast Corporation (Nasdaq: CMCSA, CMCSK) is a global media and technology company. Visit www.comcastcorporation.com for more information.