Situation
The San Diego area isn't normally considered one of the harshest places on earth, but during the wildfires that scorched hundreds of acres in the region during the fall of 2003, "harsh" was an incredibly accurate description of the region.
Problem
One of the businesses of that region, Harrah's Rincon Casino & Resort, lost all of its communications capabilities when the Southern California wildfires melted the voice and data lines that served the casino. With its phone lines and other communications not functioning, the casino was forced to close during the busy Halloween weekend. Staff members scrambled to find a backup communications provider but discovered that traditional phone repair would not do the trick. That's when Harrah's found CapRock Communications.
Solution
When CapRock got the call from Harrah's on Thursday, Oct. 30, the company flew into action (both figuratively and literally), putting together a custom satellite system with 72 phone lines and a data circuit for the Casino. The equipment shipped on Friday and arrived on Saturday, along with the CapRock technicians, who installed and launched the system within three hours.
Results
Because the system was satellite-based, the Casino restored its communications days before regular phone service was back up in the area. The data capabilities also gave Harrah's an essential connection to its central office. This lifeline provided a way to return to normal business operations. With CapRock handling disaster recovery, Harrah's was able to re-open the following Tuesday, Nov. 4.
"Having our communications down was a very difficult experience," said Joan Hinrichs, voice engineer for Harrah's Rincon Casino & Resort. "But CapRock fixed our problem more rapidly than we could have imagined, giving us back our connection to the outside world and helping us better serve our customers."
