Company: ADTRAN, Inc., Huntsville, AL
Entry Submitted By: Connect2 Communications
Company Description: ADTRAN, Inc. is a leading global provider of networking and communications equipment. ADTRAN’s products enable voice, data, video and Internet communications across a variety of network infrastructures. ADTRAN solutions are currently in use by service providers, private enterprises, government organizations, and millions of individual users worldwide.
Nomination Category: Products & Product Management Categories
Nomination Sub Category: New Product or Service of the Year - Telecommunications - Service

Nomination Title: ADTRAN’s ProCloud Wi-Fi

1. Tell the story about this nominated product or service (up to 525 words). Describe its function, features, benefits, and performance to date:

The need for wireless connectivity is a critical and growing requirement for business operations, including in industries such as SMBs, educational institutions and hospitality. As these needs grow, organizations are challenged to handle the growing number of employee-owned devices, to connect customers and guests to the Wi-Fi networks, as well as recruit sufficient IT resources to support the increasing demand.

Released in June 2013, the ProCloud Wi-Fi offers a “no-worry” fully-managed, business-class Wi-Fi service built on ADTRAN’s Bluesocket virtual wireless LAN (vWLAN)--the industry’s first cloud-based virtual wireless LAN solution.

ProCloud Wi-Fi delivers:

• A "no worry" cloud-hosted and fully managed, business-class Wi-Fi service
• Connectivity that you can rely-on with guaranteed 99.99% uptime
• Peace of mind with proactive 24x7 monitoring, technical issue resolution and advance hardware replacement
• Moves/adds/changes support improving IT’s operational efficiency
• Optional Help Desk support to ensure a great user experience with the Wi-Fi network
• Guaranteed quality backed by ADTRAN's world-class support organization.

In addition, ADTRAN’s ProServices offers comprehensive network design and installation services (optional), ensuring hassle-free installation that optimizes wireless coverage across the organization. A truly scalable solution, ProCloud Wi-Fi addresses the needs of practically any business size, from a small business with a few APs, to very large enterprises spread across multiple locations with thousands of APs. Whether the customer has no IT expertise in-house, to one that offers a full in-house IT services department and wants to elevate their workload,

ProCloud Wi-Fi delivers a reliable, tailored, business-class wireless LAN. ProCloud Wi-Fi is also available as a Private Label option, empowering ADTRAN’s partners to deliver their own branded managed services, relying on ProServices for hosting infrastructure and back-end support. This enables the partner to incorporate a Wi-Fi managed service into their offerings, gain new customers and a new revenue stream without the burden of infrastructure costs, training or certifying additional staff.

Additional highlights of ProCloud Wi-Fi include:

• ProCloud Wi-Fi is the WLAN industry’s only cloud-hosted and fully-managed Wi-Fi service provided by a networking vendor.
• Freedom to migrate from fully-managed to hosted to an in-house management, with migration support provided by ADTRAN ProServices.
• Industry leading SLAs including improved equipment replacement options (next business day or 4-hour) and faster technical issue response (1-hour or 30-minute options).
• Higher value solution at lower costs with a cloud-hosted and fully managed Wi-Fi solution costing less than $12 per month per AP.
• ADTRAN provides a “turn-key solution” with a portfolio of cloud connectivity, enterprise communications and mobility products combined with comprehensive ProServices, providing enterprises a one-stop solution for enterprise-class networking solutions.

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2. Provide a brief (up to 125 words) biography about the leader(s) of the team that developed this nominated product or service:

Michelle Southerland has over seven years of experience in the telecom industry. She currently serves as Product Manager of ProServices for ADTRAN’s Enterprise Network Division, which includes a global portfolio of three service segments: ProStart Planning and Implementation; ProCare Maintenance and Support; and ProCloud Managed Services. Michelle works with ADTRAN channel customers to develop new services and improve existing ones from the perspective of how to empower partners with ADTRAN solutions. She is responsible for developing the market requirements of new services, managing service offering life cycles and working on developing go-to-market strategies. Her work with ProStart, ProCare, and ProCloud programs has enabled stress-free technical support for a large base of ADTRAN partners. Michelle holds a Bachelor of Engineering in Electrical Engineering from Vanderbilt University.