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Olympians Keep Data Moving at Phonoscope

In the data transmission business, a momentary power blip can means hundreds of communications lost – communications such as bank transfers, stock transactions and other information critical to the conduct of business-to-business commerce. "We simply can’t have any downtime in this operation," says Otis Dyson. Dyson is an engineer with Phonoscope, LTD., a 46-year-old privately owned Houston business operating the city’s oldest and largest fiber optic network.

When Dyson began looking for a source of emergency power, his first call was to Mustang Power Systems. "I had seen Mustang in action before when I was with another company," says Dyson. "I was aware of the quality they represented in terms of products and services." Phonoscope purchased an Olympian genset, Model #100, from Mustang. Olympian is the name given to the 8 kw to 230 kw range of Caterpillar-built generator sets. The model number indicates the kilowatt rating of that particular unit.

In recent years, Phonoscope has experienced phenomenal growth. Today there are three Olympian gensets supporting operations at the company: two dedicated to their two data centers, another backing up Phonoscope’s cable television operation. The electricity of all three Olympians is filtered through the UPS system, precluding any spikes which could interrupt data transmission. According to Dyson, "The way you know the system is working well is when an outage occurs and no one is aware of it."

Established in 1953, Phonoscope was Houston’s first cable television company. Today, they operate a gigabit fiber-optic data network ring around the Houston metropolitan area, as well as runs to Baytown, Clear Lake, Freeport and Rosenberg. The total network encompasses some 5000 miles of fiber-optic cable. Phonoscope supplies customers on its network with high speed Ethernet connectivity to the Internet, point-to-point and switched private networks, dark fiber leasing, data storage, worldwide data/voice/video conferencing, commercial and residential CATV, satellite up/down links and cable modem services.

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