When you’re in the business of government, efficiency rules. And when you’re the Okaloosa County Clerk of Courts in Crestview, Florida, the data demands are critical to daily operations.

That’s why over two years ago, Systems Engineer Darren Etheridge started looking for a new communications provider. The Clerk of Courts’ previous provider was not keeping pace with the high demands for its service. Etheridge explained: “We have 105 employees serving the Clerk of the Court. We have the main office here in Crestview and a satellite office in Ft. Walton Beach. We also have another 1,000 people in our system through the board of county commissioners, plus many outside state and federal agencies. Data communications are happening at every level — Web access for employees and outside groups; shared databases of public records; secure servers for criminal, judicial, payroll and other records. To handle all that, we need plenty of speed. And as a government entity, we need 99%+ uptime.”

So Etheridge made the call to Cox Business. “We knew they were one of the few providers that could actually get us on the fiber backbone, which would help solve the issues our other provider couldn’t,” said Etheridge.

“Cox representatives came in and were very knowledgeable and agreeable,” said Etheridge. “They listened to the things we needed to do, and they made them happen, starting with a Fibernet connection between two sites in Crestview and Ft. Walton Beach. Being on the ATM backbone through Cox, we’ve had none of the problems we had with our previous provider. It meets our speed and reliability standards perfectly.”

Given the high reliability it is experiencing through Cox, Etheridge says they have no need for a backup provider as some organizations, particularly government entities, often do.

Scalability and flexibility — key factors that went into Etheridge’s original decision to partner with Cox — are critical reasons why the Clerk of Courts is staying with Cox as they consider future data requirements. “We’re going to need even more speed as databases get larger,” added Etheridge. “Oracle® databases send huge amounts of information and we have to be certain we’ve got the bandwidth to handle it all. And with digital imaging becoming part of our everyday job, we see Cox being a partner we can turn to for easy scalability to manage the demands. As our communications partner, Cox works flexibly with us to scale up our system and keep us up to speed at all times.”

Okaloosa County Clerk of Courts is experiencing virtually 100% uptime, even with the increasing demands they’re placing on their data communications. From the systems engineer to the desktop user and literally thousands of other people and organizations in between, Okaloosa County Clerk of Courts looks to Cox Business Services as a partner they can count on today and for years to come.