Station Casinos Launches Industry's First ATM LAN/WAN Based on
Scalable 3Com Systems in Las Vegas - 02:37 p.m May 13, 1998 Eastern
3Com Multimedia Network Delivers Innovative, Cost-Saving Customer
Services at Four Off-strip Casino Properties for Fast-Growing
Gaming Company
SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 13, 1998--
3Com Corporation (Nasdaq:COMS) today announced that Station Casinos
(STN), Inc. (NYSE:STN), the U.S.'s ninth largest gaming company, is
standardizing a new ATM network on 3Com(R) systems at its four
"off-strip" Las Vegas hotel/casinos.
The fully-switched local area network (LAN) and wide area network (WAN) is the
gaming industry's first ATM LAN/WAN in Las Vegas. The fault-tolerant,
2,000-user network is based on 3Com's Transcend(R) Networking architecture,
enabling STN to scale, extend and manage the network to sustain its recent growth.
Founded in 1976 with the opening of the now legendary Palace Station
Hotel/Casino, STN has built three new casinos in Las Vegas and two in Missouri
during the last three years. Each STN casino specializes in attracting and retaining
customers from the local and repeat visitor markets through creative promotional
programs, superior slot machine and video game payoffs, fine food and
accommodations and attentive customer services.
Fueled by Transcend Networking, the 3Com LAN/WAN is helping STN enhance
these business-critical objectives through a wide range of applications designed to
improve customer services at all four Las Vegas casinos. These services are
highlighted by new multimedia touch screen Redemption Center kiosks, enabling
customers to redeem and exchange casino points for purchases at retail stores and
restaurants. The kiosks provide a suite of videos of STN services and
accommodations. Linked to the company's enterprise-wide player database, the
kiosks will allow customers to retrieve points from any STN-owned hotel/casino this
spring.
The 3Com network also is expediting customer checkouts at STN restaurants and
shops via the InfoGenesis's point-of-sale (POS) solution. The 3Com-driven Casino
Data Slot Accounting System monitors all 15,000 slot and video machines at STN's
four Las Vegas casinos. The multimedia LAN/WAN provides videoconferencing
for geographically dispersed employees and will soon provide a live Race and
Sports Book video feed to all four Las Vegas casinos -- a capability that will save
STN thousands of dollars annually in service and maintenance costs for the casino
company's existing 40-channel video network.
The network additionally supports several administrative programs. Chief among
these is STN's hotel check-in and check-out system, the Kronos time and
attendance system, which tracks departmental labor costs, and JD Edwards's
financial system. Pilot's network-based Executive Information System consolidates
STN's key financial figures, such as operational costs and slot machine revenues.
The new network also provides STN with Internet access, allowing executives to
research potential investments in other companies, as well as Microsoft Office and
Microsoft Exchange email. It also will soon support a sophisticated intranet,
providing employee handbooks, phone directories, project discussion sites, computer
troubleshooting directions and information systems support.
"Station Casino's success depends on providing quality and service that creates a
friendly, comfortable atmosphere for our guests," said Marshall Andrew, STN vice
president of information services. "Using scalable 3Com ATM solutions, we now
have the infrastructure to provide the most customer-friendly services in Las
Vegas. We also can significantly reduce our communications costs and have the
bandwidth to add revenue-generating systems at each casino without degrading
network performance." A 21st Century Solution
STN's new network is a major advance over stand-alone shared Ethernet LANs
the firm previously deployed at its four Las Vegas casinos. Without connectivity
between the casinos' networks, and forced to replicate data on multiple mainframes
to consolidate business data, STN wanted to centralize its information using a
stable, redundant, high-speed LAN/WAN connecting all four properties. To achieve
this, the gaming company evaluated ATM solutions from Bay Networks, Cisco and
3Com, and standardized on 3Com.
"3Com clearly outperformed the other vendors," said Thomas Noto, STN director
of network communications. "Their broad family of products more fully met our
needs from the wide area to the desktop, and we were very impressed with
3Com's reputation for service and performance among companies we inquired
about them."
STN's casino LANs are each based on a CoreBuilder(TM) 7000HD ATM switch
with redundant switching engines, dual power supplies and a five gigabit backplane.
The backbone CoreBuilder 7000 high-function switches have redundant 155
megabit per second (Mbps) ATM full-duplex fiber connections to one another,
forming a metropolitan area network (MAN). The ATM switches are configured in
a mesh topology, providing redundant paths in case of a link or switch failure.
Each CoreBuilder 7000 ATM switch has a 7600 interface card deployed, providing
100 Mbps connections to servers and mainframes at each casino. The CoreBuilder
7000 switches also have 100 Mbps connections to 3Com SuperStack(R) II Switch
3000 Fast Ethernet workgroup switches providing 100 Mbps links to power users
and to SuperStack II Switch 1000 Ethernet switches. The SuperStack II Switch
1000s deliver switched 10 Mbps Ethernet connections to IBM Pentium PCs.
STN is using 3Com's Transcend(R) Enterprise Manager to manage and monitor
the LAN/WAN and has standardized on 3Com ATMLink(TM) 155 Mbps network
interface cards (NICs), Fast EtherLink(R) 10/100 NICs and EtherLink III ISA 10
Mbps NICs.
STN's new WAN will be based on 3Com AccessBuilder(R) 9600 ATM
multiservices access platform, providing multimedia feeds to all four casinos. In
addition to supplanting STN's video network, the AccessBuilder 9600 systems will
support all voice and video applications, including local telephone calls now
executed using costly T1 circuits.
"The AccessBuilder system's ability to connect all interoffice communications and
local calls on our 3Com network will save us many thousands of dollars each year
and create a significant revenue opportunities for each casino," said Noto. "It's one
more important way 3Com is providing us with advanced technology to make our
business stronger." About 3Com
3Com Corporation enables individuals and organizations worldwide to communicate
and share information and resources at anytime from anywhere. As one of the
world's preeminent suppliers of data, voice and video communications technology,
3Com has delivered networking solutions to more than 100 million customers
worldwide. The company provides large enterprises, small and medium enterprises,
carriers and network service providers, and consumers comprehensive, innovative
information access products and system solutions for building intelligent, reliable and
high performance local and wide area networks. For further information, visit
3Com's World Wide Web site at 3com.com or the press site at
http//www.3Com.com/pressbox.
3Com, AccessBuilder, EtherLink, SuperStack and Transcend are registered
trademarks and ATMLink and CoreBuilder are trademarks of 3Com Corporation.
All other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective
companies with which they are associated.
Just something for you to try next time you are in "Lost Wages".
o~~~ O |
