[August 22, 2005] Tampa Electric Company Securing Its Telephone Network With SecureLogix(R) ETM(R) System Tweet SAN ANTONIO, Aug. 22 /PRNewswire/ -- SecureLogix Corporation announced today that Tampa Electric Company has purchased and deployed the SecureLogix(R) ETM(R) (Enterprise Telephony Management) System. This first- of-kind voice network firewall and management platform will protect Tampa Electric's voice and data networks from telephony-borne attacks, while providing a sizable return on investment through decreased telecom service and management expenses. Tampa Electric Company, the principal subsidiary of TECO Energy, Inc. , is a regulated electric utility. Tampa Electric, which serves more than 625,000 customers, is deploying the ETM System at all 16 of its PBX Network sites, including its headquarters at TECO Plaza, the Data Center, the Energy Control Center, three power generating stations, and customer contact centers. The company became interested in an ETM System purchase after a network security assessment identified a number of voice security issues. For example, a number of employees were using desktop modems to connect to the Internet, thereby bypassing corporate firewall protections and exposing the data network to unauthorized access over company phone lines. The ETM System now enables Tampa Electric to block unauthorized modem calls to Internet Service Providers, restricting dial-up access to callers with an approved business need. The ETM System will also enable Tampa Electric to alert and block a host of other voice network threats such as harassing callers, voice/fax spam, toll fraud, inbound war dialing attacks, phone service abuse, and emerging VoIP-related attacks. Two additional factors driving the purchase were the need for improved voice service performance monitoring tools and enhanced call accounting functionality. The ETM System's real-time traffic monitoring and reporting capabilities proved to be more powerful and easier to use than Tampa Electric's previous call accounting system. The ETM System allows Tampa Electric to monitor day-to-day traffic conditions and make more informed trunking capacity decisions. The ETM System also saves Tampa Electric money by eliminating the need for costly secure modems for remote systems management and identifying service misuse and abuse issues such as toll fraud and calls to directory assistance numbers. The company now uses a 3rd party directory assistance service, saving thousands of dollars per year over conventional routing through the local exchange carrier. "The ETM System provides the tools we need to better protect our critical infrastructure from phone line attack and abuse," said Dan Flower, manager of telecommunications engineering for Tampa Electric Company. "The ETM System also provides tremendous telemanagement functionality. We can now proactively enforce service level agreements with our telecom service providers, and maintain better voice service quality and up time through real-time network health-and-status alerts and troubleshooting tools. We can run detailed reports on all types of voice network usage and utilization metrics, providing valuable information to improve our operational efficiencies. We selected the SecureLogix ETM System because we did not find a comparable product providing the same security and management capabilities in a single package." Kelly Minyard, SecureLogix vice president of commercial sales added, "We are pleased that Tampa Electric has selected SecureLogix as its trusted voice security and management vendor. Our solutions will help them better protect their critical infrastructure from legacy/TDM- and VoIP-based attacks. Public and private energy providers have been a strong vertical for us, and we will continue to partner with industry-leading utilities in applying first-of-kind solutions to secure our national energy infrastructure." About SecureLogix SecureLogix Corporation, a Gartner designated "Cool Vendor" in telecommunication for 2004, builds first-of-kind solutions that secure enterprise telecom resources from attack and abuse, and simplify the management of enterprise voice networks. SecureLogix technologies are currently protecting and managing over two million phone lines for small-to- large commercial and federal organizations. The company's ETM System hosts industry's first Voice Firewall solution, and delivers an integrated set of powerful applications to secure, optimize and efficiently manage enterprise voice networks and communications. The ETM System has been named "Security Product of the Year" and "Most Outstanding Product of the Year" by Network Computing. Reader Contact Information SecureLogix Corporation, 13750 San Pedro, Suite 230, San Antonio, Texas, 78232, 210-402-9669, fax 210-402-6996, [email protected] , http://www.securelogix.com/ . ETM, SecureLogix, SecureLogix Corporation, and the SecureLogix Diamond Emblems are trademarks or registered trademarks of SecureLogix Corporation in the U.S.A. and other countries. All other trademarks mentioned herein are believed to be trademarks of their respective owners. U.S. Patents No. US 6,249,575 B1, US 6,320,948 B1, US 6,542,421 B2, US 6,687,353 B1, US 6,700,964 B2, US 6,718,024 B1, US 6,735,291 B1, US 6,760,420 B2, US 6,879,671 B2 and CA 2,354,149. U.S. and Foreign Patents Pending. SecureLogix Contact: PR Agency Contact: David Heard Bob Robson 210-402-9669 210-820-3070 ext. 100 [email protected] [email protected] SecureLogix Corporation CONTACT: David Heard of SecureLogix Corporation, +1-210-402-9669, [email protected] ; or Bob Robson, +1-210-820-3070 ext. 100, [email protected] , for SecureLogix Corporation Web site: http://www.securelogix.com/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]