Most organizations claim their products and services are the best. But what really validates an organization’s reputation is when it is recognized for its excellence by a third party – even better if that source is well-respected in its industry.
FirstLight is honored to have been recognized for our solutions via many awards in recent years. More important than the accolades themselves, however, are the proof points behind the recognition.
Network: Our Bread and Butter
FirstLight has been recognized by BroadbandNow as being one of the “top 10 fastest business fiber service providers” nationwide among mid-sized providers, and for having the fastest business Internet among mid-sized providers in Vermont and New Hampshire. (BroadbandNow is a research firm that helps consumers find and compare local Internet service providers through its website, aggregating reviews and ratings.)
Of course, our network quality is not just about speed, but low latency. We’ve been providing redundant, synchronous Internet on our own network since 1998, and our service is backed by a combination of Tier 1 provider connections and private peering connections throughout the Northeast and mid-Atlantic. Those connections reduce hop counts and improve overall user experience.
In fact, 50% of all Internet traffic on the FirstLight network is directly connected to its ultimate destination, reducing latency and improving response time. Our network is deployed regionally in a ring architecture with each region capable of operating independently. So we’re not only fast, but we’re reliable. And the bandwidth on our 25,000-mile fiber network is dedicated, not shared, so you get the actual upload and download speeds you were promised.
We’re on Cloud Nine
Not all clouds are created equal. FirstLight has spent more than a decade refining its cloud services. That’s one reason TMC’s Cloud Computing Magazine named FirstLight a Cloud Computing Backup and Disaster Recovery Award winner in 2022.
We recently made several enhancements to our cloud, including:
- We’ve added a geo-redundant cloud site in Western NY to supplement our Brunswick, Maine cloud site (this is big!)
- Upgraded our cloud environment to VMware 7 and will soon move to version 8
- Updated to Zerto 9.5, which now allows us to protect Azure, Google, and Amazon workloads
- Upgraded Fortinet’s FortiGate solution which now offers more granular security and IPsec tunnels
- Added Immutable Backup and Insider Protection for two tamper-proof options to keep backup data safe
- Added Veeam Backup for Salesforce
- Better high-performance storage and compute capacity for faster, more efficient cloud services for our cloud sites
Four-time winners
For the fourth year in a row, editors from Beka Business Media, the publisher of ChannelVision Magazine, along with a panel of judges from independent industry resources, selected FirstLight as a recipient of its Visionary Spotlight Awards. In 2023, FirstLight won in the following categories: Cloud Computing and Data Center Innovation; Cybersecurity; Managed Services; and Rural & Underserved Connectivity.
FirstLight has been particularly active in offering a suite of cybersecurity and ransomware protection solutions in recent months, including its SASE suite, Acronis Business Bundles, and the aforementioned Zerto upgrade.
FirstLight provides traditional telecommunications services to residential customers by operating as an Incumbent Local Exchange Carrier (ILEC) in parts of underserved areas of Central and Western Maine as well as a CLEC (Competitive Local Exchange Carrier).
FirstLight has also applied for several federal and state rural broadband grant initiatives to invest in various underserved areas of Maine, New
Hampshire, Vermont, Pennsylvania, and New York.
Channel Vision’s evaluation criteria includes “overall innovation, future industry impact of the nominated product or service, creativity and feature set differentiation, and ease of use and interoperability.”
Happy Employees = Happy Customers
It’s a good sign when team members like coming to work. When employees take pride in their work and feel satisfied, they perform better, lending to a better overall customer experience and fostering a positive environment for all.
The FirstLight team’s positive outlook has been confirmed by the multi-year honor of being named a Top Workplace USA in 2022 and 2023. The Top Workplace USA designation is based entirely on employee feedback captured by the Energage Workplace Survey. This research-backed engagement survey is driven by benchmarks built on data captured from tens of millions of employees at thousands of organizations across the past 17 years.
In a nutshell, what makes our customers take note is how we aren’t simply solution providers; we’re partners and valued members of their IT teams.
Contact us today to see how we can be your trusted advisor too.
