Customer Stories
Choctaw Casino
Fiber to Business Implemented for Choctaw Casino by Dobson Fiber
Choctaw Casinos’ mission is to create an extraordinary experience for each guest, provide a fun and fulfilling environment for their associates, and add value to the Choctaw Nation and communities. Choctaw Casinos’ is located in Southeastern Oklahoma, operating 8 casinos and 11 Travel Plaza casino too’s. Locations include Durant, Grant, Pocola, McAlester, Stringtown, Stigler, Broken Bow, Idabel, Atoka, Wilburton, Poteau, and coming soon Antlers and Heavener.
The Challenge
The Choctaw Casinos IT Team was tasked with building a data network that connected all of their casinos to their headquarters in Durant, Oklahoma. At the time, they were committed to a reasonably priced, high-bandwidth solution provider. While building the network they found that their current provider could not provide connectivity or was unreasonably expensive. When Choctaw Casinos of Oklahoma built a casino in Wilburton, a small town in eastern Oklahoma, they discovered that no connection was available. They were determined to find an alternative.
“All of our properties are together on one happy network. But in order to do that you have to have connectivity and communications.” — Mike Essig, Ph.D., Senior Director of IT for Choctaw Casinos. “
The Dobson Solution
When Choctaw Casinos found Dobson Fiber, they said ‘we need you guys,’ and Dobson said ‘we’ve got your solution.’
“That’s exactly what they have done. There wasn’t anything around our Wilburton location, and by pure luck we found Dobson. This was before I started working as our infrastructure manager, but my understanding is Dobson put the backbone in just to meet our needs, which I think is pretty impressive. Their bandwidth is extraordinary. Oklahoma is very spread out, so if you need a connection between Point A and Point B it is often very difficult to find a provider to do so. To say that Dobson has been really flexible in getting connectivity to our locations would be an understatement. Dobson has turned out to be an extraordinary partner.” – Jeremy Smith, IT Infrastructure Manager.
Outcomes for Choctaw Casinos
Choctaw Casinos has been using Dobson for almost two years. Dobson provides fiber-to-the-business for six of the Choctaw Casinos’ locations including Durant, McAlester, Stringtown, Wilburton, Pocola and Atoka.
“We found that Dobson really does have us covered. They’ve been very responsive. We had a problem a couple of weeks back where something got disconnected. The wrong information was sent, and Dobson spent a good day trying to understand what happened, only to discover it wasn’t on their side anyway. They really work to make sure that if there is a problem in the connectivity, it is quickly restored.”
Perspective from Mike Essig, Ph.D., Senior Director of Information Technology
“I would encourage other businesses needing connectivity to see what Dobson has to offer. They have provided good customer service and made it work for us in areas where we thought ‘there is no way Dobson can get a connection out there’. “
“Their pricing is very competitive. For example, we have a 100 MB pipe, and the price we are paying is less than I was paying in Las Vegas, which is surprising because pricing I’ve seen from other vendors for the same throughput is double or triple what Dobson has provided. The price is definitely what I would consider favorable.”