If you’re a GVEC Internet Internet subscriber, you may have received an email before letting you know of the system maintenance we’re scheduled to do. These emails explain the necessity of maintenance to sustain fast, reliable service for our customers. In short, these notifications tell you when and why we’re performing maintenance. But have you ever wondered WHO is performing it?
Local And Personal
If you were under the impression GVEC Internet contracts out to maintain our Internet and company networks, you may be surprised to find this type of important work is done by our own in-house staff of professionals. That’s right. When we say we’re a local company, we really are—in every way.
This helps us ensure we maintain the values we were founded on, including putting those we serve first and standing behind our work. We employ qualified individuals to fill positions in the many departments within GVEC Internet. Some of these employees are native to Seguin, Gonzales and the surrounding areas GVEC Internet is part of; others move here and make the area home-sweet-home. Today, we highlight two such individuals in an employee spotlight of sorts.
Meet Pratik and Rushabh
Pratik Shendge and Rushabh Vora are both network engineers in our Information Technology (IT) department. They’ve both been a valuable part of our team for almost three years. We asked them each about their jobs, how what they do affects our customers, and what they particularly enjoy about the work they do at GVEC Internet. Here’s what they had to say:
What are your job duties and responsibilities?
Pratik: I’m part of a team responsible for design, development and maintenance of any GVEC Internet network activity. This includes working to keep our office networks running smoothly and maintaining sufficient speeds for our internet customers, etc. We configure switches and routers that deliver internet connections. We troubleshoot network outages or problems, and we keep all systems up and running, 24/7, using different monitoring systems.
Rushabh: My work includes, but is not limited to, traffic monitoring and analysis, network database development and administration, routing and switching, configuring various networking devices, and troubleshooting networking issues. In layman’s terms, my job is to make sure that the back end of our network (from where we provide internet to our customers) remains stable, reliable and is able to provide optimal performance.
Why are system maintenance and network updates necessary and important, and how does it help our customers’ internet service continue running smoothly?
Pratik: As time goes on, overall customer count and network throughput is increasing. It’s very important to replace the old switches/routers that can no longer support our needs. As we deploy more Fiber, older-generation switches/routers lose capability to support routing protocols. Replacing or upgrading them gives us redundancy to help eliminate single-point failures.
Rushabh: By upgrading network equipment in a timely manner, when required, we make sure the network traffic flows seamlessly from points A to B in order to provide a smooth internet experience for our customers, making sure there is no congestion and customers are getting adequate speeds. The maintenance we perform help us grow our network in a scaled manner by allowing us to add more bandwidth for traffic management. It also helps to improve (shorten) our convergence time in the network in case of a link failure or when traffic needs to be rerouted.
What do you enjoy most about your job?
Pratik: This job is very challenging, and no two days are the same. Every day we face different problems or complications to solve. Resolving these problems through the knowledge gained while earning my master’s degree and work experience makes me happy. I see delivering internet to remote areas where there are not many or no other service providers as community service. Giving back to the community is my goal, and I’m very happy I can complete it through GVEC Internet.
Rushabh: Speaking with reference to technical terms, I get a lot of hands-on experience on different technologies (software, monitoring tools, etc.) and various vendor equipment. I also get the opportunity to get my hands dirty out in the field. Overall, the work environment provides an excellent learning curve.
We Appreciate All They Do!
We hope this spotlight gives you a well-founded summary of the part Pratik, Rushabh, and the rest of our network engineering team play in their important roles at GVEC Internet. Their behind-the-scenes work keeps our internal network as well as the Wireless and Fiber delivery network to our customers operating continuously, without a hitch.
If reading about their jobs sparks an interest in what other types of career opportunities are available at GVEC Internet, check us out on LinkedIn or Glassdoor. You can also always see what positions we’re hiring for at jobs.gvec.org.
