Solutions at-a-Glance
2,500 employees get anytime, anywhere access to essential work resources.
Centralized policies and session management reach across web, mobile and APIs.
Solution to improve experiences for 250,000 consumers from start to finish.
New customer-facing apps and services see faster time to market.
THE OBJECTIVE
Headquartered in Alaska with additional locations throughout the U.S., GCI provides communication and technology services to some of the most remote communities and in some of the most challenging conditions in North America. The company is known for their pioneering efforts in cable telephone and commercial services.
GCI launched a company-wide initiative to improve the customer experience for their subscribers. Internally, they also wanted to wanted to increase productivity and support modern applications for their employee base.
THE CHALLENGE
The telecom company offers customers wireless, internet, cable TV and landline services to their subscribers, and integrations with several external partners allow their customers to access additional services like HBO Go and Showtime.
Customers had multiple identity profiles across a plethora of apps, including the GCI customer portal, billing system and TV services. GCI sought to eliminate the disjointed customer experience and create one profile, username and password to rule customer access to their various services.
THE SOLUTION
After an evaluation of several vendors, GCI selected Ping Identity for their fast deployment, extensive integration capabilities and identity thought leadership.
First, the organization implemented PingFederate and PingAccess for internal users, giving their 2,500 employees anytime, anywhere access to all of the resources they need. “The deployment of PingFederate was very slick,” said Kesler. Once GCI integrated PingFederate with their Active Directory and various applications, application owners across the enterprise responded enthusiastically. Access management capabilities provide centralized policies and session management across web, mobile and APIs.
Next, the GCI team tackled the customer identity initiative. PingFederate and PingAccess were also able to provide single sign-on (SSO) and access management for GCI’s customers. GCI has an identity data store for their customers’ system-independent identities, which includes a Universally Unique Identifier (UUID), username and password hash. A separate data store holds each system’s specific identity attributes, which are linked to the independent identity via the UUID. Customer attributes from the billing system are used to federate into other applications, giving them a consistent login experience to all of GCI’s digital properties.
Ping underpins GCI’s digital customer experience—from registration and identity credentialing all the way through to login, sign-on and access to services.
THE RESULTS
“Ping provides the perfect modular components we need to realize our customer identity and access management vision,” said Kesler. “The flexible CIAM platform allows customers to have a secure, unified profile and set of credentials to access all of their various services.”
As a result, GCI is enabling a more seamless and secure digital experience for its 250,000 customers. They have also recognized faster time to market for new customer-facing applications and services.
“Internally, we saw immediate value from the Ping platform deployment,” said Kesler. Ping supports both legacy and modern apps, enabling GCI to quickly onboard new employees while enhancing the organization’s security.
More About GCI
GCI has worked for more than 40 years to deliver communication and technology services to some of the most remote communities and in some of the most challenging conditions in North America. GCI is a pioneer in its field, bringing telemedicine and online education capabilities to communities across the state and continuing efforts to connect the Arctic globally as well as providing strong services to consumer and business markets. GCI’s introduction of 1 GIG internet speeds in the state as well as its innovative partnership with Apple are among the countless ways the company has transformed communication and quality of life for Alaskans.
Learn more at www.gci.com
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