Utah Scientific Outfits Mormon Church’s Missionary Training Center With High-Density Compact Router

Missionary Training Center (MTC) for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has installed five of Utah Scientific’s UTAH-100/UDS routing switchers to link signals among all the facilities on its 19-building campus. The new routing switchers replaced aging systems that did not supply enough inputs and outputs, and they allowed the MTC’s A/V operations to upgrade to HD video.

“Each week our campus receives several hundred new students who spend up to 12 weeks here preparing for their missionary service in a variety of classrooms and other settings, so we have a very busy A/V operation,” said Carlos Reina, manager of media installations and repair in the MTC’s technology department. “We also rely on 26 part-time student-employees who don’t have much experience with professional-grade technology, so we needed a system that was intuitive to use yet responsive enough to route signals instantly. The Utah Scientific routers met those needs and more at a reasonable price.”

The MTC’s technology department provides all of the A/V systems to support classroom teaching, online teaching, video conferencing, recording and distribution, in-house IPTV, in-house analog and digital cable channels, large group presentations, multi-language interpretation, online streaming, and uplink for worldwide satellite distribution. The UTAH-100/UDS routing switchers provide MTC with interbuilding connectivity for overflow and redundancy.

The UTAH-100/UDS router meets or exceeds all of MTC’s technical requirements for a new routing system. It can route signals immediately, with the ability to lock routes to prevent accidental changes. Its compact size and smaller HD-BNC connectors allow the maximum number of inputs and outputs per rack unit in MTC’s crowded racks. Users can access the routers over the network from any computer without needing to install any software — a vast improvement over MTC’s old system that enables staff to perform upgrades over the network. Most important, the UTAH-100/UDS system’s intuitive GUI is easy for inexperienced employees to learn and use.

“Having the new Utah Scientific routing switchers saves us money by allowing us to work faster and more efficiently, cutting the training time and minimizing mistakes,” Reina said. “On top of that, Utah Scientific’s customer service has been excellent, which is very important when you buy equipment that is responsible for the success of the teaching experience.”

MTC plans to expand the campus, which will increase the number of sources and destinations that must interconnect. When that happens, the UTAH-100/UDS’ upgradeability will be especially helpful.

“Carlos has been key in helping with the release of the UTAH-100/UDS family of routing switchers, offering feedback and working with our engineers to make a more user-friendly product,” said Tom Harmon, president and CEO of Utah Scientific. “Thanks to input from him and a few others like him, we’ve created a space-saving system that’s responsive, flexible, cost-effective, and easy to use.”