Media Kit - Company Overview

PROFILE

• Smart City Telecom, based in Lake Buena Vista, Fla., is a full-service telecommunications company with more than 30 years experience as the Incumbent Local Exchange Carrier (ILEC) – the local phone company - for Walt Disney World, the master-planned community of Celebration and the mixed-use development around Little Lake Bryan. The company also provides Internet, Web-hosting, data network and co-location services for business through its mpiNET subsidiary in Maitland, Fla. Smart City’s network utilizes fiber, copper and wireless transport that can deliver virtually all the bandwidth needed for any application.
• Smart City Solutions, a Competitive Local Exchange Carrier (CLEC) based in Lake Buena Vista, manages voice and data services under contract to the Orange County Convention Center.
• Smart City Networks, based in Las Vegas, is the nation’s leading provider of convention and meeting communication services with more than 18 million square feet of meeting space under contract, including the Orange County Convention Center.

HISTORY

When Walt Disney masterminded his Florida theme parks in the 1960s, that vision included state-of-the-art telecommunications. That’s how Walt Disney World came to have its own independent telephone company, Vista-United Telecommunications. This Florida partnership, owned by Vista Communications, Inc. (an indirect wholly owned subsidiary of the Walt Disney Company) and United Telephone Company of Florida (a wholly owned subsidiary of Sprint Corporation) became the Incumbent Local Exchange Carrier for the Walt Disney World resort, the planned community of Celebration and the residential and commercial development around Little Lake Bryan

Smart City was founded as Centel Facilities Communications in 1984 as a partnership between the Houston Astros and Centel to provide telephone services to the Astrodome and the nearby Astrohall meeting facility. The company expanded its service to major convention centers in Anaheim, Houston and Los Angeles and by the mid-1990s, under the new name of Facilities Communications International, was providing complete telecommunications service for many of the nation’s largest and most technologically challenging tradeshows

In March 2001, Smart City acquired Vista-United Telecommunications. Its service area consists of 27,000 acres, or 42 square miles, located 15 miles southwest of Orlando. It also owns and operates more than 1,800 payphones in Central Florida, Nevada and Southern California.

In 2002, Smart City purchased mpiNET, which maintains a 24-hour Network Operations Center in Maitland.

SERVICES

Business: Offered through mpiNET, a Smart City company. Services include: co-location, managed services, web-hosting and Internet connectivity.

Convention & Meetings: As one of the world’s largest providers with more than 18 million square feet under contract, Smart City designs, consults and installs world-class convention communications systems. It has handled event telecommunications for virtually every Fortune 500 company and worked with venues from Hong Kong to Houston, including the Orange County Convention Center.

Planned Communities: As the voice, data and Internet provider to the planned community of Celebration, Smart City knows the unique challenges developers face in providing for the ever-expanding communications needs of tomorrow’s urban centers.