In 1996 Southern Nevada Water Authority (SNWA) adopted a farsighted approach to building a telecommunications network to support their control system and operational needs. Working with a detailed master plan, they were able to capitalize on the Las Vegas Valley utility infrastructure, right-of-ways and falling technology prices to keep costs down. However, SNWA has significantly increased the speed of their telecommunications system while increasing reliability and functionality. Today, utilizing SONET technology, SNWA's private telecommunications network is being designed with speeds of up to 2.5 Gbps compared to the 45 Mbps of their original system. It will accommodate area wide mission critical data communications of 10 Mbps and 100 Mbps Ethernet for IT and Control System LAN, telephony, telemetry and full motion security video and high speed video-conferencing. These items have gone from being wish list items for many utilities to necessities as demands on time and resources require the productivity improvements that these technologies provide. Includes table, figures.