ON THE CASE
Bringing it all together
Pulsant has completed a managed network deal with the Argyll Community Housing Association ( ACHA ). The network was deployed across ACHA ’ s eight office locations and 10 sheltered housing sites .
Pulsant won the contract in 2015 to supply the housing association ’ s network infrastructure , which covers a geographically diverse area across Argyll and Bute in the west of Scotland . The project was staged over a year , bringing all of the housing association ’ s sites onto the wide area network ( WAN ).
ACHA needed all of its sites to be connected , with staff able to access all the systems and applications required to make operations run smoothly . Not an easy task , as the offices and housing sites are widely spread across the region .
Despite the challenges , the project was completed successfully within an incredibly tight timeframe . ACHA now benefits from its own network , managed by one provider , with a dedicated account manager and additional service and support .
Smart travel for future cities
The Nottingham Express Transit ( NET ) project has achieved enhanced control and monitoring features for its public transport , through the collaboration of Taylor Woodrow , Alstom ( TWA ) and Boulting Technology .
In a bid to become one of the UK ’ s first smart cities , Nottingham has recently expanded its existing tram to include two new lines . The new routes join the existing line at Nottingham Station , with the entire network accommodating over 20 million passengers every year . It is estimated that the second phase of the NET will take three million car journeys off Nottingham ’ s roads .
The network itself had to be high speed , with all the components able to provide 1Gb per second operating speed . Due to geography and existing fibre optic infrastructure , Boulting Technology also integrated a small set of junctions on the existing tramline to meet this requirement .
Boulting Technology installed singlemode fibre optic cables to achieve the required Ethernet communications links between tram stop equipment cabinets , miscellaneous equipment cabinets and traffic signal controller cabinets . There were 74 new connections proposed in total across the entire network .
To allow secure communication with the network ’ s central monitoring station , the Urban Traffic Control ( UTC ) system , Boulting Technology also designed the firewall and internal networking for external users .
Connection for the countryside
The Animal Country Club in Essex has become the 2,000th property in the county to have access to Gigaclear ’ s ultra fast fibre broadband service . The connection is the result of Essex County Council ’ s Superfast Essex programme , which has been working in the Epping Forest District with Gigaclear to deliver its Rural Challenge Project .
The project was designed to test alternative ways of bringing superfast connectivity to rural communities and businesses and has now reached a significant milestone with more than 2,000 properties in the area now having access to the UK ’ s fastest broadband with speeds of up to 1,000Mbps .
The Animal Country Club and colocated Resting Pets now have access to Internet speeds of up to 1Gbps ( 1,000Mbps ), 33 times faster than the UK average .
Margaret Gemmill , owner , said , ‘ There are four pet related businesses located on Wood Farm so being connected is extremely important to us . We have a brand new phone system and we can respond to our customers ’ email enquiries much more quickly . It also frees up some time for us to spend with the animals as we are no longer waiting around for a connection .’
The Superfast Essex programme has enabled over 73,000 premises to access superfast Internet speeds ( 24Mbps and above ) already , through work with BT and Gigaclear , the programme is now on track to reach more than 120,000 homes and businesses by 2019 . The aim is to provide 95 per cent superfast broadband coverage across Essex .