ci connect | Issue 2
Oxford Innovation and RedKite
From each of its 12 innovation centres across Oxfordshire and the South East of England, Oxford Innovation offers technology commercialisation, economic development and support services for innovative start-up companies. Identifying a need for fast and reliable Internet access Oxford Innovation selected RedKite, a high speed connectivity solution from Community Internet.
A 10Mbps RedKite symmetric wireless service was installed at the Oxford Centre for Innovation (OCFI) and is very effectively meeting their requirements for reliability and speed. “We deal with people who use cutting-edge technology, so we need to keep abreast of what’s going on and provide the best solutions to our clients,” says Margaret Hewitt, Manager of OCFI. “We have 29 companies here, and obviously they want the fastest connection speed possible”. Peter Ellis, who manages the IT services continues, “Two years ago, everybody just wanted Internet access but as we become more reliant on the Internet we need more bandwidth, which RedKite amply provides.”
Let it snow!
Mr Ellis was initially a little nervous about the RedKite technology. “Wireless connections have a reputation for being unreliable in bad weather,” he explains. “The week after RedKite was installed at OCFI, we had heavy snow and the service was not affected. It works beautifully, whatever the weather.”
Diverse Routing
Internet resiliency is vitally important to OCFI. One of the big attractions of Redkite is that it uses its own network infrastructure and so provides complete technical diversity from any BT provided or carried service. Many organisations have built some diversity into their Wide Area Network via dual network providers. But all too often these run on the same physical routers, firewalls, fibres and exchanges. All of which become a single point of failure risk.
RedKite offers true Internet resiliency by enabling organisations to have connectivity to two different access points on their premises from two different exchanges via two different access technologies: one via a traditional fibre connection, the other via a high-speed wireless link.
Symmetrical Service
Unlike ADSL a big plus with RedKite is that it delivers the same upload and download speeds, an important factor for OCFI. “A few of us use Voice over IP within the company and that is a lot nicer over RedKite than over ADSL. It also makes sending large files and emails so much quicker than using an ADSL connection,” says Mr Ellis.
Availability
RedKite is currently available in central London, Oxford, Hemel Hempstead, Exeter and is being rolled out to other town centres and additional business parks around the UK based on demand. If your business falls within an existing footprint, RedKite could be installed in 10 working days – which compares to anything up to 65 days for equivalent wired solutions.
To read more about RedKite wireless click here