Network Communications News (NCN) December 2016 | Page 15

O N TH E C AS E
An asset for Africa
Newtec has announced that its Newtec Dialog platform, including a Wi-Fi
hotspot solution, has been selected by Avanti Communications Group as the
High Throughput Satellite (HTS) ground segment technology platform for its Eco
project and is set to provide connectivity to schools and communities in SubSaharan Africa.
The Eco project, which is a public-private partnership between the European
Space Agency (ESA) and Avanti, will provide affordable and reliable satellite
broadband connectivity in its first phase to 1,400 schools and community sites
across Sub-Saharan Africa within the next two years.
Newtec Dialog enables tailored services and features Newtec’s unique MxDMA bandwidth allocation technology, ensuring maximum bandwidth efficiency
and service availability which are essential for high throughput services in high
value verticals such as cellular backhaul and government.
The Eco satellite broadband services will benefit thousands of schools,
communities and health centres, as well as Internet cafés and community area
networks. The connectivity will also be used by local governments, telecom
providers, mobile network operators and Internet service providers.

National treasure
Criccieth TV has been chosen to provide a site-wide Wi-Fi
solution at Portmeirion Village and hotel resort; a popular
and picturesque visitor attraction located on the coast of
Snowdonia National Park in Gwynedd, North Wales.
Portmeirion is one of Wales’ premier visitor
attractions, welcoming 250,000 visitors every year. The Wi-Fi network gives blanket
coverage for day visitors, guests and 72 rooms in the village.
All guest cottages have their own ‘mini hotspot’, for others, there is a guest
Internet Solutions hotspot which is designed specifically for use in venues where
there are a large amount of users.
As the site is Grade 2 listed, every cable is hidden. Care has also been taken to
ensure discrete Wi-Fi access points, mounting them flat on the outside of buildings,
using EnGenius Neutron dual-band managed units. The access points are then
painted the same colour as the walls they are mounted to; there is even an access
point hidden in the top of the tower.

14-15 On the Case.indd 15

School showcase
Ten Ten Systems has
developed and installed
a 21st century IT solution
with a seamless 5G wireless
network across the campus
at Myddelton College, the
first Microsoft Showcase
School in North Wales.
Ten Ten Systems, itself a
Microsoft Gold Partner, was approached to install the state-ofthe-art server and Wi-Fi, in addition to the reconfiguration and
optimisation of present hardware on the campus.
Existing tech was incorporated into the framework and as
part of the new system, Microsoft Surface tablets have been
issued to all students and teachers. These will be used in
conjunction with multiple display surfaces in each classroom.
Other features of the campus infrastructure include 5G
wireless access points, Microsoft Office 365, 100Mb fibre optic
broadband and a cloud storage solution.
The aim is to make the school’s tech system a secure
environment for the students, but also seamless across the
campus. The SonicWall security enables monitoring of the
students’ activity, via user ID for each individual. Rather than
simply focusing on the immediate installation, Ten Ten also
looked at the number of students expected to attend the
college in the long term and its future technology aspirations.

Myddelton College has received a serious IT upgrade across its campus

02/12/2016 11:01