Previous Connectivity Setup And Issues
Previously, the Northbourne Park School site had outdated infrastructure and extremely poor connectivity speeds. Attempts to upgrade with another provider proved too costly and overly complicated.
Northbourne Park School
Introduction
One of our long-term and valued clients, Northbourne Park School, nestled in the scenic rural Kent countryside, recently underwent a significant upgrade to Full Fibre connectivity across both of their school locations.
Orbital Net has been a reliable and established partner in the Education sector for many years.
Northbourne Park School is a day and boarding preparatory school for children aged 2 to 13. Situated on over 100 acres of stunning parkland and woodland in rural East Kent, the school enjoys an excellent location, just a short drive from the Port of Dover and the Channel Tunnel.
Research & Development
Why Were They Looking To Change Providers
The situation at Northbourne Park School became so dire that the headmaster was unable to conduct IT lessons due to the inadequate connection to the desktops and they realised a change needed to happen.
Why They Chose Orbital Net
Orbital Net has worked with Northbourne Park School for many years, building a strong relationship based on trust and understanding. This partnership allows us to fully grasp the school’s needs while giving them confidence that we can deliver exactly what they require.
At Orbital, our customers always come first. When Northbourne Park School presents a challenge, we create a bespoke solution designed specifically to meet their needs.
The Solution
An Education on Effective Connectivity
The challenge we faced was to increase the network capacity at both Northbourne Park School campuses, while simultaneously ensuring high availability and redundancy to provide uninterrupted service.
One of the schools was already benefiting from Orbital’s own FTTP service, while the other location was connected through our high-speed WIMAX (wireless fibre) service. The goal was to create a seamless, unified, and highly resilient network that could support the growing demands of the schools’ operations.
To address this challenge, we designed and implemented a private fibre link connecting both campuses, alongside upgrading the access methods at each of Northbourne Park School sites. The outcome was a fully redundant network solution that significantly boosted capacity and facilitated a smooth transition to cloud-based services for the school.
The scale of this project required us to deploy nearly every resource in our arsenal. This included leveraging Openreach PIA and UK Power Networks poles, installing our own bespoke poles where needed, and trenching over 1000 meters of fibre using our high-performance Vermeer trencher. These physical infrastructure improvements were just part of the solution, though.
The Result
Scalable and Future-Proof
A robust, reliable, and future-proof network that not only meets the schools’ current needs but also lays the foundation for their continued growth and innovation in the digital era.
Northbourne Park School are now at a point where they can start to put more investment into their internal it infrastructure, as they have the underpinning connectivity to support it.