How BITS helped an island stay connected and work remotely, even before a pandemic

CLIENT OVERVIEW 

Lying in the Irish Sea, just north of County Dublin, The Baring family has been managing and protecting Lambay Island for over 100 years. Here they produce whiskey and offer historical tours, nature walks, and exclusive event packages.

Thanks to BITS, these business activities have been supported by a stable LAN and Wi-Fi network with high-speed broadband available throughout. The Baring siblings Alex and Millie have been working remotely, and off-grid for four successful years. And despite the pandemic, this continues to this day.

THE CHALLENGE

In early 2017, their first broadband line-of-site connection was switched on. This presented a range of challenges.

Firstly as an island, access to it is dictated by tides, thus complicating the scheduling of on-site works. This also limited scope for follow up opportunities. Since the island runs on off grid, renewable energy sources, every addition to the draw on electricity must be carefully managed and calculated. The signal also needed careful distribution to various buildings around the island. It was essentially the job an internet company might need to do when connecting a village. Additional tide dependent logistics were also needed since large, heavy items can only be transported on the island’s cargo boat. Finally, all this work needed to be conducted with the utmost care and respect for the protected status of the architecture.

This is where BITS came in. What was needed was an expertly coordinated, verging on military precision, operation. Two BITS engineers caught a boat at Malahide Marina early one morning with provisions for 5 x days and nights, a detailed inventory of hardware, tools, drawings, and a plan. The adventure began!

HOW BITS HELPED

– Project managed every detail of the plan.

– Procured hardware, and provisioned for every potential issue. This allowed the engineers to complete the project in one visit.

– The team’s expertise using Ubiquity hardware was invaluable because the entire backbone of the network and the wireless network is all Ubiquity.

– APC UPS products were supplied to manage the power consumption, outages, and fluctuations.

– Provided strategic advice on the best tools to implement and actions to take to overcome remote working challenges.

– Cloud based controllers were put in place to facilitate remote support.

– Continued provision of spare hardware to facilitate replacing any hardware that fails.

– BITS continue to provide IT support to the island to this day.

THE RESULTS

The Network solution installed enabled:

– A mix of LAN, WAN and Wi-fi solutions, meaning access to the internet from any building on the island.

– Residents of the island as well as the staff and guests to remain connected to the outside world.

– The confident growth of Lambay’s business thanks to a stable, high-speed network in place.

– Consistent, secure, and stable performance of the network thanks to BITS providing routine remote checks.