15 September 2020

Bristol-is-Open is a project for smart city experimentation in technology and citizen engagement, jointly backed by Bristol City Council and the University of Bristol. The city was  recognised as the UK’s leading smart city based on the UK Smart Cities index 2017. Then, in 2018, Bristol-is-Open was recognised with the Glomo Smart Cities Award. 

Zeetta Networks, a local university spin-out company, has worked closely with Bristol-is-Open using NetOS to manage its smart city network infrastructure.

15 September 2020

Ruckus Networks, an ARRIS company, got involved in Sheffield City’s free-to-use, superfast Wi-Fi project. Working collaboratively with Idaq Networks – it runs the network - and Siklu, a player in millimetre wave radio technology, the project creates a virtual data ring-road around the city, transmitting high-speed capacity between tall buildings, before bringing it down to street level to be used by residents.

 The project delivers superfast internet, at 20 gigabits per second (Gbps), to 293 streets in the city and up to 24,000 users can connect simultaneously. The network is free, and at no cost users or to the council who provided exclusive access to street furniture and buildings to install the network. The network can also be leveraged for other commercial opportunities to help fund the service.

15 September 2020

There are many towns and cities utilising public Wi-Fi solutions in various forms with ranging areas of coverage both in the UK and worldwide. In fact, pick up any august tech publication or visit a relevant website and you’ll see that ‘smart cities’ or ‘connected cities’ feature somewhere.

This is very true in many northern English cities, which are investing heavily in various comms technologies in a bid for parity with more affluent parts of the country. Yet while many projects are announced from the rooftops, some cities, councils and other relevant authorities are keener to keep their powder dry. In other words, some information is in the public arena but much of it is not. The following details some that our cities have completed via the SuperConnected Cities Programme and published information about the previous implementation in Barnsley.

15 September 2020

Working in partnership with CTIL and O2, iWireless Solutions was asked to design and deliver a world leading, free outdoor Wi-Fi network within the Square Mile. The multi-million-pound project is part of one of the largest investments in wireless infrastructure ever seen in the UK, providing workers, residents and visitors with the ability to access digital rich content in a dense urban environment.

This work was inclusive of any column work, such as replacing for suitable height columns, as well as dealing with the power needed to bring the kit live. The existing Wi-Fi solution was insufficient to meet today’s data demands, which required the new system to be radically different. iWireless Solutions designed a Wi-Fi system with a dynamic, self- organising, fully resilient, gigabit capable backhaul.

13 January 2020

AFG Law's offices in Bolton 

SNAPSHOT
AFG LAW is a full-service law firm providing expert legal advice to individual and commercial clients.

CHALLENGE
Under forward-thinking new management, AFG LAW required a new IT supplier to help update its IT infrastructure to enable it to achieve its business goals. This included implementing remote working, opening a new office, and boosting security, all while remaining compliant.

SOLUTION
AFG LAW worked with Pulsant to create a safe, bespoke IT architecture, including Pulsant Enterprise Cloud that would replace its problematic on-premise systems. Pulsant also helped the firm achieve Cyber Essentials accreditation.

29 October 2018

With 400 employees and an annual turnover of £40m, Menzies offers accountancy services and finance and business advice. Its offices are in London, Cardiff, Whitely, Egham, Woking and Farnborough.

Travelling between these locations for internal meetings and for appointments was costly and caused logistical problems, although the meetings were usually fruitful. In addition, the firm had attracted new clients, both in the UK and overseas.

19 October 2018

Mazars specialises in audit, accountancy and consulting and has 1,600 staff in 20 UK offices and a total of 20,000 around the world. The firm runs private MPLS circuits from the data centre at its UK head office in Tower Hill, London.

When Mazars opened branch sites in Australia, Delhi and New York it found that the existing infrastructure was not able to offer the same quality of service as its UK offices. Users overseas struggled to connect to cloud-based applications such as Citrix and Skype over the long distances.

02 November 2017

Law firm Howard Kennedy has undergone huge change over the last few years, including merging with two other law firms.

The mergers brought with them more staff and a growing number of clients with significant amounts of data which needed to be accessible and protected.

In addition, the firm moved into new offices in Southwark by London Bridge.

02 November 2017

Founded nearly 30 years ago, MMRIT provides IT services to professional services organisations in London, including hedge funds, alternative investment managers, barristers’ chambers and law firms.

The company is based in Clerkenwell, near Old Street tube station and the British Museum. It reports that an increasing number of its clients were keen to move their IT off-premise to the cloud. The advantage would be the ability to centralise their infrastructure, free up office space and share costs around hardware, power and cooling with other MMRIT customers.

16 July 2017

London Capital Group (LCG) specialises in online trading services and has now deployed an enterprise cloud solution from Nutanix to host its core financial services as part of a major investment and re-brand. The firm says this will support its aim to become the spread betting provider of choice for more than 70,000 clients, and reduce future operational costs as it expands globally.

LCG is using Nutanix’s Xtreme Computing Platform to consolidate its computing, virtualisation and storage resources. The vendor claims that its single, highly scalable and turnkey appliance has given LCG a faster, simplified and more flexible replacement for its end-of-life IT infrastructure which previously relied on conventional server and SAN architecture.