Communication Problem for National Park Authority

The Business Requirement

Ryedale Telecommunications Limited initially won the business to provide voice and data connectivity to a large multi-sited organisation which is spread out over vast rural area.  A large part of this region has been designated as one of England’s national parks and as one would expect includes some very remote sites.  Much of the land is covered by unspoilt moor land with deep valleys and wild terrain. 
Once voice and data services had been provisioned the Authority asked Ryedale Telecommunications to find a solution for what was at that time a major business problem:

The main headquarters of the Authority are situated in a market town in the centre of the area, with numerous sites located throughout this vast area.  One of the other principal sites is located in a remote moorland site – itself not much more than a hamlet located at the extreme edge of BT’s nearest exchange and prone to extreme weather conditions.
 

This is an important site, because it handles much of the Authority’s bookings and enquiries and is thus in the front line when it comes to generating revenue.  Official policy within the Authority is to take all calls personally at HQ and then pass them out to the required sites – avoiding any automation or call centre type routing at all costs, resulting in a totally positive and personal experience for all callers.  The problem with this arrangement was the constant failure of the line between HQ and their secondary site, with consequent loss of revenue and a poor customer experience, not to mention low staff morale.

The main problem lay with a kilostream link between HQ and the second site, which regularly failed, leading to loss of DDI numbers and complete loss of contact with the remote site.   BT took faults up to three times a week but could offer little help as this site is positioned at the furthest reach of their nearest exchange. 
Commensurate with the kilo stream failure were other issues affecting their main site:  The existing data network was not operating efficiently, leading to major packet loss – when Ryedale Telecommunications tested the Cat5 cabling to ascertain the cause of the problems we found that 30% of data sent  was not reaching its destination and was colliding.   
Ryedale Telecommunications began by organising internal and external site surveys to establish current set up and further identify problems and requirements.

The Solution

Although much of the problem was rooted in geographic and meteorological circumstances, our customer had to move forward with a solution that was both resilient and cost effective.   We liaised with BT and worked out a strategy to enhance the resilience of their network both internally and externally.
Ryedale Telecommunications recommended and implemented a solution to provide IP telephony between the two major sites.  This included a new IP enabled switch at the secondary site together with a software upgrade at the main HQ site -  in addition a new analogue line installation and broadband connection, with the whole solution backed up with an ISDN line to switch calls on to the PSTN network in the event of problems.
Full staff training was organized at both sites, with subsequent support and further specialist training provided to the IT staff.
We also implemented a broadband networking solution with IP priorities set for data at the main HQ site, enhanced by re-cabling work to replace inadequate legacy cabling, further supported with additional IT staff training.  In addition several new procedures were introduced, for example to ensure that all and any changes made to servers were always logged.

The Conclusion

Since the work was completed the two principal sites have enjoyed good quality voice and data transmission, with only one major interruption to service caused by a direct lightening strike and this incident was successfully supported by the ISDN backup. 
Confidence in the solution grew quickly considering the long history of difficulties and frustrations that the Authority had suffered over a period of years and Ryedale Telecommunications have continued to provide first line support and service for all voice, data and internet requirements to this Authority.