One of the largest garden centres in Europe, Bridgemere presented us with a challenge when we initially installed a Siemens system nine years ago and again in 2003 when we upgraded the equipment.

The original brief was to provide handsets in an ordinary office environment, together with cordless coverage over 30 acres. The cordless coverage included internal retail areas, together with vast expanses of external retail and growing areas. When we originally completed the installation we had provided one of the largest cordless networks in the UK and the upgraded system still remains so.

Our experience from installing and maintaining this site for over nine years makes us one of the foremost suppliers of cordless communications in the UK.

Tunstall Communications group is the largest supplier of social alarms to local authorities and housing associations in Europe. Their equipment includes pendant alarms, smoke/fire alarms and fall detectors etc that are installed in single dwellings or multi-dwelling complexes throughout the UK and Europe.

Basically Tunstall offer their clients, local authorities and housing associations, the options of having a call centre to deal with the alarm calls established in their own premises or have them routed to Tunstall's own call centre. We have been involved in the supply of the call centres to Tunstall's clients and their own call centre has two Siemens HiPaths installed in a unique way to cope with their special requirements.

Of course all these sites are dealing with critical alarm calls from elderly and vulnerable people 24 hours a day/ 365 days a year and we feel our ongoing relationship with Tunstall Communications in this demanding sector is a testimony to our professional approach and the quality of our support team.

The new marina on the mouth of the Conway River is going to be one of the most prestigious leisure sites in North Wales and we are proud to be involved in the ongoing development. We have provided a Siemens HiPath 3750 and this is currently fulfilling all the administration needs for the owners and developers. More importantly the Siemens HiPath 3750 will cater for the future needs of this complex site that will include luxury apartments; a hotel built to 5 star standards and of course the quay/marina.

From an installation and logistical point of view this site has presented us with many challenges, since the administration centre will move three times as the site is developed and of course providing Category 5e wiring on a live but developing 20 acre site is not an everyday occurrence.

Our IT department is also involved in providing broadband connections to the apartments and rooms in addition to assisting the developers with their IT needs.

Not a large installation, Nantwich Boat Centre illustrates that we apply the same professional and innovative expertise to each application we are invited to look at, irrespective of size.

Nantwich Boat Centre builds and renovates canal narrow boats and over the years the site has become very popular, now housing a fascinating shop together with a cosy café. Of course behind the scenes is an office dealing with all enquiries and administration. All this in various buildings scattered over approximately an acre with the canal bisecting the site.

When being invited by the owners to quote for a replacement of their existing telephone system, our first impression was we could vastly improve the internal communications on site. The smallest system in the Siemens 3000 range, the HiPath 3350 was used as a platform, and provides desk and cordless phones together with connections for various devices, including fax and swipe card machines, in a cost effective manner. Also the introduction of ISDN working reduced line costs and considerably improved facilities for staff and customers.

HOTHOUSE

Hothouse in Stoke on Trent provided our consultants and installation department with the opportunity to deal with a slightly unusual application that called for the best of new technology and the combined expertise of our Voice and IT departments.
The original Hothouse is an old school building that has been providing facilities to companies involved in the Pottery industry for nearly a decade. Supported by the City Council, Hothouse has proved so popular that an annexe (the grade two listed Longton library) was added in 2004. Unfortunately the original building and the annexe are separated by the new A50 dual carriageway and traditionally the only method of connection would have been an expensive leased line.

To save this expense a laser link was established between the two buildings and two Siemens HiPath systems are networked as one by utilising Voice over IP technology. Each system also provides resilience to the other and even if the laser link goes down we have provided a cost efficient alternative route to ensure communications between the two sites remain.

Just to make things more interesting it was decided that as the annexe was a listed building, wiring should be kept to a minimum. Of course the obvious solution was to provide Siemens cordless working for the 30+ tenants in the annexe.

Smurfit, a multi-national company involved in many sectors of the paper and print industries, asked Alpha Business Communications to look at their Llangollen site. This site specialises in printing onto envelopes and packages as developed over a vast number of years. As is usual on sites like this, we found that there were a number of exchange lines that had been installed a number of years ago to provide a seldom needed but vital service. Our consultant identified all these lines and set about determining a more cost efficient way of providing the required service using new technology. For example there were two exchange lines feeding modems incorporated into production equipment so that the supplier of this equipment could provide remote support and diagnostics. These lines were very necessary but may have only been used once or twice a year. The modems were subsequently supplied via an extension of a Siemens HiPath 3550.

The same system provides 46 digital desk handsets, a cordless network covering the factory and offices, together with voicemail facilities for every extension.
The Siemens HiPath 3550 replaced a BT Norstar Meridian system and after the installation we were informed that our quotation for the brand new system, with cutting edge technology, was thousands of pounds less than BT quoted to upgrade the old equipment with new software and utilising some of the old hardware.

To summarise we provided brand new equipment, vastly improved the communication facilities and yet we reduced the quarterly expenditure pertaining to the old BT Meridian system.