Success Story - The Mead Academy Trust

SUCCESS
STORY
In April 2016 Broadband4 undertook a project to improve the
Broadband services across The Mead Academy Trust. The trust were
looking for a solution which enabled all sites to operate across a
single network platform, whilst ensuring high speed connectivity.
The mead
academy trust
The project involved installation of new high speed Fibre Optic
broadband circuits between each site and the Broadband4 Core
network. Each site was provisioned with a fully managed firewall
and Web Content Filtering provided by Broadband4 and Lightspeed
Systems.

THE COMPANY
Location
Christchurch, Dorset
Specialism
Education Focussed Internet
Service Provider
Web Site
www.broadband4.co.uk
Employees
15 Dedicated Individuals
THE CUSTOMER
The Mead Academy Trust is a family of 3 Schools:
The Mead Community Primary School, with 2 connected sites at
Hilperton and Wingfield
Castle Mead School, Trowbridge, opened on September 2014
River Mead School, Melksham, a newly sponsored member of the Mead
Academy Trust in September 2014.
The schools all serve their individual communities whilst being
committed to the strong educational philosophy and valued held by the
trust.
THE CHALLENGE
BT Fibre to the Cabinet (FTTC)
Service. Broadband4 organised
the installation of new lines into
each site and the provision of
the fastest FTTC Service possible
at their locations.
Delays caused by the lack of
availability of FTTC Services for
The Mead Primary School and
Castle Mead Primary School
were overcome by delivering
our Broadband4 service as
an “overlay” to the school’s
existing provision. Broadband4’s
engineers used a unique method
of delivering traffic directly into
our core network over a third
party circuit.
Broadband4
managed every
aspect of the
new broadband
provision,
keeping us
informed at
every stage.
Broadband4 were approached to provide a connectivity solution
which would allow each site to communicate seamlessly, sharing
data as required and allowing staff to move between sites.
Prior to this project Broadband4 had provided a 100Mbps EAD
(Ethernet Access Direct) circuit to link the Hilperton and Wingfield
sites of the Mead Community Primary School to provide high speed
connectivity between them.
All sites required as much bandwidth as possible, whilst keeping
costs in check.
As the Mead Primary School and Castle Mead Primary School are
in heavily populated residential areas, availability of FTTC Services
was limited due to high demand. Broadband4’s unique network
design helped overcome this, ensuring the project completed on
time with no loss in service to the end user.
THE SOLUTION
Broadband4’s independently owned core network allows us to
provide services across the UK using circuits from all major UK
carriers. The benefit of being a carrier agnostic network means
that Broadband4 can source the best value connectivity for any
school. Broadband4 are also not limited to one type of broadband
provision, ensuring that service can be delivered to even the most
remote sites, using wireless and satellite services as required.
In the case of The Mead Academy Trust, all sites were in reach of
All FTTC Services was terminated
directly into Broadband4’s
MPLS Core network and traffic
handled by our centralised
Managed Firewall and Web
Content Filtering (powered by
Lightspeed Systems).
Each site was configured with
Inter-site routing, to allow data
to be shared between them. The
trust’s ICT service provider then
configured the necessary Active
Directory Trusts across each site,
to allow full user roaming.
THE RESULTS
The Mead Academy Trust now
have a robust and reliable
broadband provision allowing
staff to access ICT resources
from whichever location they
require it.
Members of the SLT are able to
move from site to site and logon
as if they were at their home site.
The Broadband4 Solution
has offered real flexibility
to our ICT provision
accross the trust.

Contact us at
sales@broadband4.co.uk or visit
www.broadband4.co.uk for more
information
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