Osborne Construction has an annual turnover in excess of £320 million. They employ around 1000 staff with several thousand subcontractors working at up to 90 sites across the UK. Their clients span both private and public sectors. This includes critical national infrastructure such as rail, road, health, and education projects. The company has been an early adopter of technologies such as building information modeling (BIM), thin clients, and virtualization. All in order to help streamline the construction process. Lately, the requirement for IT within the construction process has been growing. In response, Osborne Construction tried to bridge the connectivity gap between sites and data centers by providing 3G dongles, 3G routers, or wired broadband.
“Previously we would need to install ADSL where possible but the lead times are unpredictable and could be anything from weeks to several months. These delays and uncertainties add significant frustration and cost to the project.“
– Phil Gilbey. Head of IT, Osborne.
Challenge
Osborne Construction also found a great deal of inconsistency with this method. Notably in challenging environments such as railway stations or areas with limited coverage. Over the years, Osborne has tested technologies such as satellite and even running their own multi-SIM 3G routers. However, these options were too complex and costly. With new rules requiring the use of BIM on centrally funded projects by 2016, Osborne turned to Onwave. Onwave provided a more reliable method of assuring site connectivity.
Solution
Onwave’s innovative managed service takes advantage of any available access method and bonds them with Peplink’s SpeedFusion technology. This results in improved performance, reliability and flexibility of remote connectivity. The service uses flexible combinations of 3G, 4G LTE, FTTC, leased lines, xDSL and satellite to provide a guaranteed level of connectivity and bandwidth over a flexible contract period at any location in the UK. With this, Onwave delivers a complete managed service comprising of maintenance and traffic delivery. Onwave achieves this by using their own network to connect remote sites to the client’s own data center.
To date, Osborne has deployed Onwave solutions to around 15 sites across the UK. “The setup time is now measured in days instead of weeks or months, and we now have a fixed cost and guaranteed level of connectivity,” says Gilbey. “For longer projects, we can order an ADSL connection from Onwave. We can then remove the 3G / 4G LTE connections, which means our monthly costs are reduced and bandwidth goes up, but we don’t have any disruption in terms of reconfiguring routing tables, access points, firewalls, or VPNs. This allows us to seamlessly transition between connections over the course of the project and stop immediately when the project is finished.”
“Peplink SpeedFusion bandwidth bonding technology allows us to seamlessly add the best blend of connectivity for our customers into our service. Peplink routers allow Onwave to bond Ethernet, satellite, DSL, Wi-Fi, 3G, and 4G LTE networks together, forming a single resilient link to increase bandwidth, enhance Internet reliability, and reduce costs.”
– Stuart Ladbrook, Commercial Director for Onwave
Results and Award
The Computer Weekly European Awards honors IT professionals and vendors across Europe that have excelled in their approach to using technology. Osborne Construction was up against some 130 entries and eventually won from out of 50 finalists. In its own category ‘Best Networking Project Of The Year’, Osborne differentiated themselves from competitors. They did this by displaying how their solution significantly reduced their deployment lead time from months to mere days. In addition, they demonstrated how reliable connectivity is achievable even in rural and remote areas. Both of which were critical factors for construction sites. Osborne beat out the likes of Ruckus Wireless’s AMEX Stadium, Smiths Group and Circle IT’s Milton Keynes College projects.
Deployment
Enterprise SD-WAN
Ultimate Connectivity
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Reducing Delays from Months to Days
With an annual turnover in excess of £320 million, Osborne employs around 1000 staff and several thousand subcontractors working on up to 90 sites across the UK. Osborne clients span both private and public sector, including critical national infrastructure such as rail, road, health, and education projects. The company has been an early adopter of technologies such as building information modeling (BIM), thin clients, and virtualization to help streamline the construction process. With a growing requirement for IT within the construction process, Osborne originally covered the connectivity gap between site and datacenter by providing 3G dongles, 3G routers, or wired broadband. Phil Gilbey, Head of IT at Osborne explains, “Where possible, we would install ADSL connectivity, but the lead times on lines are unpredictable and could be anything from a few weeks to several months. These delays and uncertainties add significant frustration and, potentially, cost to projects.”
Challenging Locations Restrict Connectivity Options
Osborne also found a great deal of inconsistency in this approach, especially in challenging environments such as railway stations or areas with limited coverage. Over the years, Osborne has tested technologies such as satellite and running their own multi-SIM 3G routers, but these options had significant complexity and cost drawbacks. With new rules requiring the use of BIM on centrally funded projects by 2016, Osborne turned to Onwave, a managed service provider that offered a more reliable and predictable method of assuring site connectivity.
Onwave’s innovative managed service takes advantage of any available access method and bonds them with Peplink’s SpeedFusion technology to improve the performance, reliability and flexibility of remote connectivity. The service uses flexible combinations of 3G, 4G LTE, FTTC, leased lines, xDSL and satellite to provide a guaranteed level of connectivity and bandwidth over a flexible contract period at any location in the UK. As an ISP, Onwave delivers a complete managed service comprising of maintenance and traffic delivery from each remote site through its own network directly into the client’s own datacenter.