The Loch of the Lowes Visitor Centre of the Scottish Wildlife Trust is a loch open to visitors in Scotland. The loch hosts a variety of wildlife such as ospreys, of which the visitor centre regularly uploads videos or live sessions taken from a webcam. Within their almost 50 years, their operations grew more dependent on reliable connectivity.
Challenge
The connection at the Loch of the Lowes Visitor Centre was highly dependent on five ADSL broadband connections. Despite these connections being bonded together, there was only a small improvement in the download and upload speeds. Because of the physical distance between the local telephone exchange and the visitor centre, the connections tended to be slow and unreliable. On top of these, maintenance was costly for the Loch of Lowes Visitor Centre.
Additionally, the videos uploaded online from cameras installed in the osprey’s habitat grew in popularity over the years, especially after COVID-19 occurred. To continue their operations, the visitor centre needed a more stable connection to support the heavier use of bandwidth. With the current setup, a 30 second video from the osprey cameras would take around 30 minutes to upload. This upload speed, amongst connectivity used for other operations, was no longer optimal.
Solution
Looking for a newer solution, they discovered the Peplink Balance 20 made for a perfect and foundational load balancing device. The Balance 20 was used to retain one ADSL broadband, as well as connect to two cellular connections. Antennas were set up at the visitor centre to help with 4G connectivity, while access points helped to provide Wi-Fi.
Result
Thanks to this new solution, 30-second video uploads went from half an hour to just a few seconds and minutes. This allows the visitor centre’s staff to allocate more time to several other tasks, resulting in improved productivity. The visitor centre is also able to keep their online community up to date, with videos, live streams, and social media posts.
Wi-Fi is also more accessible at different points of the area, such as the ranger’s office which is 200 metres away. Without breaking the bank, more bandwidth is made available to the Loch of the Lowes Visitor Centre.
“Life is much smoother now in terms of operations because of the fact that we don’t have Internet that drops out every other day.”
Emma Castle-Smith, Visitor Centre Assistant Manager at Scottish Wildlife Trust
Deployment
Balance 20
- Deployed to the visitor centre as a load balancer
- Supports dual-wan connectivity
- Built to last and sold at an affordable price
