Demo Centre

Demo, Try, Test, Configure

For most organisations there is a confusion of new internet and IP technologies aimed at improving communications and analytics.  Our demonstration site provides a chance for you to assess the solutions that are right for you.

We are very fortunate that we are in the middle of beautiful countryside, within a small farm business park and at the top of a hill.  Importantly we have an on site coffee, tea and cake kitchen plus an outstanding events room and even a fishing lake.  But for us it allows us to showcase communications over many km’s/miles as well as sudo urban locations to simulate high streets.

We possess many of the current, new and future technologies that improve connectivity and analytics in urban and rural locations.  In particular this allows you to appreciate manufacturers products:

1. Have a hands off demonstration of what is available and how some solutions may differ to expectations
2. Try products your self in a hands on environment
3. Test the performance of products and solutions before you commit to buy
4. Pre-configure hardware and software pre deployment, especially useful in trials

Let’s split these up:

Urban Footfall has been dominated by Wi-Fi but with legal issues in Europe, and technical issues courtesy of Apple and Google, the efficacy of Wi-Fi footfall has been undermined, so we provide clients with the following evaluation:

• Wi-Fi – Presence – Undermined by Apple and Google; doesn’t detect the old, very young or tech adverse
• Wi-Fi – Precision (meter or so anyway) plus visitor journey, some European rulings undermine Wi-Fi as a detection mechanism
• LiDAR – Precision (within 10cm), classification (people, bikes and cars), visitor journey flows, CCTV assist, GDPR compliant, 360 degrees, weather resistant, the professional solution (e.g. expensive but extremely versatile)
• RADAR – Low power (solar power), uni-directional, GDPR compliant, weather resistant
• CCTV – Uni directional, captures demographics, detects visitors, buckets of analytics , prevents abuse, can be GDPR compliant depending on control.  We use Mobotix, Axis and Milesight for a European, USA and Chinese capability.  We can bring in other CCTV sensors and control systems (Genetec, Axxon, Milestone…) as appropriate.
• CCTV-IoT – Uni directional, GDPR compliant, in-depth analytics, detects vehicles and routes.  We mainstream Mobotix (Germany) as they are a trusted European manufacturer with leading edge on-device capability.  This is particularly useful for rural and urban fly tipping.  Other systems can also be demonstrated.
• Bluetooth – Depends on active Bluetooth, and has similar issues to Wi-Fi presence – can detect some cars
• Server base – Using existing IP CCTV cameras to offer footfall, analytics and enhanced security at minimum disruption to pre-existing infrastructure.  For our base line, we showcase Ntech, an accredited world leader in biometrics.

The next on our list is long and short range wireless broadband using open and licensed Ofcom spectrum (we are licensed!):

• Point to Point 60/80GHz  – Siklu, Cambium, Mikrotik our are main contributors.  Siklu is the top end reliable and bullet proof with up to 10Gbps links at 5 Nines reliability, and PoE out for light loads such as cameras.  Cambium is well supported and cost effective.  Mikrotik is as cheap as chips but it’s versatility can be a challenge – an enthusiasts/hobbyists choice.  We offer guidance for link setup, alignment and performance.
• Point to Multi Point – same as above, we particular like Siklu and Cambium for differing reasons.
• Bonded satellite – in particular the use of satellite systems such as Starlink(R) in rural locations (Q3 2021) and One Web (2022) for high speed rural connectivity and incident response (ESN welcome).  We can also showcase bonded 4G(LTE) and 5G (Q3 2021).
• Autonomous 5G demonstrations – for ESN/smart warehouses.
• Wi-Fi – We baseline using  Commscope Ruckus (we have our own multi server management instances (vSZ-H) within our UK data centres) which is particularly aimed at MDU, education and outdoor.  We also have Ubiquiti, doesn’t everyone, for its price to performance, though we are cautious about data flows.  Others can be brought in for performance testing.
• Other Wi-Fi services include:
  • Tenant Wi-Fi for secure farm and business park connectivity
  • Blueport Onboarding – A service that allows each property/family/business to have their own unique protected Wi-Fi service provided by council, housing association, facility managers or service provider.  This allows for roaming and support of tenants within a community/neighbourhood.
  • Other on-boarding such as Passpoint, Hotspot 2, Overhere, third party and others for assessment and trials.
  • Friendly Wi-Fi for content filtering options including DNS filtering, white listing, URL/IP blocking etc.
  • Leaky WiFi – Demonstrate how Wi-Fi propagates through open and closed areas to support in town, housing and rural connectivity.
  • Wi-Fi enabled sensors for building management, security and safety

LPWAN services are primarily showcased using gateways from our LoRaWAN partners from Milesight (China) and Kerlink (Europe).

LoRaWAN has become an almost defacto standard for IoT in the UK as it has a low deployment cost and a vast and burgeoning range of high quality sensors.  it is particularly suited for rural farm management, urban street environments, property management and vulnerable families/lone person health and security.

With many km/miles of coverage at our disposal we can demonstrate sensor to gateway performance over long distances.  We are able to compare and contrast other LPWAN systems and sensors which may be better suited for particular locations in particular:

• Standard LTE
• NB-IoT
• Sigfox
• IQRF
• Wi-Sun

To round off our capabilities we have proximity solutions, particularly Bluetooth based solutions including beacons for indoor positioning, security and sensors.  We have smart information solutions based around QR codes and NFC (contactless technologies) useful for user engagement and security.