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Wavion clears technology haze for Misty Hills
Management and guests at Misty Hills Country Hotel, Conference Centre and Spa, based in Muldersdrift, can now benefit from an affordable, reliable Wi-Fi solution as a result of an investment in Q-KON South Africa and Wavion technology.
Misty Hills is made up of 215 rooms in a layout of eight separated villages. Management at the resort wanted to add value to guests by implementing Wi-Fi infrastructure and providing online facilities in every room.
The layout of the premises, the environment (including tall trees, dense foliage) and buildings constructed with thick stone walls and thatch roofing) was, however, considered to be a sizeable challenge.
As a provider of turnkey solutions covering specialist areas of telecommunications and ICT, incorporating satellite deployments, microwave networks, wireless and VoIP hardware, Q-KON South Africa was approached to oversee, service and support a solution implementation.
The company put forward the Wavion Networks WBS-2400 carrier-grade, outdoor base station technology. This infrastructure ensured that all rooms and common public areas could facilitate a minimum throughput of 2Mbps (an average of 8-10 Mbps) using twelve base stations.
An additional seventeen standard access points were deployed in the conference facilities, exhibition centre, isolated suites and restaurant.
The existing fibre network backbone at Misty Hills was configured to incorporate a ‘Wi-Fi’ VLAN to create a dedicated virtual network to route guest and delegates’ internal traffic to the Internet via Q-KON SA’s que-Vi VSAT solution. This provided uncapped Internet connectivity to a first-tier ISP based in the Netherlands.
The additional minimal fibre and cabling work that was required was implemented by SIVE Telecoms and all civil work, cable routing and power distribution was done by Misty Hills.
Pierre Goffinet, Group IT Manager, Recreation Africa Leisure Industries, representing Misty Hills, said, “For the last three or four years we battled with various methods of trying to cover our extensive property with a Wi-Fi facility and only managed to get certain rooms and conference rooms covered. Eighteen months ago I started investigating Wi-Fi technology and had approximately eleven site surveys done of the property by various Wi-Fi specialists. Some left without wanting to quote, others just disappeared.”
“However, one company, Q-KON South Africa, conducted the longest and most extensive site survey of them all and they felt confident that with the new Wavion ‘beam forming’ technology they would be able to ‘make it work’. This is now working and we have already had great feedback from our guests on the ease of use and functionality. Almost one hundred percent of the property is covered,” Goffinet adds.
Tim Pryce, Business Manager, Wireless & VSAT, Q-KON South Africa, says Wavion provided the most secure, practical and reliable solution to fulfill wireless connectivity requirements and transfer the benefit to users.
“The Wavion outdoor base station technology, with its self-backhaul features and superior performance capability was the only solution that provided a cost-effective implementation and one that would minimise cabling and disruption to guests on the Misty Hills premises.
The Wi-Fi access network implemented at Misty Hills not only provides connectivity for standard laptop integrated 802.11g wireless client technology, but it also provides a platform to enable a number of future layered value-add wireless services such as VoIP over Wi-Fi telephony services. CCTV surveillance backhaul, as well as other services such as asset and sensor monitoring, mobile panic alarms and limited video-on-demand services,” comments Pryce.
Both Pryce and Goffinet agree that Q-KON South Africa’s expertise and capability with an established, proven technology in Wavion ensured the success of an effective solution to expand the services portfolio and facilities at Misty Hills to the ongoing benefit of guests.
The Wi-Fi solution by Q-KON South Africa and Wavion technology at Misty Hills Country Hotel, Conference Centre and Spa, based in Muldersdrift.- send to friend
