{"id":34970,"date":"2019-11-04T10:31:33","date_gmt":"2019-11-04T10:31:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/?p=34970"},"modified":"2019-11-11T10:10:15","modified_gmt":"2019-11-11T10:10:15","slug":"keepmoat-homes-builds-high-performance-wireless-network-for-business-comms-throughout-uk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/2019\/11\/04\/keepmoat-homes-builds-high-performance-wireless-network-for-business-comms-throughout-uk\/","title":{"rendered":"Keepmoat Homes builds high-performance wireless network for business comms throughout UK"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Updating technology to maintain a digitised infrastructure allows room\nfor innovation, and Keepmoat Homes is one company that did just this. It needed\nto improve its wireless communications network and has since benefited from\nmajor improvements in communications agility and performance.<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Keepmoat Homes is one of the UK\u2019s largest home builders. Established in 1931 and headquartered in Doncaster, South Yorkshire, the company develops up to 4,500 homes across the UK per year, typically utilising brownfield sites to build properties for first time buyers and first-time movers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The construction company required a scalable, secure, reliable and quick-to-deploy solution to connect up to 100 of the company\u2019s active development sites across the UK to critical line of business systems and data, and to deliver digital content into its customer sales suites. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The company implemented Cradlepoint\u2019s cloud-based NetCloud Service \u2013 in conjunction with IBR\/AER series LTE Edge routers, to provide fully managed, reliable, high performance and secure connectivity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unlike traditional network solutions, Cradlepoint\u2019s NetCloud Service is an all-in-one subscription service which allows customers to build, deploy and manage a 4G LTE Edge network.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, Keepmoat deploys a Cradlepoint-powered wireless network at every new development. Since doing so, the company has benefited from major improvements in communications agility and performance and is also able to provide a more robust and consistent service to its workforce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Business\nneed<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a market-leading home builder, Keepmoat can have in excess of 100 sites in operation at any one time, nationwide. Providing each site with reliable data communications infrastructure to connect with key business systems and data is an important element of day-to-day operations for the business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The challenge Keepmoat faced was that many of its sites did not have fixed-line communications infrastructure available when development work commenced. Putting this connectivity in place was time consuming and expensive, often requiring bespoke cabling to be installed by the telecommunications providers beforehand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Keepmoat\nwanted a solution that would provide reliable, high performance and secure\nconnectivity for every site, from day one of its opening. The technology needed\nto support communication between the sales and construction offices at each development\nand the rest of the company network.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Solution<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Andy Walton, Head of Technology and Cybersecurity, joined the business in 2016, one of his immediate priorities was to develop a solution that enabled the business to mobilise new locations quickly, consistently and securely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Having\ndeveloped a similar solution in a previous organisation, he identified that 4G\ncellular technology could provide the ideal blend of performance, security and\nvalue. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Upon evaluating several potential technology vendors, Cradlepoint\u2019s NetCloud Service was purchased and developed into a fully functioning proof of concept very quickly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This\nenabled Keepmoat to connect a remote location with central IT systems and data\nvia a cellular provider and a secure VPN.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCradlepoint\u2019s technology offers a really strong blend of performance and ease of use,\u201d said Walton. \u201cThe NetCloud Service makes it quick and easy to configure, deploy and manage the cloud-controlled wireless Edge routers, which was a very important consideration for the overall solution.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following the successful proof of concept, Keepmoat launched the project internally, naming it \u2018Rapid Site\u2019 and began launching Cradlepoint\u2019s NetCloud Service with the IBR1100 wireless Edge routers into site locations using its own field engineering team. \u201cWe really liked the rugged design of the routers \u2013 unlike lots of other hardware we use elsewhere, Cradlepoint’s is well constructed and ideally suited to the mixed environmental conditions of a construction site,\u201d said Walton.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After\npart of the business was sold in 2017, the decision was made to outsource the\ninstallation and management of the Rapid Site solution to a managed service\npartner, which now undertakes the installation on behalf of Keepmoat, based on\na pre-agreed deployment standard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe\nNetCloud Services gave us the connectivity options and performance we needed,\nincluding both wireless and wired access for our equipment. It also allowed us\nto deliver really important capabilities to our remote locations, such as the\nability to take secure, PCI-DSS-compliant payments in each sales office,\u201d said\nWalton.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Each\nsite now connects with the corporate network via a secure VPN, natively integrating\nwith Cisco\u2019s Umbrella Cloud Enterprise Network Security solution to provide\nrobust cybersecurity protection. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

More recently, Keepmoat has upgraded all of its endpoints to Cradlepoint\u2019s AER2200 wireless Edge solution \u2013 a more powerful technology that has also removed the need for an Ethernet switch to be deployed at each location.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Benefits<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Keepmoat now operates a fully integrated, high performance and secure wireless connectivity solution for its entire business. It has moved from a situation where connectivity was largely unavailable at the start of a build and then slow and expensive to install, to being fully in control of its own connectivity strategy. As the business continues to move to a digitally-driven customer sales experience, the strong foundations provided by Cradlepoint technology make this possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs each site moves off the drawing-board and into development, we can have full connectivity in place from day one and that\u2019s a major improvement over our previous situation,\u201d said Walton.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Traffic is routed directly into to the core of Keepmoat\u2019s managed Wide Area Network, enabling seamless business critical communications. Using Cradlepoint\u2019s NetCloud management portal \u2013 part of the NetCloud Service \u2013 gives Keepmoat and its managed service partner full visibility and control over the entire wireless solution. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re delighted with the flexibility, performance and value for money that the Cradlepoint solution provides,\u201d said Walton. \u201cWe\u2019ve transformed the ability of the business to interact with key teams at each site \u2013 the sales team, for example, are able to provide a much better experience for customers, take payments and even make use of exciting technologies such as digital signage and interactive content.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Looking to\nthe future, Keepmoat is planning a pathway to 5G connectivity for its sites, which\nwill further improve infrastructure performance and allow the company to\ndeliver a better, more dynamic digital experience for customers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Updating technology to maintain a digitised infrastructure allows room for innovation, and Keepmoat Homes is one company that did just this. It needed to improve its wireless communications network and has since benefited from major improvements in communications agility and performance. Keepmoat Homes is one of the UK\u2019s largest home builders. Established in 1931 and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":34980,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[205,51,4,57,140,248,93,23,24],"tags":[9892,13781,13780,13778,13779,13783,13787,13782],"class_list":["post-34970","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-case-studies","category-case-study-newsletter","category-cloud","category-enterprise-security","category-networking","category-telecom","category-top-stories","category-united-kingdom","category-used","tag-cradlepoint","tag-data-communications-infrastructure","tag-doncaster","tag-keepmoat-homes","tag-netcloud-service","tag-rapid-site","tag-umbrella-cloud-enterprise-network-security","tag-wireless-edge-routers"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34970","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34970"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34970\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35215,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34970\/revisions\/35215"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}