WiMAX-Ready Business Continuity Comes to Birmingham

Published 5th December 2008

Businesses can protect their Internet connectivity with new WiMAX-ready fixed wireless Internet service

Kidlington, UK - 3 December, 2008 - Businesses in Birmingham UK can safeguard their Internet connectivity with a new service that enables their existing fibre connections to automatically switch over to a 2-100 MB/ per second WiMAX-ready fixed wireless link in the event of disaster.

“Bandwidth hungry businesses who cannot risk losing their Internet connectivity can use the service as a backup to their existing wired connection because it provides a totally separate high performance wireless Internet link,” said Graham Mclean, MD of CI-Net, a fully managed wide area networks, hosting and internet solutions company, which is introducing its RedKite ‘leased line in the sky’ WiMAX-ready Internet service to cover a 10km radius of Central Birmingham.

A RedKite wireless base station will transmit the symmetric, uncontended bandwidth for subscribers to pick up using outdoor antennas. The service is already available in ten other locations throughout the UK.

Mclean said that most network managers recognise they can get extra resilience by using multiple service providers for Internet connectivity and not relying on a single point of failure.

“But if you go for multiple ‘wired’ services, this only covers problems that happen within individual service providers’ environments,” he pointed out. “You’ll still lose connectivity if there are problems in your communications room, along the ducts routing cables to your buildings or in the local exchanges used by all service providers.”

With RedKite there is greater resilience because users get diverse – wired and wireless – routing into their buildings.

“And because we offer ongoing load balancing between the two connections we ensure that customers will get value from both. This ‘always on’ arrangement means they have the piece of mind of knowing that RedKite is fully operational all the time - able to kick in automatically if there is any problem with the wired connection,” said Mclean.

The RedKite wireless base station will be positioned on the newly refurbished seven storey, Livery Place office building near Birmingham Snow Hill rail station. The site is a multi-let commercial office space undergoing a £2m refurbishment by property company Highcross. In an innovative arrange with Highcross, tenants in the building, which will open in the New Year, will be able to benefit from the RedKite service by sharing the bandwidth that will be feeding the base station. They will have access to high capacity, reliable connectivity, at least 30 per cent cheaper than the cost of installing their own leased line.

About CI-Net
Over 2,000 UK organisations rely on CI-Net’s secure, resilient, managed wide area networks (WANs). These organisations choose CI-Net to manage their WAN because of the flexibility and comprehensive services we offer, the unrivalled quality and resilience of our network and our unparalleled reputation for innovation and customer support. Working closely with customers to understand specific requirements, CI-Net builds and supports solutions crafted from an extensive portfolio of connectivity solutions, security and optimisation products plus web and professional services to support a huge variety of on-line and e-business activities. CI-Net enables businesses of all sizes to communicate better with their customers, suppliers, partners, home workers, branch offices, temporary sites and mobile workers – no matter what the circumstances.
CI-Net was formally called Community Internet plc.

For further information please contact:
Uday Radia, CloudNine PR
+44 (0)7940 584161
uradia@cloudninepr.com