Case Study

Systech Group, Manchester

Profile

Systech Group is a global provider of specialist contracts, commercial management, quantity surveying, claims preparation and dispute resolution services for major construction and infrastructure projects.
Established in 1990, the group now employs over 500 people across five continents. In the UK, Systech operates from its Head Office in London and from Regional Offices in Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol, Leeds and Edinburgh.
Systech is involved with projects from concept through to completion, managing contractual, commercial, planning, claims, and dispute resolution aspects of major UK and international construction and infrastructure developments. The company’s portfolio includes such significant projects as Wembley Stadium, Channel Tunnel Rail Link, Sellafield and West Coast Mainline. Systech has been involved in planning the main terminal building for Heathrow T5 and the preparation of tenders and contracts for the 2012 Olympics.

Challenge

Operating from the heart of central London, just a short distance from the Thames, Systech’s busy UK Head Office team are reliant on their Internet connection for sending and receiving critical project information, and communicating across geographically diverse project teams via email.
The company used a traditional SDSL connection to the Internet, which travelled over BT Openreach’s underground cables. In an area of London packed with other businesses connecting to the web in essentially the same manner, network congestion meant that Systech’s connection was slow and unreliable. This congestion was caused by “contention”, a phenomenon of SDSL and ADSL services where typically between 20 and 50 companies contend for the same bandwidth within the SDSL network. The resulting performance of the SDSL connection fell far short of the advertised 2Mb, as a consequence incoming and outgoing business critical emails took too long to arrive at their destination.
The problem was compounded for Systech’s mobile workers, needing to remotely connect to the company’s network and servers. As with most SDSL connections, despite it being intended as a symmetrical service, the actual upload bandwidth was even less than that available for download. Coupled with the contention issues already choking the server in the office, mobile workers’ effectiveness was severely limited as they could not rely on receiving any of the information they needed from day to day in real time.
In short, the very SDSL connection that should have helped Systech to work more efficiently had in fact become a hindrance.

Solution

Wireless internet service provider On-Communications was able to help. From its base station at nearby Guy’s Hospital, On-Communications was able to replace Systech’s SDSL line with its own built for business 2Mb broadband service. Delivered via a dedicated Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) link, On-Communications’ service provides always on, symmetrical bandwidth at guaranteed speeds without touching the congested underground cables of BT Openreach. In addition to providing guaranteed bandwidth, the On-Communications service has the advantage of being able to “burst” at up to twice the guaranteed speed at peak times.
On-Communications delivers its service direct to Systech’s premises, utilising highly secure technology and via the world’s largest, wholly owned global IP network. This enables the service provider to match the performance of expensive leased lines with a more price competitive and flexible service. Although Systech group wanted to replace their existing 2Mb connection, the On-Communications service provided can be easily scaled up to 4Mb or 8Mb and their network is capable of delivering speeds of up to 100Mb.

Result

Michael Massingham, Systech’s IT Manager said, “On-Communications’ service is now our main connection to the Internet. Our head office team is able to work more effectively since our Internet connection issues have been resolved and, thanks to the truly symmetrical nature of the service, our mobile workers can enjoy as equally efficient a service as our office staff. Additionally, On-Communications’ service is far more cost-effective We were paying the same amount of money for an SDSL connection but now have a far superior service“The impact on our business has been extremely positive, so much so that we are now introducing On-Communications’ service in our regional office in Manchester.”

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