The Build to Rent Forum London is the go-to event for the burgeoning Build To Rent (BTR) sector, and is supported by the Greater London Authority and the Mayor of London.

Curve IT is delighted to be a Conference Associate sponsor of this event, based on our experience of providing wired and wireless network solutions within the BTR sector.

IT Strategy Planning

Curve IT are the current providers to several very high-profile BTR developments in London, with more in the pipeline. Highly experienced in working with developers and operators to define the technology brand standard, Curve IT also consults on the final design to ensure that standards are met in the most effective and efficient way.

This can include all services that sit on the converged network, such as VoIP, CCTV, security services, door control and more.

IT Project Management

After installation of these services the Curve IT support team will manage the ongoing services for the operator and residents, if required.

Build to Rent Forum 2018 is an authoritative one-day event that brings together private and public sector leaders and key stakeholders to debate and exchange ideas in a series of keynotes, case studies, debates and panel sessions.

The event takes place on Thursday February 22 at etc. venues, 155 Bishopsgate Conference Centre, London EC2M 3YD. (Pre-registration is required and there may be fees.)

For more information on Build to Rent Forum London 2018 please visit www.buildtorentforum.co.uk A list of events at the conference can be found here.

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“Although I’ve had plenty of experience in wireless deployments, it’s important that as a Ruckus Big Dog partner, Curve IT holds the official certification for  Zone Director deployments,” says Mark.  “It’s always good practice to update your knowledge around the latest Ruckus products and interesting to learn about system developments.”

Ruckus WiSE Certification Test

WiSE is Ruckus’ top-level certification. It ensures that certificate holders have the necessary skills to design, deploy, manage, and support robust wireless networks consisting of a range of Ruckus smart WiFi products, including ZoneDirector controllers and Access Points.

Key aspects of the course covered:

• Describe the ZoneFlex WLAN system
• Compare the ZoneDirector and ZoneFlex AP hardware models
• Install a ZoneDirector controller
• Configure a ZoneFlex WLAN system to support
• WLAN service options
• User authentication options
• System administration options
• WLAN security options
• Captive portal services
• Wireless mesh networking
• Redundancy options for the ZoneDirector controllers
• Describe the network topology options for the ZoneFlex WLAN system
• Troubleshoot WLAN connectivity and performance issue

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With free WiFi now seen by many as a basic human right, customers often expect to find it no matter where they are or what they are doing – and nowhere is this more apparent than in the hospitality sector.

The benefits of offering free WiFi

The increasing omnipresence of WiFi means a high percentage of people out and about want internet access 24/7, with hotels, restaurants, cafes and many retail outlets now offering free WiFi to their customers. There are some obvious benefits, such as:

• An increased competitive edge
  People actively seek out places where they can access free WiFi, and are more likely to recommend venues to friends and family.
• Increased spending
  Offering free WiFi to customers in a café, restaurant or shop means they’re likely to stay longer, and spend more money.

But there are other ways WiFi can add value to a hospitality business.

WiFi marketing portal

Curve IT has developed a WiFi portal specifically for the hospitality sector which is designed to enable businesses to promote themselves, engage with their customers, and capture useful data.

To ensure we can roll this out to a wide number of businesses – both in the South East and nationwide – Curve IT has appointed Gary Bristow as head of sales.

“One of the key advantages of using Curve IT’s WiFi portal means businesses can learn more about their customers, and get something back from them,” says Gary. “Traditionally ‘free WiFi’ has been pretty unregulated, so you’ll get people coming into a coffee shop and using the WiFi for six hours and only buying one cup of coffee, and the cost of the WiFi falls on the business owner.

“WiFi is often called ‘the fourth utility’ but you wouldn’t allow a customer to go into the kitchen and run a tap for six hours,” Gary points out. “With a bespoke portal from Curve IT the owner of the business regains some control in terms of bandwidth  and data consumption- and gets something back from the customer.

“A custom portal provides opportunities for user engagement, analytics, data capture and more. That might mean social media interaction which encourages them to share where they are or ‘like’ something;customer information which enables some marketing action; or more advanced technology which can allow location tracking, footfall analysis or other data – even advertising space.”

Engage customers and control connectivity

In short a bespoke portal and internet gateway offers businesses more control over who uses their WiFi – and how.

• With a bespoke WiFi portal in place businesses are able to influence customer behaviour.
• There are many different ways of interacting with customers. (For example, a huge amount of targeted marketing can be done just through collecting a customer’s date of birth when they log in.)
• A portal and gateway benefits everyone – from two or three users in a cafe to thousands in a residential building.
• By controlling data transfer and bandwidth a more level playing field is created.
• With a Curve IT portal and gateway, every end user will have a positive experience with connectivity no matter how many others are using the WiFi.

Brighton Spiegeltent was one of the first venues to deploy Curve IT’s WiFi marketing portal during the Brighton Festival.

Bespoke technology service

Curve IT can provide bespoke internet services to suit every business – be it hotel, retail outlet, multi-dwelling unit (MDU) or small scale business.  The same service is also applicable to all types of events and venues; indoor or outdoor, temporary or permanent.

Usually the first step is an onsite visit so that the building or venue to be connected can be surveyed and information gathered about how many users will access the WiFi and what they will be using it for.

Understanding the venue is key to Curve IT ensuring the most efficient WiFi technology solution can be delivered. Curve IT works with industry leader Ruckus, whose solutions are smart, secure and scaleable, no matter how tough the environment.

“There’s a very structured approach to understanding the venue and its needs, measuring footfall and potential number of devices that might be connected,” says Gary. “Different levels of pricing are available for differing venue sizes, and we are even able to offer a ‘plug and play’ solution for smaller businesses.”

“The Curve IT team is experienced with all types of business – from small outlets to very large residential developments in the private rental sector (PRS), where it’s crucial that the IT infrastructure is able to respond to the inevitable changes in technology throughout the lifespan of the building.”

For more information about what Curve IT can offer your business, email Gary or call 01273 806220.

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If ever there was any doubt about the importance of providing “always on WiFi” a new report reveals just how much it impacts the daily lives of professionals worldwide.

Global mobile connectivity provider iPass Inc. (ipass.com) recently released its annual iPass Mobile Professional Report 2017.

The research focuses on the connectivity and smartphone habits of more than 1,700 mobile professionals worldwide and their connectivity preferences.

Their findings underline those of Curve IT: that people are dependent on WiFi both in their business and personal lives – and now so reliant on smartphones that they will do almost anything – including break social etiquette – to use them.

“Technology, and particularly smartphones have become an integral part of our lives, that there’s no scenario in which people won’t check their phone,” said iPass chief commercial officer Patricia Hume. “Moreover, they expect to be connected to WiFi; mobile workers just want to be connected.”

WiFi empowers a productive workforce

WiFi’s importance to productivity is the biggest reason why mobile workers feel so lost without it. Of those respondents who said they felt anxious without it, 31% said it was because they would find it more difficult to work remotely.

The report shows that mobile professionals use WiFi and cellular data very differently. Whether due to mobile performance issues, data restrictions, or reliability, it is still the dominant force in connectivity, particularly for data-intensive tasks such as video conferencing. 90% of mobile professionals say that they regularly stream audio/video content over WiFi, vs. just 34 % who do so over a cellular connection. Even lower-bandwidth internet tasks such as accessing cloud services and browsing the internet were roughly twice as popular over WiFi.

WiFi is still unmatched in terms of its performance and reliability, and employers have a duty to ensure their mobile workforce can connect easily and securely, wherever they are. (The financial cost of unproductive and unhappy employees can be severe, and no business can afford to neglect the connectivity needs of an ever more mobile workforce.)

Alongside the ever-growing demand for wireless connectivity on mobile devices is the need for a reliable and solid infrastructure, and this is where Curve IT can help.

After a site survey we provide comprehensive recommendations to ensure that all businesses and multi-tenant residential buildings have a secure, robust and fully scalable WiFi network. Curve IT is an official partner of Ruckus – the world’s leading WiFi manufacturer and innovator.

Written by Catherine Eade

Call us on 01273 806220 or email us to find out how we can help you.

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Watch this BBC News video for a simple explanation of the issue.

Since WPA2 is a protocol that secures all modern protected WiFi networks, laptops, desktops, phones, and other devices that support WiFi, are likely affected. Major developers, including Microsoft® and Google®, have stated they will be releasing patches soon.

Action for WiFi Security

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The Brighton Digital Festival currently running citywide is a great example of a Brighton success story, says Phil Jones as we chat over coffee in the buzzing offices of Wired Sussex in New England House, a membership organisation for companies and freelancers operating in the digital, media and technology sector.

A month long programme of events exploring digital culture and celebrating Brighton’s creativity, the BDF is an open programme of independent events augmented by commissioned arts and education programming. The programme this year has included thought-provoking digital art and music, conferences, performances, and opportunities to experience other worlds – with The Old Market in Hove proving a popular place to experience virtual reality. The festival which runs until 13th October has had a record number of visitors (including many of us here at Curve IT).

Wired Sussex and Lighthouse provided the platform for the festival five years ago, setting up a website and helping promote it, explains Jones.  “It wasn’t curated and it wasn’t limited; anyone could do it. In the first year we had 40 events, the third, 130 and this year there are at least 200. It’s the fastest growing digital festival in the country.”

But then Brighton has a historical reputation of being very innovative, as Jones points out.

“Look at Brighton Pavilion – which someone once described as ‘the  googleplex of its day’! It was very technologically advanced for its time, and was one of the first places in the country to have electric light.” The Body Shop and Stomp were other niche concepts which at the time could only have taken root in Brighton and went on to achieve global success.

It’s the same with the digital sector, he believes.  “Brighton’s digital community was seen as ‘just a bunch of hippies with laptops on the beach’ but that hippy on the beach is often someone who can make an idea reality. Having ideas that push boundaries is the first step of innovation.”

In the early days of the Apple Mac, more people per head of the population had Apple Macs in Brighton than anywhere else in the whole of Europe, adds Jones. “People were buying a piece of kit designed to empower them and help them be creative. It was the seeds of the digital cluster we have today.”

Brighton now has one of the fastest-growing creative and digital clusters in the country, and the digital economy is the fastest-growing sector, worth more than £1million annually to the city – particularly impressive when you consider it didn’t exist 15 years ago.

The government-backed Digital Catapult centre, an R&D lab based in the Wired Sussex office, two floors above Curve IT, aims to support the creation of a host of new technology products, services and jobs and is currently running projects focusing on the Internet of Place.

Notably, the 5G testbed in Brighton is the first in the UK that isn’t based within a University.

“It’s not open for business yet but will be available very early in the New Year,” says Jones. “The 5G testbed in Brighton is another example of the city being the first place in the country to spot an opportunity, follow it up – and hopefully be part of an explosion of new businesses and technology. 5G provides the best connectivity for IoT, immersive tech, AI – it’s incredibly fast, much more stable and has very little latency.”

“Marek Kohn [a Brighton-based science writer] once wrote that the default position for Brighton is gazing into the distance, and I think that’s a metaphor for what we try and do in innovation terms – we try and gaze into the distance,” says Phil Jones. “Brighton welcomes ideas, it’s prepared to test new ideas and take them forward.”

Next in the series: Phil Jones talks about how Brighton is positioning itself as a Smart City

Blog post written by Catherine Eade

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The Brighton Centre is one of the largest purpose-built events venues on the South Coast providing top class conference facilities to organisers and delegates alike.  A typical year in the Brighton Centre calendar will include a political party conference, multiple trade union conferences, sporting championships, medical conventions, trade fairs, exhibitions, graduation ceremonies, concerts and live entertainment.

In 2011, the Brighton Centre led the way in its technology offering for events.   It was the first UK conference venue to offer free delegate WiFi to all events knowing that improving the ease of communication for delegates would further enhance any visitor’s experience of the venue.

Curve IT has been providing the WiFi connectivity at the Brighton Centre since 2011.  We played an integral role in the initial upgrade installation of the fibre optic networks and the Ruckus Wireless Access Points to facilitate the free WiFi throughout the building.  Curve IT’s Managing Director, Simon O’Hare, worked closely with the team at the Brighton Centre to achieve fast and reliable connectivity and a future-proofed, fully flexible system. Future-proofing the system has allowed us to conduct continual internal upgrades with minimal disruption to business operations over the last six years.  The flexibility built into the system has ensured that the Brighton Centre can accommodate the  technology objectives that the clients have for their conferences and events.

Of course, now in 2017 free WiFi is the norm at events venues.  As the content delivery requirements of events have evolved with technology advancements, the connectivity also needs to be fit for purpose. There is nothing more frustrating for an event organiser, or the delegates, than a poor WiFi service disrupting the flow of an event.

Curve IT assist the Brighton Centre and their clients with scoping the IT required to deliver the objectives of a particular event. The scale of the conferences and conventions at the Brighton Centre can result in thousands of delegates all trying to connect multiple devices at the same time.  The regular WiFi connectivity at The Brighton Centre provides business class upload and download speeds throughout the venue which is suitable for most of its events.  However, some events require advanced connectivity, for which we’ll implement various options including hardwiring and increased up/download speeds.  For example, the ESPID conference held at the Brighton Centre in 2016 required uplifted connectivity to facilitate high-speed download of the ESPID conference app, live voting and live engagement with speakers.

To discuss WiFi and networks at your venue or event, call our consultants on 01273 806220 or email us.

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The design team behind British Airways i360, Marks Barfield Architects, held an anniversary event at the tower with free drinks and cupcakes being handed out to visitors. It was also the first time visitors could meet new chief executive Steve Bax, formerly at English Heritage, who was appointed in July to replace former CEO, Eleanor Harris.

“Since August 2016 we’ve welcomed hundreds of thousands of visitors plus we’ve won nine fantastic awards,” said Bax, who added that the aim to boost visitor numbers further would be helped by the high number of “very good reviews” for the attraction.

Brighton Gay Men’s Chorus performed at the event, and guests enjoyed a British Airways i360 birthday cake – a model of the attraction made by Brighton Cakes, complete with tower, pod and two tollbooths.

Brighton Mayor Mo Marsh applauded the attraction for “bringing visitors from all over the world to the city”, and praised the i360’s free school ticket programme, which has seen 39,000 free tickets given to Brighton children – one for every child in a state school in Brighton & Hove.

Brighton & Hove City Council chief executive Geoff Raw also attended the anniversary event, calling the i360 “a beacon for Brighton and a positive statement of confidence” for the city.

In line with plans for British Airways i360 to raise the international profile of Brighton and attract investment, an extensive IT Infrastructure was obviously integral to the project, and Curve IT were brought in to ensure WiFi connectivity was implemented right across the site – including in the glass pod at its full height of 138 metres.

Curve IT consultants came into the project half-way through its two-year construction period, meaning they were able to identify the necessary IT infrastructure that was needed and influence some design changes – with less need for retrospective IT installation costs.

Some high points

• The view from the top of the tower takes in a 360-degree, 26-mile vista from Chichester in the west to the Seven Sisters and beyond in the east.
• The tower is not perfectly vertical (it’s impossible to build any tall building which is exactly straight!). The engineers allowed a tolerance of 6 inches and the i360 leans very slightly towards Regency Square.
• British Airways i360 has created 150 jobs, held five weddings and 180 private events.
• The i360 is one of the only major planning applications in Brighton’s history to have received cross-party unanimous planning support.
• During the three-month consultation period hundreds of residents came to see the public exhibition, 500 questionnaires were completed – and all but 7 were supportive.
• Curve IT completed a pre-build WiFi survey using CAD architectural drawings to create a virtual model of the planned network.
• Preparatory work included diverting 120 metres of a working Victorian sewer and moving nine major electrical cables which power a third of the city.

Read the case study on Curve IT’s work with British Airways i360.

Email or call Curve IT on 01273 806220 to discuss your IT infrastructure project.

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We started our preparations for Pride a couple of weeks ago.  First we checked and prepared all of our equipment required for the temporary outdoor WiFi connectivity. Our various leased line connection points throughout the city enable us to provide WiFi for multiple location events such as Pride, so we also prepared these and check they are operating optimally.

The first connection point is in Victoria Gardens as Pride required WiFi to power the main box office from last Monday. The WiFi delivers a secure and robust connection for the card payment machines allowing for hundreds of ticket purchases.

The second connection is for the temporary outdoor WiFi at Pride Pleasure Gardens on the Old Steine, followed by the largest site, Preston Park, for the main festival party. Our install team erected over 20 WiFi access points in Preston Park which power the connection for the live-ticketing systems on the entry gate, card payment machines in all the bars, emergency and operational communications plus WiFi for media and VIPs.

Last Friday, the day before the event, the team re-checked every access point to ensure the client and various contractors have the connectivity they require. Meanwhile, our team back in the office were also getting into the Pride spirit by preparing our corner of New England House as the building turned rainbow for Pride.

On the day itself, Saturday 6 August, all of our technical team were on-site at the various locations to guarantee an immediate response should they be required.  This had the added benefit of a high vantage point for them to enjoy the main stage acts of Years & Years and the Pet Shop Boys.

The party at Preston Park finished at 11pm and our team got straight to work de-rigging the WiFi as soon as the gates close. By 1am all of our WiFi equipment was securely loaded into our vehicles ready to be returned to our warehouse.

It was certainly a busy week for the Curve IT team but one in which we take great pride and pleasure!

Our case study on Brighton Pride has more detail on the installation.

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London Mayor Sadiq Khan announced his vision for London to become the world’s leading ‘Smart City’ at London Tech Week last month, outlining his ambition for digital technology to be at the heart of living and working in the capital.

“New technologies are…reshaping our societies, our economies and our culture,” said Khan, who called on technology companies to get more involved with solutions for a number of issues facing Londoners – including housing.

Curve IT is proud to be at the forefront of a number of exciting new technological developments in the residential housing sector.

New Breed of High-Tech Residential Developments

• Vast technological change is happening at breakneck pace, and high-speed digital connectivity is fundamental to a new breed of vibrant residential developments aimed at the private rental sector.
• Curve IT’s involvement with premium developer Essential Living recently resulted in the opening of flagship rental block Dressage Court – a testament to technological advances within the private rental sector.
• High speed broadband connectivity – “the fourth utility” – is a deciding factor for anyone wanting to rent or buy new property, and the government has also pledged the technology for all new build properties in the UK.
• Residential development companies such as Be and Quintain are also developing incredibly high-spec apartments and houses for the private sector.

A High-Speed Network for Everyone

At Dressage Court, Curve IT delivered the hardware and software to ensure each resident has their own personal high-speed network the minute they walk into the building.

WiFi connectivity follows them wherever they are in their block, whether they’re popping upstairs to sunbathe on the communal roof terrace or logging onto a fitness app in the gym.

“It’s crucial that an IT Infrastructure is able to respond to the inevitable changes in technology throughout the lifespan of the building, so we ensure optimal wireless network design,” explains Curve IT managing director Simon O’Hare.

“Using the RIBA Plan of Work methodology, our early involvement in the planning stage saves considerable capital expenditure later in the build, and ensures optimal wireless network design.”

Service-Focused, High-Tech Homes and Apartments

• The offer of a high quality, modern ‘simpler’ lifestyle is driving interest in the private rental sector.
• The digital, connected future is one of the main guiding principles of the design.
• Homes and apartments are designed to be service-focused, network-connected 24/7, and future proof.
• The number of smart living developments in the private rental sector is booming.
• By 2021 one in four people will be renting, according to new research.
• The sector is forecast to grow 24% by 2021.

With ‘smart technology’ gradually becoming accepted as a part and parcel of everyday living, the concept of a smart city is closer than you might think!

To discuss your IT Infrastructure project, call our consultants on 01273 806220 or email us.

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