The City of Edinburgh Council makes a fast start to youth services.

“With SmartBus, equipped with mobile Internet access from BrownstoneIT, we can deliver learning or recreational programmes to any location served by The City of Edinburgh Council, with little or no notice. We are able to react much more quickly to the needs of our youth organisations.

We have been impressed with the performance of the dish supplied by BrownstoneIT. It serves our network of laptops well. BrownstoneIT was able to install the dish and network at very short notice when they worked closely with us to meet our launch deadline.”

Eilidh Scott – Education Development Officer, Edinburgh Young Scot

Using the Edinburgh Young Scot SmartBus equipped with BrownstoneIT’s mobile Internet access, the Council takes its services to its customers. Laptops and Internet access come pre-packaged and are working as soon as the satellite dish is aligned.

Business background

When The City of Edinburgh Council contacted BrownstoneIT (BIT), they said they needed a mobile youth information centre to support their new Youth Services strategy. They wanted to promote active citizenship, social inclusion and community safety, amongst other things.

A bus was required with Internet access and laptops, to visit youth clubs, schools and other key locations.

Business need

Edinburgh Young Scot needed immediate data access to the Internet from a variety of locations. Education Development Officer, Eilidh Scott said, “This was essential to support the new Youth Services strategy of the Council. We also sought help with the completion of the SmartBus including identification of LAN infrastructure components, supply of laptops and the installation of wired and wireless LANs.”

BrownstoneIT solution

BrownstoneIT set up a project in which they worked with Edinburgh Young Scot to identify and meet their communication needs for the SmartBus. As well as mobile Internet access, BrownstoneIT supplied Compaq laptops, UPS power protection, wired and wireless network components.

The BrownstoneIT mobile dish is fully automatic in operation, requiring no special skills of the operator. “This was particularly important to Edinburgh Young Scot”, said Eilidh Scott. “We did not have time to learn any complex operating details.”

Fast delivery and a comprehensive service were also vital. “We had a critical launch deadline to meet where we had to demonstrate a fully working bus. This included the laptops networked to the dish through both wired and wireless LANs,” said Eilidh. She added, “BrownstoneIT worked with us to meet our commitment and delivered what we needed, on time.”

Since the launch event, tests and demonstrations by the development team, have impressed audiences. One of the viewers, Mr Alex Cumming, of Edinburgh Young Scot said “We have been unable to detect any performance slow-down, despite simultaneous access to the dish by all 8 laptops. This is an excellent result and vindicates our choice of BrownstoneIT as the dish supplier.”

Anthony Lilly, of BrownstoneIT, commented “We are pleased that our efforts were noted. From now on, no youth club or school will be too remote for Internet access on demand.”

See Also:
» Samsung Mobile Broadband - Samsung road show for the Olympic Games.



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