Digital

Digital connectivity – Connectivity at Seaton Estate

April 10, 2024 by Stewart Hamilton No Comments | Category Digital Scotland, Reaching 100% programme

Blog by Karen Tease, Communications and Engagement Executive, Digital Connectivity Division.

Continuing our series on the story of the Reaching 100% (R100) programme, our second blog is about one of the registered suppliers on the programme.  

A supplier is a company that is part of the R100 Scottish Broadband Voucher Scheme (SBVS) who can install broadband using the government funding that is available. One of those is Leisure Connect who specialise in providing internet services to harder to reach properties around Scotland. One of the locations they’re currently building a superfast network at is Seaton Estate in Arbroath, which includes 67 premises that are R100 SBVS eligible. 

John McShane, Sales Director, at Leisure Connect has worked closely with the park owners and the Scottish Government’s R100 team to design a network that uses a Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) solution. 

John said: “Seaton Estate is a residential and holiday village that sits on the east coast of Angus, so key to the install was discretion and minimal disruption to residents and visitors. My team worked closely with the park owners to agree the cabinet and antenna locations as well as using relatively unobtrusive street furniture and network equipment”. 

Ian Smith, Operations Director at Leisure Connect explains that it was a complex challenge that required an innovative solution, “When we first looked at the possibility of Seaton Estate it was clear that it was going to be a challenge to deliver fibre using one delivery method. We then decided that due to trees, weather factors in terms of where the site is and the aesthetics of the park that we would design a hybrid solution using fibre in the ground and point to point technology combined. This allowed us to deliver fibre between our destination cabinets around the estate and allowed us to deliver a superfast network service to the users on park.” 

Stephen Bradford, R100 Deployment Manager, who visited the park to see the work being carried out said: “Leisure Connect portray a professional image which is reflected in the quality of its staff and the work they do. The reinstatement of the grounds after laying the fibre cable was excellent with no complaints from the residents or site manager.” 

Kristian, General Manager at Seaton Estate explains that they were instantly attracted to Leisure Connect’s proposal of a new superfast enabled network in and around the park. “The process started way back last year but I can genuinely say that working with John, Ian and the team has been a pleasure, and we now have a fully superfast broadband enabled park and happy residents. This has massively helped with residential owners and holiday makers and has helped us increase our bookings and ensure that our residents have the best internet available.” 

Leisure Connect had a team on site providing the FWA connections to the residents via small antennas mounted on the outside of their properties. They would then complete the work with the installation of the customer premises equipment, commonly known as a Wi-Fi router, before making their connection live.

John added: “Our approach to this build was to roll-out each cabinet and its associated antenna in phases before moving on to the next part of the park. This kept disruption to a minimum and made sure that once a property’s build was complete, they could order their service rather than waiting on the whole park to go live”.

This new R100 SBVS-funded network has improved connectivity across the site and residents are thrilled. Mr and Mrs Alexander, Seaton Estate residents said, “When the park approached us, we were a bit sceptical of the offering as we had a really slow connection from another supplier and had been told it was the best we could get in our area. But the staff onsite from Leisure Connect helped us apply for the voucher to allow us to get a free installation and a much faster service. We have been delighted so far and are able to use services that we could not use before.”

To learn more about the R100 SBVS and how you or your business might be eligible for a subsidy of up to £5,000, visit our voucher pages.

Tags: broadband, connectivity, R100, Reaching 100 % programme, scotland

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