Lying on the East Sussex coast at the mouth of the river Ouse, the port of Newhaven has been a thriving passenger and freight terminal for 150 years, having a rich maritime history. With the port operational at all hours of the day or night, and with numerous agencies carrying out time critical tasks, the need for reliable, stable IT systems is paramount.
Newhaven Port Authority is responsible for the ongoing management of the facilities and we had previously carried out work upgrading part of its network, migrating users to Office 365, installing web-filtering and antivirus, and managed back-up solutions for Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery.
Development on the port campus saw the installation of a number of new security gates and associated kiosks, refurbishment of a border control point and connectivity to the port authority offices. In addition, Wi-Fi coverage would be required in certain areas for guests and agencies working on site. Design of solutions would need to take into account security requirements and redundancy in case of any outages.
Extensive liaisons were held between the port authority, third party suppliers and our infrastructure team, designing a solution that resolved the issues presented by this unique location. Due to the dispersed locations of the new buildings, but with a congested spectrum and numerous sources of interference, a fixed wireless solution was not possible.
A combination of Ubiquiti and Unifi equipment was used, involving the installation of equipment cabinets, a number of 48-port and 16-port switches, fixed network access points, external and long range Wi-Fi access points, and all associated cabling and brackets.
Work on installing new communications equipment was planned around the phases required to install new ducting across the site and construction of new buildings, resulting in a multistage project, with a number of visits required. Our infrastructure team had to remain flexible and responsive to the situation on the ground, and any setbacks or delays, whilst remaining agile enough to attend the site when the opportunity arose.
As the project progressed, we worked with third party suppliers to trouble shoot any issues that arose, adapting the project plan and design to take into consideration any changes needed due to unforeseen issues.
“We worked closely with Truebyte, specifically Steve Mansfield, to install the new equipment where needed. It was a large project for us and Steve’s knowledge and prompt troubleshooting was invaluable.”
