Kettle Produce Ltd
Gigabit Wireless Connects Processing Plants
Aerelink, the country's leading wireless system integrator recently completed the installation of the first of type wireless solution in Scotland for one of the UK's leading food producers. Kettle Produce Ltd, based in Fife, Scotland has two processing plants approximately three kilometers apart as the crow flies.
The plants were already linked wirelessly using technology maintained by Aerelink, but there was a desire to transmit an increasing amount of data over this link and it was feared that it simply couldn't cope with the added pressure.
The Client
Kettle produce is a supplier of prepared produce to the European retail and food service sectors.
The company was established in 1985 but has over 27 years' experience in vegetable production.
Headquartered in Fife, Scotland where it employs over 850 staff, it also has business interests in England, France, Spain and Portugal.
Kettle is the largest prepared vegetable supplier to the UK multiple retail sectors. Turnover in 2004 was in excess of £67m and production in the same year was in excess of 81,000 tonnes.
The Requirement
Aerelink were engaged by Kettle Produce who had an immediate requirement for 100mbps.
With one eye on the future and the other on the purse strings, they also asked if there was any system available that could provide an upgrade path to 1000mbps (1Gb).
"The solution from Aerelink is a fantastic way for us to future proof our investment in wireless technology, because it gives us low ongoing costs and the ability to grow without further spend."
Iain Howard – IT Manager
The Solution
Aerelink were very pleased to be able to offer a system that could do both; a system that was available to purchase as a 100mbps system, but that could also be upgraded through a software licensing key to 1Gb with no additional hardware.
The system made by American company, Bridgewave is called the Adapt Rate (AR) 80X.
The Benefits
Aerelink's Bridgewave solution ticked all the customer's boxes and furthermore was able to offer something that many traditional telecommunications providers cannot provide in a cost effective manner: 1Gb speed.
The system has a further benefit, which is the ability to step down from 1Gb to 100mbps in atrocious weather conditions, which is something that many other wireless systems cannot even do.
The system was installed within days of receiving the go ahead and the customer is now not only enjoying an increase in available bandwidth, but is also safe in the knowledge that the system has capacity built in to allow for further increased demand of up to ten times more.
The only ongoing cost is an annual maintenance agreement between Kettle Produce and Aerelink, with an SLA which guarantees an engineer to site within 8 hours of a call being placed, complete with necessary spares, should the unthinkable actually happen.
The Bridgewave solution's benefits and features are:
- Lowest total cost of ownership, gigabit performance
- Fiber alternative, up to 8 kilometers link with clear Line Of Sight (LOS)
- Reliability to 99.999% with AdaptRate/AdaptPath
- FIPS 197 compatible 256 bit encryption option
- 80GHz license £50 per annum
- SNMP management
- Small form factor
