Harrogate International Centre’s decision to bring the running of its wireless systems in-house has paid off following the success of the recent British Medical Association (BMA) conference.
The high-profile event was the first large conference to take place since HIC Yorkshire made a major investment in 70 Wi-Fi access points throughout its halls. Despite heavy demand on the new system, BMA organisers said the Wi-Fi ‘worked like a dream’ throughout the four-day meeting.
Ali Astal, HIC Yorkshire’s senior IT-manager said: We felt our previous Wi-Fi system, which was provided by an external company, couldn’t match the needs of the modern conference delegate so I decided to bring the whole operation in-house.
Installing our own system from scratch took two months of planning, hard work and system tests but we wanted it ready for BMA.To get such glowing feedback from the BMA organisers proved we got it right.
The head of BMA’s infrastructure, Tony Wood said: I think the complete experience was outstanding from the first meeting all the way through to the end of the actual event.
At HIC we just turned up and it all worked.
HIC director, Simon Kent added: Ali has done a phenomenal job, essentially designing and building us a fabulous Wi-Fi system from the ground up.
Medical and health conferences always make huge demands of a venue’s Wi-Fi system so we wanted to make sure everything was absolutely perfect for BMA 2014.
It turned out that bringing our Wi-Fi service in-house was the right choice because now we can react to any issues as they happen and we have complete control of the system.
