SUMMARY

Hudson Valley-based construction firm S&O Construction Services, Inc. has been able to literally bridge the gap between its two previously digitally-unconnected buildings, despite a distance of 300 meters. The AIRBRIDGE wireless system, installed by local managed service provider (MSP) Integrated Enterprises Solutions, has overcome a challenge that would otherwise have been very difficult, extremely expensive — if not impossible — with other methods.

BACKGROUND

S&O provides heating, air conditioning, ventilation and plumbing services to a broad range of industries throughout the Hudson Valley area of New York. Established for over 30 years, S&O specializes in the public sector, covering: correctional facilities, hospitals, psychiatric centers, schools, military buildings, colleges and universities, water and sewage treatment. The company is currently based on a campus in Pleasant Valley, New York State, where it has two locations: one office building, and a warehouse approximately 300 meters apart.

PROBLEM/OBJECTIVE

Until recently, the warehouse did not have Internet access, because the underground conduit that could have been used to run cabling had been damaged during construction. The cost of installing cabling and a new conduit would have been prohibitive. Standard WiFi was not an option, due to the 300-meter distance between the two buildings. Cellular data connectivity was not viable, due to the poor quality of the signal inside the metal building. Robert Rusnack, CFO at S&O, says: “We figured we would never have Internet at the warehouse.”

However, during a conversation with local managed service provider Integrated Enterprise Solutions (IES) Inc., a possible solution became apparent. Helping businesses in the Hudson Valley with their IT needs since 1998, IES offers a full range of services, including equipment, integration and acting as customers’ virtual IT departments.

INSTALLATION

Acting as a local area network, the design of the system is simple. There is an AIRBRIDGE unit installed at each location. At the warehouse, AIRBRIDGE is connected to a NETGEAR switch, which is then connected to a WAC510 wireless access point. The switch includes Power-over-Ethernet (PoE), so it is also powering the WAC510, removing the need for additional electrical wiring, and reducing energy consumption. At the office building, AIRBRIDGE is connected to a WAC505 wireless access point.

Says Eric, “I preconfigured everything in our lab, using the NETGEAR Insight cloud network management portal to make sure that all the products were talking to each other. I then boxed everything up, and left it with the customer to unbox. A couple of days later, I got a call from Robert to say that the AIRBRIDGE system had been fast and easy to set up and was working well.”

The beta AIRBRIDGES at S&O’s two buildings have since been replaced by the official ‘general release’ (GA) versions, typically providing 400Mbps speed, which is ample for S&O’s requirements. Says Robert, “Airbridge is so easy to install that I can do it all myself, especially with the ports on both the receiver and transmitter clearly marked.”

RESULTS

Robert continues, “S&O Construction would most definitely recommend the NETGEAR AIRBRIDGE to other companies who wish to have full service Internet access where they currently think they cannot. Running cabling and implementing additional services is expensive, whereas one set of AIRBRIDGE point-topoint transmitters provide the same excellent quality as a wired Internet connection, which was exactly what we needed.”

“AIRBRIDGE has made it possible for us to have Internet phones — acting as office extensions — as well Internet access, so our warehouse employee can have a networked computer in his office to access emails and our file server. I could not be happier with AIRBRIDGE, and in our certain circumstance, it is the perfect product for something that I didn’t think we would ever be able to do.”

Since then, another company on the same campus asked IES to install AIRBRIDGE to solve the same challenge, and more are expected to follow. Eric concludes, “AIRBRIDGE can save companies like S&O money compared to installing wires — even assuming that is a possibility — making it simple to connect spread-apart locations, with minimal disruption, fast and easily.”

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