Loch Ness Castle Lodges comprise a number of separate Individual and High quality houses and log cabins situated on the banks of the River Ness close to the highland capital city of INVERNESS. The houses comprise an original Stone built house with 4 substantial Log cabins over an area of about 1 km along the banks of the river ness. After suffering appalling broadband access (the telex is 6km distant) and having attempted to use mobile broadband with very poor results, Simply WIFI were approached to provide WIFI broadband access to the lodges.

Given that the normal means of ADSL provision had already been tried Simply WIFI surveyed the access for satellite broadband access and although the situation was tight there were some positions where the ground station could see the satellite. The bothy roof was chosen as most desirable position considering weather and access. The Tooway satellite broadband gave the site broadband access at up to 20MB download and 6MB upload, far superior to that which had been achieved to date.

Bothy Satellite and ENS200 Bridge Aerials

The next problem to solve was the distribution of the Satellite broadband from the bothy to the Lodges with the furthest lodge some 1000m distant and a large oak tree potentially in the transmission path. The Satellite system provides a single Ethernet connection with DHCP which required a router to provide NAT and some simple network security.

Site Plan Ness Castle Lodges - showing location of ENS 200 AP / Bridge units.

Due to the spread and the distance required of the transmission the Engenius ENS 200 was chosen to give as high a throughput as possible whilst covering as many lodges as possible. In addition the technology was to be as discrete as it could be so that it did not intrude on the general ambiance of the lodges. In practice it was found that not all of the lodges could be covered with just one AP/Bridge and so 2 were used with one offset to cover the most distant lodges and the other to cover the closer properties.

Lodge installations of the Engenius AP / Bridge. (River Lodge & Red Squirrel Lodges)

Lodge installations of the Engenius AP / Bridge. (River Lodge & Red Squirrel Lodges)

With 2 ENS 200s at the Bothy a single ENS200 was placed within line of sight on each lodge to form the bridge and a Simply WIFI Access point was connected to the bridge and used to provide WIFI throughout each lodge. Each bridge was setup in the clear initially to prove the connection and then secured and the SSID hidden to reduce any confusion for the guests. The ENS 200 was exceptionally easy to configure and the transmission spread was remarkable from such a small directional aerial.

The system has been installed for over 4 months now and the Engenius bridges have proven to be very reliable indeed, providing the lodges with good solid broadband access with very few interruptions.

Clive Watson, Sales Director, Simply WIFI Ltd

Clive@simplywifi.co.uk / www.simplywifi.co.uk

http://nesscastlelodges.co.uk/