Nildram's home win at the FA
Aim
With an expanding network of home workers, the Football Association turned to Nildram to provide a fast, secure and cost-effective broadband solution.
To make an informed decision about which provider to opt for, Ian visited UK-based information portals and websites dealing with broadband services, in particular ADSL. "I started doing a lot of research looking at the providers' ratings and the users' comments on the forums. Nildram came top every time - people trusted Nildram."
Developing sport to the wider audience
Football's governing body, the Football Association (FA) has played a pivotal role in the success of the UK game, with its ability to promote and develop the sport to wider audience. To achieve this success, the FA established a nationwide network of home workers who organise cup competitions, youth development, refereeing, coaching and medical matters.
Recently, the FA replaced its standard analogue and ISDN links to its home workers with Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Lines (ADSLs) from Nildram, the UK's leading supplier of Internet access solutions. The move not only increased the speed of information transfers, it also removed barriers that prevented effective communication, as the FA's support manager, Ian Dimmock, points out.
Switching to Broadband
"ADSL allows us to send more information, faster," he notes. "We can deploy applications remotely, whereas before it was unworkable. Now, hot fixes and virus updates are done centrally because we can send them through the ADSL connections. There doesn't seem to be any barriers now."
The decision to switch to broadband, with connections capable of 512kbps, was based on speed, flexibility and reliability. More importantly, as Ian admits, "the old ISDN service was not only insecure, it was also extremely expensive". "The home workers would make direct-dial connections into London for up to nine hours a day. Since these were generally national calls, the cost over the course of the year was tremendous. We also couldn't guarantee the security of the users' machines, so they were fairly restricted in the data they could access."
What is more, sending large files from the FA's London-based headquarters to the home workers was often impossible due to the restricted data transfer rates offered by ISDN. Often forced to rely on the postal service, it was obvious the FA required a modern, high-tech solution. "We needed high speeds to transmit the files, and that is what ADSL gave us," Ian says.
It's incredible, I get less headaches managing 100 ADSL's than I had with just five ISDN accounts. We definitely made the right decision when we chose Nildram.
Nildram tailored ADSL solution
Following a meeting to discuss the FA's requirements, Nildram tailored an ADSL solution complete with centralised firewall based on a Cisco PIX system. Due to the unparalleled security, performance and stability provided by the firewall and Nildram's bespoke service, the FA was able to grant additional access to its home workers, establish nearly 100 broadband accounts and relieve Ian of a number of headaches.
"Because of the firewall, we know the users' laptops are secure, so they now have access to our local file server and internal intranet," Ian says. "It's incredible, I get less headaches managing 100 ADSLs than I had with just five ISDN accounts. We definitely made the right decision when we chose Nildram."