17 May 2016

RNLI upgrades its national WAN network to connect all stations in the UK and Ireland

The Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI), the charity which saves lives at sea, has connected and upgraded the national wide area network (WAN) of all its 237 lifeboat stations in a partnership with communications and integration provider KCOM.

Lifeboat stations have deployed Cisco routers, switches and wireless access points (APs) after identifying them as being cost effective and providing all of the necessary functionality through the KCOM technical team. The new, fully managed service is supporting ongoing plans to make its lifesaving work more accessible to volunteers, colleagues and supporters by providing wireless APs at the lifeboat stations. These are all connected to the Poole HQ.

“Upgrading the connectivity has really enabled some sites to improve their agility,” said Kathryn Askew-Smith, RNLI project manager at KCOM. “For example, one site used to take an hour to upload their on-boat video footage whereas on the new connection it took a couple of minutes.”

KCOM is now working with the RNLI to roll out plans for the Republic of Ireland, which is due to be connected by Autumn 2016. There are 38 sites in Ireland and, according to Askew-Smith, the project is “well underway”.