Premier U.K. Conference Centre Selects ADTRAN to Double Capacity and Expand Wireless Connectivity

LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

ADTRAN^®, Inc., ADTN, a leading provider of cloud connectivity, enterprise communications and virtual mobility solutions, today announced that the Edinburgh International Conference Centre (EICC) has deployed ADTRAN's Bluesocket virtual wireless LAN (vWLAN®) solution as part of its major facility expansion and renovation upgrade project. EICC turned to ADTRAN for a wireless solution that ensured optimal connectivity within a very high density Wi-Fi environment. EICC deployed ADTRAN's vWLAN with high availability software to achieve a fault tolerant Wi-Fi environment, ensuring maximum Wi-Fi connectivity for exhibitors, guests and operational staff.

Already serving 200,000 visitors a year, the EICC is doubling its conference capacity with a 1,600m² multi-purpose hall, additional break-out rooms and a new delegate cafe. To accommodate the impact this growth will have on its wireless network, EICC began exploring a cloud-based wireless LAN solution to solve critical capacity, operational and scaling burdens which they were facing with their previous Wi-Fi network solution. ADTRAN's Bluesocket vWLAN solution virtualizes WLAN control and management on centralized software residing in the cloud, enabling EICC to avoid the substantial expense and operational constraints inherent with traditional WLAN hardware-based controller solutions.

With traditional hardware controllers, IT must manage access points by location while facing prohibitive scaling constraints. The vWLAN control and management software and Bluesocket access points can be located independent of each other – anywhere in the networked world. This provides a more dynamic and flexible solution to address network demands in real time, and supports ten times the amount of access points than a hardware based controller can support. As a result, the EICC benefits from greater scalability, simplified administration, a reduced Total Cost of Ownership (TCO), increased capacity, and integrated guest access services to support its various events. Eliminating Wi-Fi hardware controllers, which can account for up to 80% of the energy consumption in a wireless network, also helps EICC meet its green IT initiative goals set forth by its corporate sustainability strategy.

“In selecting a WLAN product we needed to build in scalability to cope with our new facilities which will double our capacity in 2013. ADTRAN's Bluesocket vWLAN makes that expansion as simple as just plugging in the new access points,” stated Richard Lloyd, client ICT facilitator at the EICC.

“This deployment, within a very dense and demanding environment, further validates vWLAN's key advantages over hardware-based controller solutions,” stated Chris Koeneman, vice president of sales for ADTRAN's Bluesocket Business Group. “When an organization has the scaling and flexibility needs that EICC has, a software-based virtual WLAN solution provides the best opportunity to address network demands while lowering TCO, maximizing resources and fulfilling energy efficiency initiatives.”

About ADTRAN

ADTRAN, Inc. is a leading global provider of networking and communications equipment. ADTRAN's products enable voice, data, video and Internet communications across a variety of network infrastructures. ADTRAN solutions are currently in use by service providers, private enterprises, government organizations, and millions of individual users worldwide. For more information, please visit www.adtran.com.