D-Link Unified Network upgrades Communication Services at New Zealand’s Premier Exhibition Centre, ASB Showgrounds
ASB Showgrounds, New Zealand's Premier Events and Exhibition Centre located in Auckland's Cornwall Park, has more than 18,000m2 of events and exhibition space and offers a full range of event products and services, including catering facilities.
With over 1.8 million visitors a year, local and international shows held at the Showgrounds including Top Gear Live, Armageddon, Big Boys Toys, The Auckland Home Show, The Royal Easter Show, Fine Food New Zealand and NZ’s Largest Stock Clearance Sale.
The Challenge
Until recently, exhibitors and visitors to the Showgrounds relied on public wireless and fixed line communications services provided by telecommunications companies, particularly 3G mobile phone and data services. Exhibitors at ASB Showgrounds typically hired wireless EFTPOS facilities based on 3G services, for example, to process card transactions.
Public wireless and fixed line communication services, however, were limited in the number of users and speed of communications they could support.
For many exhibitors, it was costly and impractical to set up fixed communications services. While 3G mobile services were easy to set up, they were subject to unexpected surges in traffic volume. That often lead to network congestion and delayed processing card transactions and Internet access.
“At busy times, exhibitors with EFTPOS facilities would have to wait 10-15 seconds to get a response which caused long queues of people waiting to pay,” said John Robertson, Marketing Manager for ASB Showgrounds. “On quiet days it would be fine, then all of sudden you would get 20,000 visitors which leads to overloaded networks. At a recent show, we had a wireless 3G network shut down completely for that reason.”
In addition to solving problems with public wireless network capacity, ASB Showgrounds wanted to raise the level of communications services offered to exhibitors to improve customer satisfaction and business competitiveness. In addition to faster and more reliable EFTPOS services, ASB Showgrounds wanted to provide reliable high-speed wireless Internet access and other wireless communication services, such as Voice over IP, in the future. Based on these requirements, ASB Showgrounds evaluated new networking infrastructure solutions from three competing suppliers. Before proposing its solution, DLink conducted a free wireless site survey.
ASB Showgrounds chose D-Link’s solution over its competitors because of its local presence and reliability, outstanding support and service levels and its ability to provide state of the art technology at a reasonable price point.
The Solution
D-Link reseller partner Elbow Solutions supplied and installed the solution. At the core of the network a DWS-3024 Managed Unified Wired/Wireless Switch has been installed which is connected to eight DES-1228P WebSmart Switches with PoE via multimode fibre-optic cables to create a high-speed Ethernet backbone. Forty DWL-8500AP Unified Wireless Access Points are connected to the WebSmart Switches via Power over Ethernet providing wireless coverage throughout the ASB Showgrounds site.
The D-Link DWS-3024 provides a single point of control for managing security and bandwidth. Profiles and settings only need to be configured once to be applied to all wireless access points (APs). As well as monitoring users’ identities and maintaining their authentication as they roam, the switches can configure and control RF channel and power management, wireless traffic segmentation, AP roaming and load balancing, rogue AP detection and AP access security. In addition to the business-class management capabilities offered by the switches, ASB Showgrounds installed a D-Link DSA-3600 Multi Service Business Gateway. This supports a customisable login portal page to allow exhibitors and visitors to set up, pay for and manage their own wireless access accounts.
Customer Benefits
By implementing the new D-Link networking infrastructure, ASB Showgrounds has dramatically increased the speed and reliability of communications services available to exhibitors and visitors. In conjunction with Elbow Solutions, ASB Showgrounds has launched a wireless EFTPOS service, with terminals and network access available for about half the cost of previous 3G-based services.
“The new service offers much higher performance and reliability,” said Robertson. “A number of exhibitors at the Royal Easter Show in particular have commented on how quickly EFTPOS transactions are now processed. As soon as customers enter their PIN number, the transaction completes, so people do not have to queue any more.
“As a promotion, we gave an EFTPOS terminal to the one-man business that sells baked potatoes,” said Robertson. “He is now able to do extra business because not everyone carries cash.”
The new wireless EFTPOS solution and wireless Internet access packages not only provide a superior service to exhibitors and visitors at a lower price, they also provide an additional revenue stream which will ensure the new system pays for itself.
Set-up and management of the new solution was simplified by the installation of the D-Link DSA-3600 Multi Service Business Gateway, saving ASB Showgrounds and Elbow Solutions time and money.
ASB Showgrounds will also launch additional new services for exhibitors and visitors which will further improve customer satisfaction by providing even better services at lower costs.
“The D-Link solution made it easy to set up on-demand services. We created all the pricing plans ourselves, which was brilliant, and it was easy to integrate and manage,” said Robertson. “In the future, the wireless network will also be used for VoIP handsets to provide telephone services to exhibitors.”
Featured Products
DSA-3600 Multi-Service Business Gateway
DWS-3024 24-Port 10/100/1000Mbps L2 Managed Unified Wired/Wireless Switch
DWL-8500AP Wireless Switching 108AG Access Point for DWS-3024
Please visit the web address below for more information on the complete line of
business products:
www.dlink.co.nz
D-LINK NEW ZEALAND Sales: 09 356 2158 | Support: 0800 900 900
Download D-Link Unified Network ASB Showgrounds Case Study (PDF)
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