Partington’s Holiday Parks | TP-Link United Kingdom

Goal

To deliver seamless connectivity across their holiday parks, essential back-office applications, point of sale and guest wireless solutions.
Managed Connectivity

Total connectivity solution provided by Metro IT along with configuration and proactive remote network management.
Solution Criteria

To provide good and stable internet to reach all corners of the park along with the product being robust for outdoor use.

Implementation Partner

Background of Partington’s

Partington's Holiday Parks is a family owned and run business based near Blackpool, Lancashire, UK. Established almost 80 years ago, the fourth generation of the Partington's family is at the helm, providing great value, high quality holiday homes and short break holidays on six holiday parks across Lancashire, Lake District and the Yorkshire Dales. The business employs around 300 staff across its six holiday parks

IT Manager Harry Compston is responsible for technology and infrastructure. He and his team, including IT Technician David Hale, look after all aspects of IT in Partington's offices, accommodation, public areas and hospitality settings.
Outdoor Environment With Many Physical Obstructions

Partington's is on a mission to offer relaxing family holidays. For today's leisure customers, Wi-Fi access is part of the holiday - for browsing, viewing and staying in touch as well as for contactless mobile payments.

Harry Compston explains: "We have to think about providing a good service as well as the aesthetics. People don't want to see cabling and technology everywhere they go on the park, but we need a network of access points that give consistent coverage: they must be robust, as most are outdoors, and they must deliver a strong signal to reach all the corners of the parks. That's not easy with people using Wi-Fi in caravans that are made of metal."

"The performance and robustness are excellent and the TP-LINK equipment is great value. We really like the lifetime warranties on the equipment - it's important to us that we can replace them quickly if necessary. That's peace of mind, even though we haven't needed to replace anything."

Harry Compston, IT Manager, Partington's Holiday Parks

The Legacy Network

Partington's had been using a well-known brand for Wi-Fi access points and infrastructure. "The system was five years old and not giving us the coverage, we needed," says Harry. "We needed to upgrade all our sites, but at a realistic budget."

Trusted advisor John Birch at reseller Metro IT and Office Supplies recommended TP-LINK products."I wasn't familiar with the brand," Harry admits. "I wanted to be sure it could deliver the high performance we needed. So we decided to put the TP-LINK kit through its paces by installing it in our holiday park at Black Beck in the Lake District."
The Solution - Powerful, Site-wide Wi-Fi Installation

From a technology point of view, Black Beck is Partington's toughest challenge. Harry explains: "The beautiful Lakeland setting means there are lots of rocks, trees and natural features that get in the way of Wi-Fi coverage. There's high guest demand for Wi-Fi, as there's no mobile signal. And the Cumbrian winter climate means the equipment needs to be very robust."

John Birch facilitated remote meetings with TP-LINK's technical experts, sharing maps showing the current access points. The team decided to replace the existing access points like for like, to assess the strength of the new Wi-Fi compared to the old.

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Total Cloud Managed Network

Enhanced Connectivity and Seamless Performance

"As soon as we put the access points in, we could see the difference," says David Hale. "The TP-LINK points immediately found the next hub, whereas the old system struggled. The TP-LINK access points are small and neat - we positioned them carefully for line of sight and all of them worked perfectly."

Rigours Testing for Durability

Partington's installed the Black Beck Wi-Fi network before the winter shutdown - the team wanted to check the outdoor access points would cope with wind, rain and low temperatures. In March, when the park reopened, all the access points were working perfectly. That was the proof Harry needed to sign off the TP-LINK rollout to three more sites, ahead of the summer season.
Great Value Managed System

"The coverage is great," says David. "We have more network strength from the same number of access points and have even been able to remove some in places." John Birch agrees, "The radius is much bigger and better than before. In my experience, there's more power in TP-LINK access points than other manufacturers."

Harry adds, "The only issues we now have are due to our own switches and infrastructure. We're replacing everything with TP-LINK equipment because it's affordable and the performance is very good - it will be great to have a single management view when we've completed this roll-out."

Streamlined Troubleshooting Dashboard

David finds the TP-LINK dashboard management easy to use: "There's not much routine management to do. We have had one or two issues with meshing with our old switches - the software clearly showed us what the dropouts were - it's much better than our previous software. You can see reports for the last 24 hours at a glance, which is great for troubleshooting if people say they can't get signal. But we hardly get any calls about this now, which saves us time."

Seamless Wi-Fi

Multiple SSIDs and Access Controls

At Black Beck and the other parks where TP-LINK is fully deployed, Partington's uses multiple SSIDs to offer a public guest network with a communal password that's changed periodically. There are several staff networks - some restricted to the internet, some for hardware (like TVs) and one with controlled access to office systems. "Setting up the guest networks and using the backend has been straightforward," says David.

Mission Critical Connectivity

The Wi-Fi network also supports contactless payments in some parks. "We use table ordering by tablet in restaurants and bars, both outside and inside. There are pool tables and other games that guests access with Wi-Fi payments - we've had no issues with this. The access points are not overloading even in high traffic areas," Harry confirms.
Future Proofed Wi-Fi Solution

Partington's will complete the TP-LINK Wi-Fi rollout to all its parks this year. Harry is very pleased with the value and quality of the equipment. "It all helps to underpin high guest satisfaction. Because it's so competitively priced, we've been able to replace everything with TP-LINK, which gives us consistent, robust infrastructure. The support from Metro and TP-LINK has been quick and responsive when needed. We're looking forward to a trouble-free season ahead when it comes to our Wi-Fi connectivity."

"The TP-LINK Wi-Fi has increased guest satisfaction - it's a high-quality service to match the rest of our holiday package. We're very impressed with the range of the access points. We're confident using Wi-Fi more and more for contactless payments and tablet ordering in our restaurants and bars because we know it's so reliable. "

Harry Compston, IT Manager, Partington's Holiday Parks