Big Box delivers Christmas connectivity in the Orkney Isles
Following damage to a subsea cable in the Orkney Isles in late 2020, BT’s Emergency Response Team (ERT) used Big Box to provide emergency cover to the community.
During the course of the outage, from 18th to 29th December, the team used a combination of BT 4G hubs in key locations on the island, along with a Big Box located at a school to provide connectivity for the community over the Christmas period.
Big Box was positioned so that the network covered the car park, which meant that people were able to park up and browse, maintaining social distance and staying warm in their cars.
ERT are using two Big Box systems as part of their response to threats to information services, such as extreme weather events and flooding, in the UK.
“This is the first time I have used it for an incident and was very impressed. Other than one outage which I think was a local power blip it was up and working. Key for me was being able to log in remotely. The island is 360 miles from me and there are no engineers based there, I did have a local contact who was able to reset the kit and I was able to see it all come back into service.”
Big Box at Westray Junior High School