Red Bus

Working with Jeff Komen from ADT Security, WiFi Guys welcomed a challange and enjoyed providing a unique solution to receive digital video footage from the Red Bus's as they entered the parking on the corner of Moorehouse and Fitzgerald Aves.

It works like this, if something of interest happens on or around the bus, the driver pushes an event button. When the bus has driven back to the depo, is connects to the wireless network, the video footage with 2-3 mins each side at the time the button was pushed, is uploaded to a local server. This enables the Red Bus staff to access the footage without having to access the bus. It can be serviced/refueled etc and sent back out on the road with no down time.

This removes the need to service the DVR onboard the bus as staff are required to view footage saving time and money.

Using the 5GHz WiFi spectrum, a radio was installed on each bus and hardwired to each DVR. 3 x local WiFi Repeaters were installed over the Red Bus complex giving blanket coverage.

After the September earthquake, WiFi Guys were able to quickly replace the damaged repeater equipment and redeploy.

Jeff is the Business Development Executive and understands what it takes for a professional solution to work.

Shotover Sunshine Festival

the event was a suscess. Not much could have been done to make things more stable as there were no majour outages.... PDF Report

Ski Porter

Ski Porter Luke manages Skiporters and understands how quickly a business can be affected without a reliable braodband internet connection. With Skiportes located in the Southern Alps of the South Island, it is a true test to todays technology.
From blistering winds to blinding snow and frozen ice. But still the broadband functions without a hitch.

Relying on a internet connection via a satalite antenna on the staff accomidation building lower down the hill the data was sent then via an old 2.4GHz data link to the main office. This conbination of equipment required his attention from time to time to kick back into life and gave continues preformance issues.

WiFi Guys were able to arange a DSL connnection, supply and install a 35Km wireless data link from Sheffield to Tower 2 on the skifield. This is powered via solar panels and a battery pack. The batteries are charged up via petrol generators during the winter season due to the lack of solar energy at no additional cost as the skifield allready had these installed.
This reduced the size and cost of the solar panels to produce the energy required to run the data repeater during these months.

From Tower 2, there is an local AP that connects to the main office. This is allow them to install another radio at the workshop in the future and have instant access to broadband and the local network servers etc.

The wireless equipment installed allows for two WiFi SSiD's, the first is their local admin network for staff to access via their laptops, tablets and smart phones etc. The second SSiD is a free hotspot service to the public. Using the latest technology of that used by Internet Service Providers, Skiporters are able to easyly and cheaply upgrade and expand the network in the extream conditions they are faced with.

Luke, Site Manager says the system worked faultlessly last season with no outages over the 2011 season.

PDF Report

St Mary's WiFi upgrade

School systems of the future

The client: St Mary's school in Christchurch commissioned WiFi Guys to upgrade their WiFi networks in 2013. The upgrade went smoothly but after it was completed and tested, principal David O'Neill asked us to look into a long-term issue that had been bothering him before the upgrade even happened.

The issue: Most of the devices around the school had WiFi capability built-in but some of these devices had no connectivity. Always willing to go the extra mile for a customer, we took on the challenge of working out what these additional issues were.

Delivering a solution: There was basic CAT5 data cabling around the school that was able to be utilised and the wider issue was due to a DHCP, a protocol used to assign address on the network. Problem: there weren't enough IP addresses available. We were able to point the customer in the right direction to get this fixed. The internet connection is supplied by Snap Internet.

What our customers said: "After the upgrade we had some issues that seemed similar to before the upgrade. WiFi Guys are knowledgeable with networking in general and were able to solve a long outstanding issue. Now we are a fault free WiFi school. This gives me the time to manage education issues and not continuous networking issues. "Cost effective is an understatement. If St Mary's had to comply to government regulations, we would have been forced to purchase a very expensive WiFi solution well over-specified for our environment. Now we have no ongoing costs to pay anyone each year for using our own WiFi network. Thank you WiFi Guys for your outstanding effort." David O'Neill the Principal, St Mary's School Teacher Cathleen Bradley had this to say: ''We are now able to complete cloud based exams and online education for the first time ever with no disconnections."

The verdict: An initially simple project that was delivered on time became a slightly more complex challenge - because we went above and beyond to help the customer, long-term issues were resolved. Students and teachers can now benefit from having the latest technology at their fingertips.

Photo Gallery: Above is David in the office speed testing the network using the popular tool, SpeedTest.net. As you can see, his IPhone5 is able to download 50Mbps and upload 48Mbps.

Bottlelake Forest Web Cam

About the park

Bottle Lake Forest Park is situated approximately 10km north-east of central Christchurch, adjacent to the coast. It is a production forest and trees are felled and logged in a 30 year rotation by Raynoier/Matariki Forests. Operational logging areas are usually clearly signposted and marked 'out of bounds'.

The visitor centre, located at the Waitikiri Drive entrance, has map boards and brochures with details of the tracks and trails which include mountain-bike tracks, horse-trekking trails and walking tracks. Tracks include long and short options to suit all ages and levels of fitness.

Developed from a farm in the early 1900s the forest expanded from coastal protection plantings to its present size. It is planted with mostly Pinus radiata and covers over 800 hectares of coastal sand dunes. The combined area of these forests is four times the size of Hagley Park and as such forms an important asset to metropolitan Christchurch.

This information and more can be found at the CCC bottle lake Page

Ruby on Rails - Community Project

This is another example how WiFi Guys have helped the local community.

The two day course was organized by Rebekah Wilson under the umbrella wififorhumanity.org It was a privilege for WiFi Guys to help provide a broadband service for the Ruby on Rails course so young women from 8 years old were are able to assist the youth get a good basic understanding of a programing language.

This was only possible with the help of the local community offering their programming knowledge at no charge to help train tomorrows future programmers.

Cow Shed Point to Point data link

Today we are installing a 2.4GHz WiFi Point-to-Point Data Link between a cow shed and the farm house.

I like to compare this to a road network. Once it is installed, you can run any traffic over it. The same with a WiFi TCP/IP network. You can remote access a computer, view live IP Video cameras, control and monitor irrigator systems. The list goes on and on.

Tomorrow someone will invent something and it will run over TCP/IP network. Next year something else will be invented, it will plug straight into your WiFi network.

WiFi networks are commonly used to remote access computer systems. The farm manager is now able to remote access the computer from anywhere on the farm, as long as they are connected to the farm WiFi network.