WiFi SPARK awarded tender for Mid Ulster District Council's Public WiFi

The Council tendered for the review, design, delivery and implementation of WiFi for Dungannon and Coal Island Town Centres for the next 5 years and WiFi SPARK’s submission was the winning bid.

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Dungannon and Coalisland are two of the five principal towns located within Mid Ulster District Council. Both are renowned for their retail assets, providing a wide mix of independent shops and high street names.  As a town centre, it is essential to continue to bring in new marketing products and services which will help promote the retail core.

WiFi SPARK provided the original town WiFi in 2013 within the retail core of Dungannon, and in 2014 within the retail core of Coalisland. This facility has been widely utilised by various clientele including Businesses & SMEs, Visitors, Students and Residents. WiFi SPARK implemented a wireless network in the main retail core, providing ‘on the go’ access for visitors and locals alike.

The infrastructure has been in place for six years in Dungannon and five years in Coalisland so it was an opportune time to review and upgrade the service in both retail cores.

The proposal from WiFi SPARK offered high quality, user friendly, reliable solution that is scalable for future expansion if required. For this deployment, the coverage was extended in Dungannon to include Anne Street and Railway Park.

In addition to offering public WiFi access to visitors, the solution is fully managed which means that content filtering, bandwidth management and 24/7 support and monitoring is included to take the strain away from the Council’s IT team.

As well as the public WiFi, the Council also has access to SPARK® Analytics, to view user/device information, WiFi usage statistics and new sign-ups. Also available is SPARK® CMS, which is a dashboard that allows the Council to manage and customise elements of their solution, including UX design.

WiFi SPARK has extensive experience in designing, delivering and supporting public access WiFi and engagement services throughout the UK and Ireland. WiFi SPARK is the leading provider of town WiFi in Northern Ireland and currently provides services in over 25 towns in NI alone. Stemming from this experience, the tender submission scored 100% and the contract commenced another 5 years of partnership.