Projects

SONET Communications has had continuous business growth over the last 18 years and has expanded services geographically to cover the UK Mainland, Scotland, Ireland, and France and has also delivered projects internationally. 

Since early 2012 Sonet Communications has been involved in various Windfarm sites across the UK. This involved the supply and installation of cabling, termination and bi-directional testing of fibre optic cabling within the Windfarm industry. Our engineers have all the relevant H&S certificates and training required for working within this environment.

Completed Projects

  • Crighshane –  Co. Tyrone
  • Church Hill –  Co. Tyrone
  • Carrickatane – Strabane, Co.Tyrone
  • Witherenwick – East Riding, Yorkshire
  • Hyndburn – Accrington, Lancashire
Dunbia Group

In July 2011 Dunbia Group IT Department decided to upgrade the entire Dunbia Estate, which at that time consisted of thirteen sites across the United Kingdom and the Republic Of Ireland. After initial discussions, a pilot project was undertaken to upgrade the Fibre Optic Backbone Provision at the main company headquarters site located on the Granville Industrial Estate, close to Dungannon, Northern Ireland. This progressed to a Network Cable Refresh across all UK And Ireland sites.

Other clients in this industry include:

  • Foyle Food Group
  • Cranswick Country Foods
  • Linden Foods
  • Glanbia Cheese
  • Dale Farm
Network and telephony upgrades for an international banking group

An international banking group made the decision to upgrade their existing Voice and Data network. It was decided that a VOIP system would be installed which would enable the bank to make substantial savings on yearly telephone expenses. With a group as extensive as theirs consisting of 3500+ sites which included branches, call centres and head offices, it was decided to divide the project between several different companies. Sonet was initially responsible for Scotland and the North of England, which comprised of over 1200 locations. This was increased by a further 800 branches to include the London, South England and the Midlands.

Stage 1 of the project was to take a detailed on-site survey of every branch. This was to determine the number of workstations, printers and ATM’s that were going to be upgraded. This process lasted over 12 months and once all the information was examined and confirmed the decision was given to proceed with the transformation of branches.

Stage 2 involved the removal of the old Cisco switches and routers, which were replaced with up to date models to allow for the extra network usage that is inherent in VOIP. The transformation process involved the backing up of all workstations and the server to preserve all essential information. When the branch had closed the new network equipment was installed and connectivity to the newly managed IBM network was proven. Only when this had been achieved could the workstations, printers and ATM’s be re-booted and thoroughly tested. If there were any problems on the transformation night the site would have to be rolled back to its original state to ensure it was operational the next working day. 

Stage 3 is was completed with the removal of the old BT landline handsets replaced with new Cisco VOIP handsets, which will operate over the new IBM Data Network.

  • Set-up and installation of infrastructure to support the installation of 25,000 VOIP telephones across the their estate.
  • Site surveys across 3500 branches/offices.
  • Installation and upgrade of WAN/LAN infrastructure.
  • Configuration and installation of Cisco hardware.
Zurich

Sonet undertook the task of replacing the outdated Cat5 cabling with new Cat5e, in the Belfast Head Office. As the business was still operational all work had to be carried out at weekends to avoid disruption for both customers and staff. Over the course of 4 weeks, Sonet had installed a new cabling network while leaving the existing infrastructure intact. By leaving the original cabling in place, Sonet was then able to seamlessly transfer users onto the newly installed, upgraded system with no loss of working hours.

Middlesex University

When Middlesex University refurbished their main building on campus they needed to relocate students into temporary structures off-site. Sonet was required to deliver the flood wiring of the newly constructed temporary accommodation with over 2400 Cat5e data outlets to be installed.

To service the temporary Comms Room, new cross-site fibre optic cabling was installed to provide access to the University servers. After the fitting out of the furniture, Sonet re-installed and tested the connectivity of the workstations and printers, ready for the students to move back in.

Hilton Hotels 

Sonet has been in partnership with the Hilton Hotels Ireland group for the since 2004, during which time we have been responsible for voice and data installations in all Hilton

Hotels throughout Ireland UK and Europe:

  • Hilton Belfast
  • Hilton Templepatrick
  • Hilton Dublin Airport
  • Hilton Conrad Dublin
  • Hilton Charlemont
  • Hilton Liverpool
  • Hilton London
  • Hilton Paris Opera
Travelodge

Sonet was responsible for the installation of a new pay-per-view television system in all Travelodge Hotels throughout Ireland. This required new data cabling, from every bedroom to be installed back to a newly installed Comms cabinet, which housed the video on-demand server. Each bedroom was then equipped with a new Amino set-top box which allows access to the TV and radio services. Alongside which a new telephone handset was positioned which allowed guests to pay for ed services by credit card. Wifi access points were also put into the position to allow all guests wireless internet access.

Manchester Joint Hospital

With the construction of several new buildings all of which were required to have access to the hospitals various networks, the installation of new fibre optic backbone cables from the existing Data Nodes to the new Comms Room locations was a necessity. This is where Sonet was the natural choice with extensive experience in the field of fibre optic terminations. With over 2000 single-mode connections to be made with the fibres ranging in length from 500m to over 2k. With the cables in position, Sonet proceeded to splice and test the SM fibre optic links. Test results were then presented to the customer in both OTDR (Optical Time Domain Reflectometer) and LSPM (Light Source & Power Metre) formats.

Orange
  • Roll-out of new EPOS system hardware to Orange retail stores in Northern Ireland.
  • Configuration services and removal of legacy systems.
  • The separate roll-out of new software via new HDDs across the entire estate.
  • Separate Roll-out of Chip & PIN devices to stores.
  • Configuration and installation of services for all store refits, additional tills and new store openings.

Arcadia Group

Configuration and installation services for new EPOS refresh across store locations for Arcadia Group Ltd including Topshop, Topman, Burtons, Miss Selfridge, Outfit and Dorothy Perkins.

All stores, each having unique configurations, were pre-configured and tested at our build facility prior to deployment to site.

Services included installations, moves, adds and changes (IMAC). Service was inclusive of infrastructure cabling across the estate as part of the contract.