In partnership with Zen Internet Flair4IT has signed a business connectivity deal with Wallace and Gromit's Grand Appeal charity, allowing it to effectively communicate through the Internet, which is critical as a large amount of its fundraising support is done via email and its website.

The charity's main problems were speed, resiliency and reliability of their existing solution, which was an 8Mbps ADSL operating at around 2-3Mbps. The network was constantly either slow or disconnecting altogether. It also had problems with connections to its London based office and the use of remote desktop and email.

Given the charity's location of Central Bristol it was migrated onto Zen's ‘up to 20Mbps' broadband service which offers download speeds of ‘up to 20Mbps' and upload speeds of ‘up to 1Mbps'.

The significantly higher bandwidth means that the charity is able to share information between its head office and its remote workers without worrying about poor connections. The charity is on Zen's Active package with plans to upgrade as the need for more remote desktop users grows.

Lauren Vincent, Community and Events Fundraiser, noted: "Our computers were constantly struggling to connect and as email and the website are very important parts of our fundraising efforts it was very frustrating. Our Internet connection is now fast and reliable, which is great for the charity, our fundraisers and visitors to the site. The service provided by Flair4IT was excellent."

Zen has invested heavily in upgrading its network to connect with BT's 21st Century Network (21CN) using ADSL2+ broadband technology to introduce these faster services. It has now migrated 35,000 customers onto the new network and plans to continue migrating customers at a rate of 5,000 per month.

"We were pleased to have the opportunity to implement Wallace & Gromit Grand Appeal's connectivity solution provided by Zen Internet," said Corcoran Smith, Flair4IT.

Wallace & Gromit's Grand Appeal is the only charity fundraising exclusively for the Bristol Children's Hospital and the Special Care Baby Unit at St Michael's Hospital to provide comforts and facilities for patients and their families in the Hospital.