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In Broadcast, every second counts, and failure is not an option

We are your go-to team of experts for Internet Broadcasting

Providing reliable low-latency connectivity and at short notice

(Cream on the Waterfront, 2021 - 2x 10Gbps Internet Connections - serving 290 credit card machines, 4K streaming and Free WiFi for 20,000 people over 4 days )

 

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Baltic Broadband Helps Thrive Tackle Digital Poverty Faced By Young People

By Baltic Company News

In the words of Thrive CIC, From Thrive’s website here…

When launching Thrive in October 2020 we set out to remove the barrier of digital poverty for young people who are furthest away from the job market. By digitalising our space, it would enable us to connect care-experienced young people with employers, training and other service providers.

We believe digital connectivity plays an important role in combatting feelings of loneliness and isolation experienced by young people; this combined with promoting self-belief and goal setting also reduces the risk of grooming and exploitation. 

On our mission to digitalise Thrive we approached local broadband provider Baltic Broadband to see if we could collaborate on providing Wi-Fi for under privileged young people across Liverpool City Region.

During the first lockdown it came to light that thousands of vulnerable people across the UK were struggling to access the internet, Wi-Fi, computers, and laptops. Many communities across Liverpool City Region faced such barriers, especially low-income families and schools without high quality, fast broadband. During such a challenging time when the only way we could stay connected to the world was online it was vital that action was taken to continue education and prevent mental health issues around isolation.

In 2016 Baltic Broadband founded non-for-profit company Liverpool Internet Exchange which works together with its members to help local communities facing issues around digital poverty by providing time and materials.

Throughout lockdown Baltic Broadband joined forces with the Liverpool Internet Exchange members and Liverpool City Council to launch a hugely successful free Wi-Fi service across the city so that home workers, schools, the self-employed, unemployed and the vulnerable could access ultra-fast internet that otherwise may have been completely or partly unavailable with other providers, if any.

Liverpool City Centre, Everton, The Wirral, and parts of Sefton are just some of the areas where thousands of properties benefited from this service. 

When Thrive launched in October Baltic Broadband kindly gifted us the installation and usage of Wi-Fi free-of-charge. The equipment installed by Baltic Broadband was donated by a member of the LI Exchange, local business IQ Bar.

We are incredibly grateful to both businesses for providing free Wi-Fi to the young people at Thrive. Baltic Broadband believe that their profit comes from the advantage of seeing young people get the futures they dream of.

Digitalising our project has allowed us to remove the barrier of digital poverty for young people who are furthest away from the job market. Having free has Wi-Fi enabled Thrive to stream daily career sessions, offer secure online activities and support services, whilst providing a dedicated safe environment where young people and support workers can get online.

So far 493 individuals have had free access to Baltic Broadbands Wi-Fi and additionally we have been able to deliver Interactive Careers Sessions to 342 young people. 

A huge thank you to Matt and the team at Baltic Broadband.

 

Baltic Broadband & Caldeira Create Knowsley Digital Hub

By Baltic Company News

Baltic Broadband, the Liverpool based digital connectivity specialist, has entered into a
strategic partnership with Caldeira, the Knowsley based cushion company, to deliver ultra-
fast broadband of up to 40Gbps to the Knowsley Industrial Park, from a new Digital Hub at
Caldeira’s new headquarters at 29 Lees Road.


This important new investment from Baltic Broadband has the potential to dramatically
transform digital connectivity for hundreds of companies on the Knowsley Industrial Park
and provide an additional incentive for companies to re-locate and set-up in Knowsley.
Matt Wilson, CEO of Baltic Broadband, is excited by the opportunity which has been
created.


“The partnership between Baltic Broadband and Caldeira represents a significant
investment by bringing high-speed resilient digital connectivity to the estate that will benefit
the entire Industrial Park, thanks to this new Digital Hub. 


Powered by Caldeira’s renewable energy from its new large solar installation, local businesses within
the estate can now access cost-effective, high-speed & reliable internet with speeds available of up
to 40Gbps (40,000Mbps), setup normally within 10 working days.”
Tony Caldeira, Founder and Managing Director of Caldeira Ltd, thinks that the new Digital
Hub is great news for everybody on the Knowsley Industrial Park.


“This is one of those unique opportunities in business where everybody wins. Baltic
Broadband’s investment has created an opportunity for many businesses on the Knowsley
Industrial Park to improve the way they operate.


In addition, Caldeira now has greatly improved internet connectivity, and the new Digital
Hub means that future tenants to our 29 Lees Road site can have ultra-fast broadband,
hardwired directly into their new premises.”


Harvey Abramson, IT and Projects Manager at Caldeira Ltd, has been surprised by the
difference that the faster broadband, provided by Baltic Broadband, has made to Caldeira’s
day-to-day operations.


“The ultra-fast broadband has transformed our digital connectivity, giving us stable video
calls, faster download speeds and time savings across the business. We didn’t realise the
significant difference the faster broadband would make to our office productivity and to our
customer’s virtual experience when on video tours of our showrooms. This is a real boost
for our business.”


The new digital hub has been greeted positively by many in the area, including Knowsley
Chamber of Commerce, Knowsley Growth Hub, and Knowsley Council. Cllr Tony Brennan,
Cabinet Member for Regeneration and Economic Development on Knowsley Council,
welcomed the move, saying “Knowsley Council welcomes the collaboration between Baltic

Broadband and Caldeira; a great example of a partnership that benefits not only Caldeira
but also provides more choice to our businesses across Knowsley Business Park.”

Blackouts UK 2022: How can you keep your business working?

By Baltic Company News

The head of the National Grid has warned British households that blackouts may be imposed this winter.

Due to the consequences of Russia’s war in Ukraine, rolling blackouts could be a possibility for the first time since the 1970s amid the coal miners’ strike and the oil crisis.

In the 1970s, blackouts saw candles selling out, businesses enforcing a three-day working week and children sent home early from school. More than 50 years later, in a digital world highly dependent on power to work and stay connected, blackouts feel completely alien.

Baltic have an ideal solution to help desk-based businesses survive the coming Blackouts

Set on the city’s historic waterfront, Baltic Broadband’s Co-working Desk Space is positioned in the well-established King Edward Industrial Estate, in the heart of Princes Dock. 

The Liverpool City centre location is ideal for the freelancer, budding entrepreneurs, satellite workers, film companies or growing SMEs that need their own space within a 1 minute walk from the Central Business District. It’s also a great space for those who traditionally work from home and would like the opportunity to work in an office environment with the possibility of networking.

We offer both dedicated desks (that are in a large communal space) and dedicated secure self contained offices. 

What’s more, to help survive the predicted blackouts :

  • Each desk and office is protected using a UPS (uninterruptible power supply), meaning that in the event of a power failure, your desk/office in our facility continues to operate
  • We have a large standby generator that powers the entire building, ensuring up to 12 hours of power for the entire facility
  • Our electric car charging points in our own car park will still continue to operate, so customers can recharge their vehicles during power-cuts
  • We have 100Gbps internet connection serving the entire site
  • The government and National Grid have an agreed list of facilities that will be exempt from a power cut – these are known as Protected Sites, Baltic Broadband have already applied for such status.

 

Is your business prepared for UK winter blackouts?

By Interesting Things, Product

Last month, the National Grid warned that households and businesses could experience a series of three-hour power cuts this winter.

It comes amid growing fears of a national power outage if Vladimir Putin shuts off gas supplies from Russia and Britain experiences a cold snap.

Many small businesses don’t have any plans in place to deal with such an event, especially those who host their own on-site server rooms or depend on others who also have little or no backup systems in place.

Baltic are experiencing a large demand in customers moving away from on-premise server rooms. Many local businesses are realising that if the power cuts come, their office and back end systems will be unable to function correctly, affecting both staff within the office and homeworkers who are connected to it.

Baltic offer a wide range of options for customers wanting to have resilience in place by moving their infrastructure into our collocation facility, with packages starting from just £99 per month on a monthly rolling contract.

Our co-location data centres have UPS backup systems, generator backup while we also generate our own renewable power to help keep services up and live throughout the predicted blackouts.

Quite often, our rack prices come in lower than the on-premise cost of power, cooling and office rent anyway, so for many, it’s a no-brainer.

Backup connectivity with Wireless Internet

By Product

An internet outage, even for seconds, could be catastrophic for most businesses.

Imagine the dropped phone calls, loss of access to your cloud services and many other devices around your business that rely on the internet for their functioning, it would be disastrous.

Now imagine the loss of revenue, customer trust and reputational damage that could come as a result.

So, how can your business ensure resilience in your internet connectivity? By implementing a secondary connection to act as a backup, providing you with the resilience you need if the worst happens. In an outage, your failover connection takes over automatically to ensure business continuity.

Wireless Internet

Wireless Internet is one of the best solutions for resilience as there’s no digging, no cables, and it provides business-grade leased lines of up to 40 Gigabits per second, installed within just 10 working days from your order and best of all, it has a monthly rolling contract.

It’s also a great solution for customers that already have fibre from another provider as their main connection. Fibre suffers from breaks, thefts, it’s insecure and runs along public highways that are forever being dug up.

With wireless internet, it comes through the air, over the top of roads and buildings and it not affected by the fibre issues above. It’s also more secure and resilient, therefore, an ideal candidate to compliment your fibre connection, by choosing a totally different technology for your backup.

Protect your business’s critical internet connection with a resilient wireless backup.

Energy Help for Baltic Customers: Now Extended

By Baltic Company News

In February 2022, we announced that we’re helping customers with their energy costs by offering access to very competitive electricity tariffs. That scheme ended on the 1st of October.

The energy crisis here in the Liverpool City Region is continuing to have a huge affect on our customers and we want to help if we can.

We’re pleased to announce that due to high demand, we’ve been able to re-start the scheme today, 24th October through to the 24th November 2022.

Interested parties should read the original article for more information.

Offer is subject to demand and we advise taking advantage as soon as possible to avoid disappointment.

Is your business ready for the 2022 FIFA World Cup?

By Baltic Company News

Ensuring you’ve got a reliable World Cup 2022 live stream is one of the most important things you can do if you operate a hospitality venue this winter.

The long-awaited Qatar World Cup begins on November 20, and continues until December 18, with there being as many as four World Cup fixtures a day during the group stage.

Many hospitality venues around the region will want to show the live coverage in their venue, but many won’t be able to do so, due to poor internet access.

Baltic have already connected many hospitality venues to it’s high speed resilient network that has also special agreements in place to ensure that live streams of the football are consistent and work not matter how busy venues get.

Consider switching to Baltic for stable, reliable internet access, backed by 24/7 support to keep you connected.

Recent Industry Redundancies

By Baltic Company News

As more and more tech companies are announcing redundancies we wanted to offer our help here at Baltic Broadband in two ways.
 
If you have been affected by redundancy and would like some help
or support please get in touch. If we can offer you any advice or involve you in one of our processes, we will be delighted to do so.
 
Likewise, if you are a company making redundancies you may want to direct staff to our job openings page as we are always recruiting and looking for great staff.

Matt Wilson CEO

Liverpool City Region: Cable Thefts

By Baltic Company News

The saga of ongoing cable thefts continues as more and more fibre optic lines are mistaken for copper by thieves and dug-up around the Liverpool City Region.

Businesses are powerless to act and have to wait days or week before their broadband is restored, causing untold damage.

Affected businesses should consider using Fixed Wireless Internet which is not affected by the Thefts or if your business needs urgent help now, take a look at our Emergency Internet Service.

Interesting Articles

Phone lines hit after cable theft in Neston – Liverpool Echo

Hundreds of Openreach telephone and broadband customers without service after thieves steal cables

Star readers respond to cable theft plea – St Helens Star

Heat Waves, Increased Power costs: Had enough yet?

By Baltic Company News

Over the last 12 months, we’ve witnessed a big demand from customers wanting to get rid of their on-site server rooms (many taking up valuable office space) as they struggle with the recent heat waves and the large increase in electricity costs.

Coupled with the changes brought about with homeworking and the hybrid office approach, many businesses are looking how they can both free up valuable office space while lowering their running costs at the same time.

Colocation is the service of hosting your IT hardware equipment in our data centres: strategically located building(s) that provides space, power, cooling, and physical security, monitored 24/7 and providing you with round the clock physical access.

Most companies these days have some sort of IT infrastructure within their premises. Paying for the power, cooling and connectivity for a small server room can get expensive, whereas data centres benefit from economies of scale that make co-location the more affordable option.

Co-location also removes the risk of on-premises server rooms, such as the risk of fire, flood or theft, since data centres feature built-in safeguards and are staffed 24/7 to eliminate these risks.

Take a look at how Baltic can help you move your server room off-site to help you reduce risk, costs and hassle.

How important is connectivity when searching for an office space?

By Landlord and Tenant

From internet to Instagram, connectivity is an essential service for a modern business – if not the most essential service. Your business’s survival depends on having a reliable internet connection.

Internet connectivity is also the most common reason a business leaves a commercial work space. A poor internet connection is a deal breaker. It is therefore important landlords make investments to guarantee their occupiers will have access to resilient and cost-effective internet.

With technologies such as the cloud bringing more efficiency to businesses, it is no longer just download speeds that are important. Upload speeds are key to a business’s operations today.

Baltic Broadband partners with leading commercial landlords to provide ultrafast broadband to businesses, supporting data ranges from 50Mbps to 40Gbps. A Baltic Enabled building is a next generation connectivity solution that allows your tenants to enjoy ultrafast connectivity speeds straight away, complete with high speeds and reliability guarantees, backed with our famous 100% service level agreements.

Network resilience

Since connectivity is integral to a business, what happens when an internet connection fails? It is important that this is factored by a business when choosing a workspace, and take steps to mitigate the effect it might have on your bottom line. The first thing any organisation should do is an assessment of they depend on connectivity. Then they can assess what technology and resilience is required to lessen the impact and cost of any outage.

Baltic’s Connected Building services offer true resilience and diversity from the BT Exchange network. So even if the exchange goes down your wireless internet connection will still work, thus bringing true resilience to your business operations.

What does this mean for your business?

  • Save time and money with our ultrafast Fixed Wireless Access service even when fibre is not available or too expensive to deliver. There are no hidden charges, no extra construction charges. For landlords, it means tenants can move in quickly and your commercial building is at full capacity.
  • Connectivity can be scaled up or down based on your unique business needs. Once connected to our network, we can upgrade your connection within just a few hours
  • Zero disruption to your business when moving within Baltic Enabled buildings.

Our connected buildings solution can enable landlords and businesses alike to create an environment tailored to efficiency, helping them attract talent and increase productivity. Baltic Broadband offers the most cost-effective, business grade, superfast services with service level backing.

For more information about Baltic enabled buildings, see our dedicated page or contact us.

Jubilee Weekend and Free WiFi

By Local Events

As Platinum Jubilee celebrations are underway it reminded us of this image.

On March 26, 1976, the Queen visited the Royal Signals and Radar Establishment, a telecommunications research centre in Malvern, England, and using ARPANET — the computer network that eventually morphed into the current internet — making her the first royal to send an email

Queen Elizabeth II, on the internet, in 1976. Credit: Peter Kirstein

Free WiFi Over the Jubilee Bank Holiday Weekend

Baltic Broadband will be using it’s high speed broadband network to provide on-street free WiFi around the Liverpool City Region, offering unlimited data so people can their share content and experiences.

During the Jubilee, look for the WiFi name “Jubilee” and connect as usual. There is no password required and the service will be active from Thursday 2nd to Sunday 5th June.

Free WiFi for LFC Victory Parade 2022

By Local Events

Whatever happens on Saturday in the UEFA Champions League Final against Real Madrid Liverpool are already winners.

With the FA Cup and the League (Carabao) Cup secured, the Reds are ready to celebrate with fans across the city. Thousands are expected to line the streets as part of the Parade on Sunday, May 29.

The parade is expected to last several hours as the team buses wind their way through the city. The 13.5km route is the same one as that taken in 2019, going from Allerton Maze and travelling north along Queens Drive, Mill Bank, West Derby Road, Islington, Leeds Street and the Strand, and ending up at Blundell Street.

Just like in 2019, Baltic Broadband will be using it’s high speed broadband network to provide on-street free WiFi along the route, delivering over 50Gbps of internet bandwidth that will be offering unlimited data for fans to share content and experiences.

On the day, fans simply need to look for the WiFi name “homecoming” and connect as usual. There is no password required and the service will be active from until Tuesday 24th May at 6am until 31st May at 6am.

Top 3 Tips for Choosing Business Broadband Supplier

By Interesting Things

Questions to ask your new business broadband provider

Choosing a new broadband provider for your business should not be difficult. You want fast broadband, that is stable and allows teams to complete tasks quickly and efficiently. A recent Which UK survey found that 70% of users had experienced problems with their broadband supplier in the last 12 months. A huge increase caused by more users relying on cloud-based software, a lack of customer support following recent lockdowns and lack of infrastructure following years of under-investment by companies chasing connections to keep shareholders happy at the cost of their customers.

So what questions should you ask your new business broadband provider before signing the contract, and what do these terms mean? Let Baltic Broadband be your fully independent guide to choosing the best business broadband provider for your company.

SKIP TO THE END IF YOU WANT THE TL;DR VERSION!

1. What happens when my service is affected?

This may seem like a very obvious question, but it is important to drill down into how your business broadband provider deals with your problems. What ticketing system do they use? What process is in place for escalating complaints? Where is the customer support and technical support team based? What level of service is considered ‘poor’ or ‘insufficient’ before your Service Level Agreement (SLA) is actioned?

The chances are that your first contact will either be with an offshore call centre or via an AI supported virtual support desk. The team will not be familiar with your location, you will likely be nothing more than a customer number and job reference number. Your SLA will only be actionable following multiple problems within a set time scale (often three months) meaning for a considerable amount of time your team may suffer from poor connectivity and be left unable to complete uploading and downloading documents, affecting relationships with customers and causing backlogs internally. Really drill down into what happens when your service is affected and make the decision based on the best customer service and reimbursement. Your broadband should work, it’s only when it doesn’t that you see the real cost of not asking these questions and knowing the answers in advance. 

Most Alternative Networks (Alt-Nets) will offer much better customer service with local support and have real relationships with their customers. It is well worth searching out for local suppliers who can fix problems quickly and become a real partner to your company, as if things go wrong, you want problems fixed, not passed from department to department in various regions and countries.

2. What is the contention rate on my business broadband service?

Your first question may be ‘what is a contention rate’? It basically means how many companies/ other users are sharing the broadband line being supplied to your business. And why is this important? Well, think of broadband and the internet as a road. Everything moves quicker when there are fewer vehicles on the road. Huge amounts of vehicles results in traffic, slower movement and sometimes completely blocks a road. Imagine you are paying for a quiet road that gets your vehicle wherever you want it. A single lane. And then that lane is filled with vehicles from all of your neighbouring companies. It makes your connection slower. It’s really important you have access to the road you pay for, rather than your business broadband provider selling your road to everyone else by you. Look for a business broadband provider that caps contention rates, or has a low number of users. The maximum you want is a ratio of 10 users to one line. Otherwise your business will be impacted by multiple other users sending and downloading huge files that affects your service and productivity. And your SLA is unlikely to cover ‘slow’ traffic caused by multiple users. Most Alt-Nets will cap their contention rates in order to provide better broadband speeds to customers. As they are not tied to shareholders, they will generally provide a better service to customers rather than trying to impress shareholders with selling the same space as many times as possible and are well worth checking out.

3. How long is my contract and what happens at the end?

This seems obvious but there is a reason to ask this question. Many, many providers ‘roll-over’ customers into their next contract without the customer even realising it has happened. Hidden in the small print is often text that highlights that without a clear cancellation three months before the end of the term, they can roll your contract over for another 36 month period. It happens all the time. You can eventually get out of this contract but then there will be an exit fee applicable, which often amounts to a significant sum. Many Alt-Nets will offer monthly rolling contracts or 12 month contracts with no exit fees. It is well worth doing your homework to make sure you are not tied into expensive contracts for longer than necessary when other options are available in the market.

TL;DR Version

What happens when there is a problem with the service?

Most providers have a ticketing system that will involve their contracted suppliers and third-party engineers diagnosing and working on the problems with your service. Companies like Baltic Broadband (and other Alternative Network Providers) supply a service where you speak to the team that installed your service and know exactly where to look to solve problems quickly.

What is the contention rate of the service you are supplying to my business?

Unless you are installing a costly fixed line solely for your business with a long lead-time for installation, you will be sharing bandwidth with many, many other companies. This will slow down your service. Companies like Baltic Broadband cap the contention rates to ensure you always have a fast service.

How long is the contract and what happens at the end?

Most providers will put you into a long contract, typically 36 months, with a hidden ‘roll-over’ written into the contract to tie you in for even longer or face an expensive exit fee. Companies like Baltic Broadband offer monthly rolling contracts or 12 month contracts with no exit fee.

Want to know more? Contact info@balticbroadband.com and see if we can help you have a better business broadband experience.

How Baltic Broadband helped launch Liverpool Live 24/7 radio station

By Interesting Things

When launching a new radio station targeting the 45+ age demographic, a new player in the sector turned to Baltic Broadband to help with the launch. 

It soon became clear that the radio station needed two separate connections in order to achieve their goals.

The first required an in-depth technical set-up broadcast connection to be strategically prioritised in order for the audio signal to remain consistent. In order to achieve this, the team used PEERING, so the route between the server and the broadcast equipment was as short as possible. This wasn’t just providing a broadband solution, it was provisioning an engineering solution to ensure the radio station could reach as many DAB, Online, and SMART device listeners (such as Google Home and Amazon Echo) as possible.

The second connection was to help every member of the team ensure they could do their jobs without worrying about the broadband. The ability to have sales teams using their cloud-based software programs, internal recording studios able to upload large files like adverts and news items seamlessly to their broadcast colleagues whilst enabling the team and visitors to access wi-fi in every corner of the office helped with collaboration, efficiency, and productivity.

The radio station is now well-established in Merseyside, with happy listeners and advertisers, and it’s just another example of how getting the right broadband partner at the start of a project helps everything work, 24/7

Check out Liverpool Live by clicking here

 

A blog about bad broadband and bad landlords.

By Interesting Things

How can a design consultancy, with a large number of full-time designers and many more freelancers, cope in an office with bad broadband when their portfolio of famous name brands and local companies is growing by the day? The short answer is they can’t. Or they couldn’t. Until Baltic Broadband was introduced to them by one of their clients with the words ‘they’ll sort it, give them a call.’ 

A bit of background is needed to highlight just how bad the situation had got for this central-Liverpool based company. Having upgraded to a brand new, Grade A office as part of their expansion, the team of designers assumed all of the facilities would be of the same high-quality as their new office space. However, having signed the long-term lease and being assured the building had fabulous connectivity, it soon turned into a nightmare for the creatives and administrative team members. Within six months the connectivity was so poor that regardless of how many different routers, cables and positions they tried in the office, that if more than one person was using the connection at any time they could barely email each other or run the apps they used to collaborate with their teams working remotely. Team members were being given USB sticks and hard drives to take to coffee shops or their own homes to upload files to their customers and their own virtual servers. This is no exaggeration. 

But how did it get this bad? Surely the building had broadband? Other tenants must be online, why not this team? Perfectly good questions. And the right ones. However, the story was about more than just broadband. Let me explain.

Upon signing the lease and moving the team into the office, the landlord then signed an exclusivity deal with a single ISP. The property owner had decided to maximise their revenues for the building by ‘renting space’ in the building to this ISP in return for the ISP getting guaranteed business from all of the tenants with no competition once their current contracts ended. And the ultimate twist for the design consultants? It was the provider they had used in their old property  and had found, to be polite, lacking. The provider the landlord had chosen was expensive, lacked basic customer support and locked customers into lengthy contracts with an SLA that meant removing the service due to poor speed or connectivity was almost impossible. For this team of creatives, not signing with this ISP was not just a matter of bad broadband, it was a matter of principle. They paid the landlord a healthy rent for the beautiful office. They paid the landlord significant service fees which was fine as the building and facilities were near perfect. With all of this in consideration, the team felt they did not need to be dictated to as to which ISP they used for their business. Particularly when that broadband provider had been so poor in their previous dealings. And so, at this point, the decision was made. They would just have to work harder and more creatively to get it to work. Coffee runs wouldn’t just be about getting lattes, but about getting online. Flexible working hours would no longer just be to beat the commute and a bit of a perk, but to upload vital files for customers and collaborators.

All of this, because they disliked the ISP being forced upon their business, and the manner in which it was being done.

So how did Baltic Broadband help a company when we couldn’t supply a service to their business. Well, to be honest, and we’ve checked with the solicitors and we can write this, we initially went to the landlord to ask if we could install one of our dishes on their roof. The size of a side plate. Hidden from view from the street. We prefer to do things the right way, and this was the right way to do things. The design consultants needed a service, and we could easily provide it. The landlord asked us for a fee to rent some space. The fee was approximately 5x what we would be charging the designers for their service. In short, it wasn’t a difficult business decision to say we would not pay the landlord to provide a service their customer needed desperately.

But we do not give up easily at Baltic Broadband…

The design consultancy had windows in their office. Which you would expect. So, simply, we placed our equipment in their window. They now have 350Mbps upload and download speeds. On a monthly rolling contract. But still get to do the coffee run and flexible working hours as they’re a lovely business, with a great company ethos and produce beautiful work. And we couldn’t be more proud to have helped them.

Energy Help for Good Causes

By Baltic Company News, Interesting Things

We at Baltic Broadband are well aware of the effects that the recent large increases in energy costs are having for a lot of customers, especially those small business and charities/good causes that are in financial distress.

Baltic is a high user of electrical energy and procures electricity at wholesale rates on long term agreements, all from renewable sources. Baltic’s directors also own Squeaky Energy, a renewable energy company that’s been generating renewable energy here in the Liverpool region since 2014.

More importantly though, Baltic Broadband also have multiple power generation sites throughout the Liverpool City Region that generate clean renewable energy every day of the year, read more here.

Fortunately, we often over-generate and sell this power back to the grid at various times of the year, making a surplus as a result.  This, combined with our low wholesale import costs help to reduce our actual unit rate to a very reasonable low rate, now see as very cheap in this crazy energy market.

Electricity rates have risen dramatically in recent times for our customers and will likely rise even more over this coming summer and for many, the huge increases in overheads is having a devastating impact on their organisation that will no doubt affect local jobs and the Liverpool City Regions prosperity.

It’s because of this and our want to help our local community (as we do already with free broadband) that we’d like to announce help by providing discounted energy to as many organisations as we can.

We are asking for interested customers to apply in order to switch their electricity supply to us for a 12 month period, at the fixed unit rate of £0.15p per Kwh (current market rate is around £0.61p.Kwh!) with no standing charge payable.

The process is very simple and once the transfer is complete (normally within 5 working days) your usage will appear on your next broadband invoice as an additional charge and taken by your existing Direct Debit.

In order to qualify for our help, we do have the following criteria:

  • Must have a Meter Point Administration Number (MPAN) (see last elec bill)
  • Must be an existing Baltic Broadband customer
  • Must be a small business, charity, school, CIC or other good cause that does great things in our community
  • Must be able to show how high energy costs are having a detrimental effect on their organisation (example previous bills, cash flow statement, a simple statement laying out the detail will do)
  • Must pay by Direct Debit for the units used for the month previous
  • Must remain a Baltic Broadband customer through the period of usage

Organisations that wish to apply are advised to check any termination fee’s from their existing provider and take meter readings on the day of the move. 

Successful applicants will receive a full welcome pack that will provide all of the required detail from our third party administration company that will handle the transfer.

We are running this scheme starting today 19th February 2022 through to the 1st October 2022.

To apply, please email energyhelp@balticbroadband.com and someone will be in touch shortly to arrange an initial phone call to check eligibility. 

A True Story About Landlords and Broadband

By Interesting Things

Imagine being a business owner and being told by a landlord that you can move into your new, beautiful, city-centre office and have the broadband switched on the same day. In Liverpool, it’s now a reality…

Landlords are constantly having to change with the times to attract new companies to their offices in city centres. Although from the outside of a building, a business may want a beautiful Georgian facade, a well-polished brass nameplate and immediate access into the city itself, once inside the property, their needs change dramatically. They may want traditional thick carpets. The lighting may need to be adjustable. The kitchen may need more than a kettle and a microwave. But the broadband? Well, the broadband just needs to be fast, stable, and if anything goes wrong it better be fixed. Quickly.

This is the challenge faced by multiple landlords in Liverpool city centre. Whilst the building they own may be beautiful, filled with history and ornate touches, the modern tenant needs it to reflect the reality of their working day. A day in which their teams are using email, VOIP, sending large files, video conferencing, accessing cloud-based software packages and possibly checking into the metaverse. All at the same time.

The reality of this was a challenge faced by a Baltic Broadband customer who was beginning to see tenants moving to new offices. And these tenants weren’t moving just because they preferred the warehouse aesthetic, or the cost, or having better transport links. They moved because these modern offices offered high-speed internet connections so they could actually do their jobs. 

So the landlord faced a challenge. Sell a property that had been in their family for generations, or take on the challenge: invest in infrastructure that made it impossible for a new company to turn down their city-centre office space. The next challenge was minimising the amount of time the property was closed for them to update the building and have to wait for paying tenants to return. The final challenge was to find someone who could offer value to the building and tenants which would make them sign the tenancy agreement.

At this point, the landlord did the traditional thing a landlord would do in this situation. Contacted BT, Virgin, all the usual business broadband suppliers they had seen in adverts and asked for the biggest, best broadband available. Money was no object.

“No problem, Landlord’ they all replied, “In six to nine months you will have a cable installed at a cost of thousands and then your customers can call us when they move in and we will have them installed in four to six weeks and they can sign up to 3-year packages”

This didn’t sound like a brilliant plan to the landlord. Having taken the building back to brick, the broadband companies were then going to be smashing holes in freshly plastered walls, which would need to be replaced. Additionally, tenants moving to the building would either wait until broadband connections could be arranged or move into an office without a connection for some period, which seemed an unlikely scenario. Doing the maths, it would mean the building was generating no income for nearly 12 months.

So, by chance, as this particular company did zero marketing, a colleague recommended a local business called Baltic Broadband and asked if they could help.

The solution provided was to make their building a Baltic Broadband Enabled Building (BBEB). As a company led by a Chartered Engineer, Baltic Broadband was able to work with builders to pre-install cables whilst waiting for a fixed-line, reducing waste and cost. Furthermore, by backing up bandwidth power by using their wireless business broadband via the roof, tenants would be able to move in almost as soon as the paint dried.

By using the Baltic Broadband network, the property was now capable of supplying speeds of up to 10Gbps which could be switched on in a day to any business moving into their new office. In addition, Baltic Broadband helped market this service to potential tenants, liaising with business owners, IT departments and managed service suppliers to talk through their individual needs and shopping lists. 

Baltic Broadband took the hassle away from the landlord, added value to their sales pitches and, most importantly, offered a service to tenants that kept them happy and in the building. Because that’s the thing that never changes for landlords. They want happy tenants who pay their bills. Baltic Broadband help make that happen.

How to improve broadband connectivity for industrial estates

By Interesting Things

What happens when an entire estate of companies is unable to get online but are tied into contracts with landlords for the property? Some leave when their contract finally ends. Some continue to ask for BT Openreach engineers to fix the problem and lose more time and money as no solutions are found. But some companies on the Paul Street and Blackstock Street Industrial Estate got together, contacted Baltic Broadband and asked how we can fix the problem that was blighting their business. These companies were committed to regenerating the area and wanted a partner who could find a solution despite scepticism about a company that they had never heard of.

And so, business owners on the estate approached Baltic Broadband and spoke about their problems. An engraving and sign making business that could barely send files internally between the design and production teams. A virtual reality experience centre that struggled to keep a solid connection for paying customers. A brochure printing business that couldn’t upload files from their customers in the NHS and local government that needed to be printed NOW! It was frustrating. It was damaging their reputations. It was costing them time and money. It was affecting their insurance cover when they couldn’t even guarantee a stable connection for their security cameras.

Within two weeks of contacting Baltic Broadband, The Paul Street and Blackstock Street Industrial Estate had access to 10Gbps of stable, fast broadband to service all the companies affected by the poor service. Where offices had previously suffered from average download speeds of 7Mbps and uploads at just 4Mbps, their teams now achieved symmetrical speeds of 350Mbps for downloads and uploads. Teams could again focus on their task of providing amazing service to their customers. And with monthly rolling contracts, they knew that if anything else went wrong on the estate they didn’t need to worry about paying exit fees to their broadband providers should they have to move on. That’s the difference Baltic Broadband can make.

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