Diamond Resorts UK Ltd

We were approached by the Senior IT manager for Europe at Diamond Resorts, with regards to their UK sites and the issues they were having with their existing TV distribution systems at the majority of the 7 resorts they own and operate in the UK.

In addition to sorting out the signal distribution issues, they also wanted to provide a family-friendly array of channels from Freeview, some foreign language channels and an information channel which they could update from their main HQ in Lancaster.

This channel plan would be the same across all of their sites

The sites are pretty much spread across the UK in Devon, Kent, Staffordshire Lancashire and Scotland. We carried out a detailed survey of each of the sites and it was clear from the first that the existing coaxial distribution systems were very old and in an extremely poor state of repair. They were not fit for the purpose that they wanted to achieve.

Given that all of the sites consist of a main or manor house with lodges located around the considerable grounds each site lent itself to a new fibre optic distribution system and given that they were about to embark on a full fibre optic upgrade to all sites it made sense to integrate a new TV distribution system onto the same system.

We undertook market research and concluded that the most cost-effective solution for the network would be to use equipment as manufactured by Global Invacom.

For the head-end, we proposed that we use Triax TDH Digital head-end which could also be configured so we could log in, monitor and make programme changes remotely from our head office. The unit would be loaded with Terrestrial, satellite and AV input modules and 5 Output modules providing 20 digital COFDM Muxes each of which would support between 4 and 8 channels (depending on their format). All channels would be controlled so that we could order them as required.

We provided costs based on a networking supplier, who was already working on the installation to all locations we needed, providing an additional fibre optic core for us. We would then install antennae, Head-end, fibre optic splitters and connect to the cabling they had installed.

After providing a technical submission and a detailed tendering process, we were awarded the contract with Diamond Resort. The programme for which would last the best part of a year and was fully completed in 2015.

We have since provided an annual maintenance contract for each site and continue to support the client with anything they need, which recently has been the transmitter changes for the 5G clearance which required visits to all the sites.