Since 1867 the name William Inglis & Son Ltd has stood for excellence in the business of productive livestock and Australian thoroughbreds. Inglis plays a leading role in the history of Australian horse racing and the breeding of thoroughbreds. Since the start of the twentieth century, the focus has been on auctioning thoroughbreds. Stud farmers, breeders, racing stables, and equitation specialists from all over the world meet at Inglis to find the best horses on the continent.
For five generations, Inglis has been based on the principles of honesty and integrity. The owner’s family pays attention to each individual detail. Outstanding, impeccable customer service is a top priority for them. The company is looking ahead to the future, wants to expand and increase the quality and convenience of its auction operations.
This is why William Inglis & Son Ltd opened a massive world-class location in January 2018: the Riverside Stables. The 29-hectare site is at the Warwick Farm racing course to the southwest of Sydney. In just two years, 800 modern stables, expansive parade spaces with rubberized asphalt and artificial turf, and an air-conditioned sales area for 1,000 visitors were created.
The site includes The Big Barn event hall which can hold 300 people, a garden pavilion, eateries, and a brewery. The icing on the cake is the eight-story hotel with 144 rooms and suites, a fitness, spa, and wellness center, and a rooftop pool with a view over the racecourse.
Scene of horse culture
The 5-star boutique hotel The William Inglis – named after the company’s founder and operated by the Accor/Sofitel Group – primarily welcomes horse lovers and horse racing fans. The establishment celebrates a passion for equine culture and heartfelt hospitality. Every accessory tells part of the story of William Inglis & Son Ltd, showcasing famous thoroughbreds and racing successes. Every room and every suite bears the name of a champion racehorse sold by Inglis and is designed to suit the name.
However, there are only around 20 auctions a year and so the venue also has plenty to offer outside the auction and racing season: packages for tourism, weddings, meetings, conferences, concerts, and events. This diversity requires extremely high-performance connectivity. International guests and conference organizers expect more than just the fastest possible data transmission.
Digitalization is also of great significance to the thoroughbred business. William Inglis & Son Ltd has started to conduct real-time auctions on the Internet. And the auction house uses the Internet as an integral marketing instrument. On the premises, messages, offers, auctions and sales statistics are transmitted live on monitors and by WiFi.
Top-class network
True to its goal of offering outstanding customer service, the Inglis family opted for a top-class and future-oriented solution when it came to network infrastructure. It had the entire Riverside Stables complex equipped with a fiber-based local data network from R&M.
Consulting engineer Danny Tsung from Aurecon supported the project with the corresponding planning. The team from JCB Communications with John Anastasiou, Jason James, and Michael Cianci took care of material deliveries, installation, and testing. And the team from R&M Australia was also kept on its toes. Specific products had to be developed to correspond to the installation and the topology.
The Passive Optical LAN (POLAN) provides high-speed Internet to every hotel room, to the two floors of offices, and to every corner of the premises. Data traffic, WiFi, telephone, surveillance, live streaming, TV… every form of communication can be broadcast brilliantly over the FO network. That can be seen on the 4.5 x 2.5 meter LED video displays in the auction arena.
Successful start
In February 2018, the Riverside Stables enjoyed a successful debut and Australian horse racing celebrated the start of a new era. The first Inglis Classic Yearling Auction at the new venue was also the largest in the company’s history. 800 beautiful thoroughbreds were presented. And, during the auction races, thousands of visitors tested all the functions of the high-performance network.
Inglis Managing Director Mark Webster: «An ideal location for the next 100 years.»
Award-wining POLAN
The Inglis project gave R&M the chance to demonstrate the advantages of a Passive Optical LAN (POLAN) for the first time in Australia. This good-value fiber solution is particularly suitable for expansive local data networks that have to offer resources for Gigabit speed and are planned for long-term use.
POLAN is based on the Passive Optical Network (PON) technology. It was developed for wide-area networks and Fiber to the Home (FTTH). Signal transmission by light is application neutral, virtually inexhaustible, and suitable for distances of several kilometers. POLAN can provide Gigabit speed for 20 km virtually loss-free. Inherent encrypting and passive optical transmission technology make the network tamper-proof.
Once installed the single-mode cabling can transmit virtually any amount of data likely to be necessary for the future. In a POLAN infrastructure, the bandwidth can be increased without having to re-cable. That means: No installation effort is required for upgrades, changes, and extensions. All that is necessary is a quick swap or extension of the active equipment in distributors and endpoints.
A further advantage of POLAN cabling: It needs only a fraction of the space comparable copper cabling would need. In communication and equipment rooms, that leaves plenty of space for other infrastructures.
The project also convinced the regional jury of the National Electrical and Communications Association (NECA) of New South Wales (NSW). In September 2018, they awarded the project partners the NECA NSW Excellence Award in the category Voice/Data Communications & Audio Visual Project.