In 1933, the Glitz and glamour of the movies came to the east end of London.

Troxy opened its doors for its first showing of King Kong and quickly became a much-loved venue.

But the 3520-capacity cinema was a little bit special.

Troxy featured luxurious seats, and staff wearing evening dresses. Perfume was sprayed during performances to add to the luxury atmosphere. Top celebrities of the time visited the venue: Clark Gable, Gracie Fields and Cliff Richards.

In the 1960s, Toxy closed. After a spell as an opera rehearsal space and a bingo hall, Troxy has found a new life as a live events space.

Troxy is now hosting a variety of events, including Secret Cinema, music gigs, and live TV broadcasts while still maintaining it’s stunning Art-Deco vibe.

But, how do you bring a classic venue’s WiFi up-to-date, while keeping its versatility?

This is the challenge that Zyxel and installers Connecting London Ltd faced.

The Challenges Facing Troxy

As a Grade II listed business, Troxy faces strict rules which hamper its technical upgrade. Walls cannot easily be rewired, and modern technology cannot be just hung on the walls.

There had been many attempts to rectify their lack of WiFi. The technology just wasn’t robust enough to deal with the number of users. The lack of available locations for access points proved tricky.

As the Troxy attracted more high profile corporate and live events, it soon became apparent that the unreliable network design just wasn’t suitable.

 

The Network Requirements

Troxy’s network needed to support a vast range of uses. Zyxel technology needed to cover uses such as as:

Connectivity For Corporate Hire

The Troxy regularly hosts awards nights, conferences or exhibitions. The hosts would often need WiFi for a variety of reasons, from checking email updates to video conferencing.

Regularly, businesses wanted to show real-time social media updates on screens across the venue.

Connectivity For The Public

Events at Troxy attract around 2000 people on average. Connectivity to WiFi plays a considerable part in the atmosphere to these events.

Allowing the general public to share photos and videos of the events helps boost awareness for the host company and Troxy.

Production

Most events are live-streamed across a variety of platforms, such as Facebook Live or Twitch TV. These broadcasts need to be uninterruptable and high-quality These are often bandwidth-hungry and need not be impacted by thousands of other devices connected to the WiFi, who may also be live streaming the event to their friends on Facebook or Instagram

 

Internal Teams

Troxy’s internal offices also need their own private network. This needed to be reliable and fast so that Troxy’s staff could respond to queries and emergencies quickly.

Zyxel and Troxy Cinema

Zyxel To The Rescue

Installers Connecting London Ltd partnered with Zyxel to save Troxy from WiFi woes.

Zyxel’s adaptive wireless technology helps to maintain stable coverage for the high number of visitors in the event area while providing segmented networks for all applications.

Troxy and Connecting London installed Zyxel WAC6103D-I 3×3 Access Points featuring:

  • Advanced Gigabit Wi-Fi performance with the dual-optimised antenna
  • Slim and stylish outlook aesthetics blends into environments
  • Streamlined deployment tools save valuable time
  • ZyXEL One Network experience
  • Optimised wireless experience with advanced feature settings

Supporting the Access points were Zyxel GS1900 PoE switches. The GS1900 range features:

  • Essential L2 features
  • GbE RJ-45, GbE combo (RJ-45/SFP) and fixed GbE SFP connectivity
  • Supports ZON Utility, Zyxel Smart Connect and iStacking facilitates easy network initialisation and management
  • Reliable network availability with Loop Guard, IPSG, and CPU protection
  • IRADIUS, static MAC forwarding and 802.1x authentication-enhance network security
  • IPv6 support

Want to use Zyxel for your business? Call our team free on 0800 488 0000 or shop the range online. Otherwise, you can fund the full Zyxel range on our website.