CMC for Worldwide Practical Action

ApplianSys announced today that Practical Action, an international non-governmental organisation (NGO) based in Rugby, UK, has bought a CACHEBOX solution to improve its video conferencing service.

Practical Action works in developing countries in South Asia, Africa and Latin America to help communities find practical solutions to poverty with the help of technology. It contributes physical infrastructure, machinery and equipment as well as knowledge, skills and expertise.

With over 100 live projects worldwide, Practical Action relies heavily on video conferencing to communicate with key stakeholders. However, conference calls would frequently drop or be disrupted because of insufficient bandwidth. This was a major issue, especially when conferencing with key sponsors.

Alex Haywood at Practical Action recognised an immediate need to improve the quality of service. Having evaluated a number of alternatives, he concluded that ApplianSys’ CACHEBOX offered an easy, reliable and affordable solution.

Practical Action will deploy a CACHEBOX200 in each of 7 locations, along with a CACHEBOXCMC Central Management Console (CMC) device in its headquarters in the UK.

CACHEBOX Product Manager Dave Gravell comments: “CACHEBOX ensures that video conferencing traffic has the available bandwidth when it is needed by blocking out HTTP traffic during scheduled conferences. During the rest of the time when HTTP traffic is allowed to pass through the CACHEBOX, users get much faster internet access and existing bandwidth is saved, thanks to caching.”

“CMC makes it very easy for Practical Action to plan in advance for video conference calls in any of their locations. They can set up specific configurations, on specific times and dates, on each of the CACHEBOXes remotely from the CMC. And, the solution can be easily scaled up as and when they expand to other locations.”

About Practical Action

Practical Action is head-quartered in the UK, with offices in Bangladesh, Nepal, India, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Kenya, Rwanda, Zimbabwe, Peru and Bolivia.

It works to help underdeveloped communities on projects involving energy access, urban water, waste, food, agriculture and disaster risk reduction.  In 2013 it directly benefited over 900,000 people through projects in developing countries.