EnBITCon donates WLAN infrastructure to children's cancer ward

Five inconspicuous, plate-sized devices have been bringing much joy to the children's cancer ward at the Asklepios Clinic in Sankt Augustin since 4 December 2018. On this day, the ward's new WLAN infrastructure was officially inaugurated by Manuela Melz, chairwoman of the "Parents' Initiative for Children with Cancer", Enrico Bujotzek and Marcel Zimmer, managing directors of EnBITCon GmbH, and Simon Schmischke, apprentice IT specialist for system integration. These are five FortiAP 221E access points, which together with a FortiSwitch 108E-POE have since been used in the station.

Previously, the rather unreliable WLAN signal from the neighbouring building could be received on the balconies of the ward rooms, but after the move from the first to the second floor, there was radio silence there as well. Without further ado, Manuela Melz asked EnBITCon for a WLAN-Planung for the ward in summer 2018. Over the next few months, the team of the Bonn-based company provided her with advice and support in order to implement the project in a quality-conscious manner. But that was not all: "We thought the work of the parents' initiative was so great that we offered our service for free. After we had convinced ourselves of the work on site, it was immediately clear to us: Wir legen die Hardware als Spende oben drauf.", says Enrico Bujotzek, Managing Director of EnBITCon GmbH.

Besides entertainment in the form of surfing on social media, playing online games or streaming films and music, the new infrastructure also offers other opportunities. For example, the ward's young patients can now participate in school lessons virtually via tablet PC and video telephony through the "Klassissimo" project. Before the ward's move, this was only moderately possible, if at all, because the signal was simply too weak for the required data transmission rate. But this is now history.

Furthermore, the robust network enables parents to pursue work during their stay in the hospital by means of a somewhat modified version of the "home office", so that they can be at least partially available for work while their children are being treated. According to Marcel Zimmer, technical managing director of EnBITCon, "the parents' initiative is also well equipped for the next five to ten years with the expected increase in data volumes." For the EnBITCon team, the most important thing was "etwas Gutes zu schaffen und nicht nur Geld zu spenden", says Enrico Bujotzek.