GMG Energy, the Sutherland-based environmentally friendly timber products business has finalised a commercial grade Starlink installation with fixed IP addresses to its sawmill and other properties in the Upper Bighouse area.

Malcolm Morrison, Director of GMG Energy, said: “This is a game-changer for us since it gives us unrestricted access to the internet. Before, our connectivity was via very limited broadband through our phonelines, which was unreliable and subject to outage caused by the weather.

“Now, with a commercial grade Starlink installation with fixed IP addresses we get between 80-340Mbps to our sawmill and other properties in the Upper Bighouse area.

“The signal is received at the sawmill and used for some of our internal systems such as our AI powered CCTV, automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) based traffic monitoring, encrypted remote connection to industrial networks for maintenance and monitoring systems of our treatment plants, boilers and generation and time clock automation, as well as internet access in the plant.”

The upgraded system, planned and installed over five days by Dumfries-based contractor, Ian Nelson of Sygen and his team, includes a locally installed firewall to ensure that spare Internet capacity is made available to the network which is beamed across to the Auld Kirk approx. 1Km away.

From here, a further distribution network consisting of a 5.8Ghz radio with a sector antenna similar to a mobile phone mast, ensures that a focussed signal is made available to the five further properties served by the system. The furthest away is around 1.5Km yet still enjoys the full speed of the network.

All of the equipment runs in license free radio bands which have strict regulations regarding the power output of the equipment in use. The power output allowed is a fraction of that of a mobile telephone, so Sygen had to use high quality, high sensitivity radio equipment across the system to attain the speed and range required for the signal.

The distribution radio network is capable of faster speeds than Starlink can currently provide, so there is some future capacity in the setup should connectivity improve in the local area.

The system is monitored and configured from Sygen’s office in Dumfries, though with policies in place on the network which allow it to automatically restart should communications issues arise.

Planning was completed via maps, satellite imagery and elevation data. Preconfiguration and testing of the equipment took two days and installation was completed in five on-site days.

Mr Morrison said: “We are grateful to Ian and his team, all of whom did a great job in turning our ambition of unrestricted internet connectivity into a reality.”