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A business that has switched to BT’s next generation of broadband is PIXELearning, a young company already making its mark in the growing simulation-based eLearning market.

Based in Coventry, PIXELearning specialises in the design and development of interactive, game-based eLearning solutions for use in education, business and public places such as museums. Its products require the advanced use of multimedia with simulated 3D environments, virtual mentors, avatars, artificial intelligence, powerful reflection and feedback tools.

This involves huge amounts of data being regularly uploaded to its web servers, which it also hosts. To speed this process up, PIXELearning was keen to try new methods that would allow it to deliver a higher quality customer experience. The solution was BT Business Broadband Advanced: it has provided the firm with the fast and reliable service it needs and is able to handle Internet uploads and downloads at the same speed. This is particularly applicable to sending and receiving large e-mail attachments and loading information on to its website.

Kevin Corti, PIXELearning’s managing director, picks up the story: “We are currently developing software to enable teachers and trainers to create bespoke educational web-based games for their own purposes and, for this service to become commercially feasible, we require the rapid connection speed and reliability that Business Broadband Advanced provides.”

As well as offering equally fast speeds for uploading as well as downloading information, the new services uses a contention ratio of just 10:1 – considerably lower than standard ADSL broadband. This means that the service is fast and reliable during long periods of very high network demand: ideal for a bandwidth-hungry business like PIXELearning.

“ADSL was great for downloading files, but our business – which produces on-line educational games for businesses and schools – needed the ability to send at the same speed. Business Broadband Advanced has allowed us to make the logical bandwidth leap without necessarily making the leap to a private leased line. Our customers can now experience better quality when running our hosted applications because the web server is so much faster.”

PIXELearning www.pixelearning.com