Clovelly Lakes fishing lodges tackle unreliable internet with Wildanet

Guests often return to the lodges because it’s a dog-friendly site, they can fish in the lakes, and they can go walking. As well as wanting to explore, enjoy the beautiful scenery and get away from it all, Claire found that one of the leading questions from guests concerned Wi-Fi.

So, on such a large, rural site, Claire’s first priority was to address the internet provision. She needed quick, reliable broadband so that all of her guests could stream, work or game. For Claire and her team, they needed to be able to reply to emails, update social media and organise deliveries.

“It’s important for guests, particularly when I have families come and stay, for their children to be able to access gaming, streaming, downloading and it really is a key part of my business and a core part of what I offer”, says Claire.

When Claire first took over at Clovelly Lakes, the broadband connection was very poor. The service was slow and unreliable with guests finding it very difficult to get any accessibility.

“The broadband was constantly kicking them off, there wasn’t enough bandwidth to share amongst all the guests, so with 17 lodges, I really needed quite a lot of bandwidth and that was a real struggle,” she said.

“I was unable to access broadband across the site and none of my staff were able to access broadband and for me it was vital because I need to pick up emails, I need to be able to contact my guests rapidly and I need to be able to respond to deliveries.”

With other providers either unable to help or offering cost-prohibitive packages, Claire turned to Wildanet following a recommendation.

She said: “I contacted them, and I was really pleased that getting broadband provision on site was going to be pretty simple using Wildanet and actually the cost was really competitive.”

Despite the rural location, Claire found the installation process very straightforward with engineers installing everything within a couple of hours.

The result is Claire, her team and her guests are now able to get good, reliable internet in every lodge.

“A particular bonus for my residents and for me is that within a certain reach of every lodge, we’re also able to pick up Wi-Fi and internet so anglers are able to sit lakeside and access the internet,” she said.

Originally, the site upon which Clovelly Lakes sits was unfarmable farmland. It was the vision of Claire’s father to turn the marshland into lakes. He built the first lake with four Finnish lodges surrounding it. From there, the site slowly built up to what guests can experience today.

“It really started flourishing as a business and more and more people came when he was alive, and those people actually still come back now. That’s 25 years later which is a real testament to my dad’s legacy, and we hope to continue that legacy,” said Claire.

The new Wi-Fi offering has boosted Claire’s client reach in terms of the types of guests that stay and return, allowing her to continue her father’s legacy into the future.

On how she found the entire process with Wildanet, Claire said: “Everything has just run smoothly and when I have contacted them, I’ve found them to be responsive.”

“They always get back to me when they say they’re going to get back to me and as a business person that’s really important.”

“I would really recommend Wildanet as a service provider. It can be quite a tricky thing to do to get rural internet, good rural internet, onto a site. I would have no hesitation in recommending them both for their service and for their cost effectiveness.”

To find out more about Clovelly Lakes, visit their website.