The purchase of Redbridge was seen as an ideal fit to improve its coverage of the UK. HTT supplies consultancy, installation, commissioning and first line maintenance to the telecommunications industry, including equipment manufacturers, network operators and large corporate bodies.

Its operation now employs 120 people in the UK, 90 of whom work in the field. Part of the Spice Holdings group, it also provides service coverage for France, Sweden, Germany, Austria and the Benelux countries.

Further investment has followed the purchase of Redbridge, which is aiming to move into its new, purpose-built headquarters in Chepstow in October. Additional funds have also been devoted to improving the remote fixing of faults, avoiding the cost of dispatching an engineer.

Further to this, the company has added bandwidth, improved configuration management and changed SLAs to enhance its offering to existing and potential clients. Investment has also been made in the further training of engineers in both installation and network consultancy, providing benefits for individuals and the business in general.

Mark Orchart, HTT managing director, told Service Management that there had been no redundancies as a result of the takeover. ‘There was very little overlap in the technical or customer areas and [Redbridge] was a very, very good fit with our existing business,’ he said.

‘We had too many eggs in one or two baskets before, but it’s now appropriate to become a multi-vendor to open up new opportunities for the business.

‘We’re now cross-training our engineers at both installation level and within systems consultancy.’

He explained that installation training takes between two and three days, with systems requiring much longer periods. This requires removing the engineer from the field for the duration of the training, but is considered a worthwhile investment for the future.

Redbridge Management Services was established in 2001 to provide UK-wide engineering infrastructure support services such as 24/7 first line maintenance, network management, installation and commissioning and project management to telecommunications equipment manufacturers, telecommunications network operators and large corporate clients.