Astro 2014 Review
A monumental year for Astro
2014 was a monumental year for all of us at Astro, not least in December we celebrated our 30th Anniversary. I honestly cannot believe where the years have gone. I spent the majority of the past thirty years going from one enjoyable project to another, and I have been lucky enough to have worked in a lead role on many very exciting projects over those years.
Just taking a quick trip back in time to December 1984 Margaret Thatcher was still in power, Everton were at the top of league division one, a litre of petrol cost 38.7p,the average UK house price was £90,000 and the average UK salary was £9,984 per annum. Also, another notable development which affected our industry and made our timing perfect was the fact that on 3rd December 1984 BT was privatised.
”Do They Know It’s Christmas which went straight to number one on release making it the 1984 Christmas number one…”
Earlier that year Bob Geldof had successfully pulled off one of the most ambitious live concert projects ever in Live Aid. As we were finalising plans for the launch of Astro Band Aid were in the studio recording Do They Know It’s Christmas which went straight to number one on release making it the 1984 Christmas number one.
Our first office was nothing more than a cupboard in a managed office block. We were next door to an Escort Agency with paper thin walls so for the short time we were in the office it could be difficult to concentrate overhearing the some of the phone conversations. Our office was so small that when we had our first Customs & Excise visit the Customs officer’s legs were intertwined with ours and we were sitting on opposite sides of the room.
”…I don’t think we had a lunch break for the next ten years!
When we originally viewed our office we were told by the site manager that Dave Prowse had a gym in the basement of the building. I remember saying. “Brilliant! We can keep fit by using the gym of a lunchtime.” I don’t think we had a lunch break for the next ten years! In any case, after about three years it was converted to an Italian restaurant.
As a result of the telecommunications market opening up in the UK and as a result of our industry contacts from our time in Cable & Wireless and BT we did not have to even think about where our work was coming from. Almost from the start we were working day and night, seven days a week. For the first two years we would often work on one site from 0800 to 1700 and then work in the evenings for other customers and weekends for other customers. There were only two of us for the first two years with the exception of the occasional press-ganged ‘volunteer’ so we were stretched to the limit and had to make sure everything worked first time. There was absolutely no margin for error.
”Being able to work accurately under pressure served us well…”
Cable & Wireless gave us our first job with a completion date that preceded our leaving date. So to start as we were destined to continue for years to come, having completed a day’s work at C&W we headed off to United International Pictures to complete an urgent cabling requirement. On our first ‘official’ day on 2 January 1985 I was at BTs Martlesham Heath research establishment troubleshooting an X.25 based television switching problem on behalf of Memotec – a Canadian equipment manufacturer.
Being able to work accurately under pressure served us well as much of early work with Astro was for the North Sea oil and gas industry. Back then we had to construct and wire up the hardware chassis for anything we built. These chassis’ would house a range of off the shelf and bespoke modules so each chassis was tailor made for each installation. That would be the equivalent of having to build router or voice gateway hardware specifically for the modules you wanted to use for each installation. These communications systems were critical to the safety and production on the platforms and any failure would result in a halt in production. It really was pioneering communications engineering and we were working directly with the inventors and design engineers – very exciting times.
”We take our cabling infrastructure for granted these days… Thirty years ago it was very much a free for all.”
We had the good fortune to work for many other notable customers in our early years including: Bell Communications, BP, US Navy Holy Loch, Royal National Theatre, CEGB/National Grid, British Coal and The London Stock Exchange.
I have seen so many changes within our industry over the years too. We take our cabling infrastructure for granted these days knowing that standards are in place to ensure we don’t have to have different cables for each equipment manufacturer. Thirty years ago it was very much a free for all. For the early cabling projects we completed we manufactured our own bespoke patch panels to support a wide range of cables and connectors to accommodate each manufacturer’s proprietary cabling system. Some manufacturers had several cabling types depending on the type of system the customer was using.
I have been engaged on many occasions to help customers decide on the best cabling and containment systems for their business needs. The locations and applications have been varied including offices, manufacturing plants, theatres, power stations, and ships. But life is so much easier now when we really only have to decide on an appropriate standard and then cable once for the life of the location. Thirty years ago we could be running in several variants of twisted pair, coax, twinax and combination cables and whenever a system was upgraded we would be running new and different cables along the same route. We even had to manufacture the patch cords and fly-leads ourselves.
”…I had the great privilege and pleasure of working with some very talented people – some of them sadly no longer with us – who did this with apparent ease.”
In addition to this there were the added challenges of sharing data between systems spanning different manufacturers and technologies as well as on some occasions, different technologies within the same manufacturer’s equipment. Although I used to really enjoy the challenge of having to get disparate systems talking to each other so they could at least share data, I welcomed the gradual introduction and eventual widespread take up of standards. It is interesting to note that my job was to get the systems to a position where they could exchange data. It was someone else’s job to provide data conversion to enable the systems at each end of the link to actually understand the shared data. I had the great privilege and pleasure of working with some very talented people – some of them sadly no longer with us – who did this with apparent ease.
Well that’s enough reminiscing. As I mentioned earlier 2014 was a monumental year for Astro and I would say one of the most significant years in our history. Having lived and breathed Astro for thirty years I never would have believed that our thirtieth year could be as exciting as our formation years. There have been several significant developments this year, including:
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- Astro became an ISP
- We have five new employees
- We had our first retirees
- Moved to Hawley Manor
- Launched AstroASSIST
- Launched AstroMAAP
- Renewed our ISO 9000
- Improved the culture in the business
- We have new customers
- There are some exciting new opportunities
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In addition to this I had some personal changes including becoming a Freeman of the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists, I was invited to join the boxing committee of the Bud Flanagan Leukaemia Fund and in line with my new role within Astro I have changed job title from Technical Director to Chief Technical Officer.
To conclude I want to say a huge thank you to all of our customers, suppliers, partners and last but certainly not least team members past and present for enabling Astro to achieve the successes of the past thirty years and to make it such an exciting and rewarding journey. I look forward to many more exciting years and I wish you all a Happy, Healthy and Prosperous New Year.