We at ask4 are driven by our commitment to delivering the best possible experience to all our customers and we are delighted that our dedication has been recognised in both the Consumer and Business sectors.

The accolade emphasises ask4’s commitment to providing excellent customer service along with the growth and development of ask4 over recent years. From September ask4 will supply market leading Broadband to around 130 student residences throughout the UK.

The ISPA’s are unique as they are awarded to companies and individuals in the industry by their peers. The finalists will now be assessed by a panel of judges and the winners will be announced on 7^th July at the ISPA’s award ceremony at the Lancaster London Hotel.

With my colleague once again on annual leave for a fortnight, (this time Los Angeles being the unlucky place!) I thought I would defer my September planning meetings and help run operations from the office. So, along with writing up notes from meetings over the past few weeks I have been arranging visits to as many sites as possible for when my colleague returns and preparing for summer.

As a business ask4 are continuing to expand, with a number of new sites being taken on for September it is part of my role to make contact with the hall managers of these new sites. The primary reason of this objective was to introduce myself as I will be the first point of contact, but also to gather information about the site and ensure they have all the necessary marketing and advertising material they require.

With our new sites spanning from Edinburgh to London and various other places in between, I attempted to create a gimmick by placing dots on each new site on a map, and connecting the dots like a child’s puzzle, or like the FBI do in movies when they’re tracking an elusive fugitive. The end result however was disappointing, with the connected dots creating the shape of a throwing dart, not just a normal dart either, a Phil Taylor dart that had ricocheted off the wire, crashed landed on the floor, then had the flight clumsily trampled on and squashed as the athlete went to retrieve it. (I’m unsure of the correct word to describe a person playing darts, darter, dartist, or dartee maybe; anyway, athlete was a safe bet!)

The next few months promise to be exciting with the introduction of so many new sites and I will persist in clocking up the road miles by getting out and meeting current and new clients. Let’s just hope that the warm weather continues to surprise us and contribute to a great summer.

It was nice to see the Headingley campus look exactly how I recalled it. The campus buildings are set out in the shape of a horseshoe, with a green acre as its centerpiece, very much like the traditional American Colleges are depicted in movies. At first sight it brought back fond memories, mainly of the warm sunny days swarming with students playing ultimate Frisbee or football on the acre. Though the weather was glorious the campus had an eerie atmosphere, due to the scarcity of students.

In stark contrast the Headingley Carnegie Stadium has undergone extensive renovation over the past few years, and now resembles a fantastic piece of design and architecture. Not only is the facility used for hosting Rugby and Cricket matches, with vast amounts of seminars and lectures being held there along with numerous Leeds Met events, it is an integral part of the Leeds Met culture.

The following day I made the scenic trip east to Lincoln where I always enjoy the novelty of going over the toll bridge, the Dunham Toll Bridge to be precise. The bridge carries the A57 over the River Trent and costs 30p to cross, and interestingly the Dunham Bridge Company allows free passage over the bridge on Christmas Day and Boxing Day. After a positive meeting in Lincoln I headed back to Sheffield with the sun drenched sky filling the beautiful Lincolnshire landscape.

On my penultimate day before the long weekend I headed back down to the University of Birmingham to run over operations for summer and the September intake. Based in Edgbaston the multitude of accommodation options for University of Birmingham students are fantastic. With the Vale Village overlooking the lake, it creates the perfect backdrop, especially during the sunny summer months.

I continued heading south west all the way down the M5 through Gloucestershire, Somerset and into Devon and Exeter. On my way down the M5 through Somerset I noticed a huge figure off to my right, which I think vaguely resembles a man lunging. I decided to take a quick snap and do a bit of research when I arrived back at the office. It turns out it is the country’s largest willow figure, also known as the Wicker Man. It was designed and constructed by Serena de la Hey in the summer of 2000 using just a steel frame and bundles of willow, the Wicker man has proven to be a popular spectacle for motorists ever since.

I was content that I had done enough sightseeing for the time being and arrived in Devon geared up for a positive meeting. The University of Exeter was originally formed as an art school and remains particularly strong in the arts subjects. With two main campuses in Exeter and Cornwall, the university has steadily improved in the league tables over recent times. Exeter is also a member of the 1994 group, which in essence is similar to the Russell Group, but generally consists of smaller institutes. Well known graduates of the University include Zara Phillips, Will Young and JK Rowling.

Like a yoyo I was back up the M5 a few hours later to spend the night in Bristol. After a good meal and a decent night’s sleep, Tuesday took me from Bristol, across South Wales to Newport and Cardiff. My first visit to the welsh capital was dampened slightly by some typically British weather, but on the whole meetings with clients were extremely positive and with a sunny weekend predicted I made my way back up north a happy man.

ask4 supply broadband to more than fifteen sites in the steel city which equates to over 6000 students, and as it is home to Sheffield Hallam University and Sheffield University, it is one of the most sought after student locations in the UK.

Sheffield University is traditionally one of the most prestigious institutes in the UK and is known globally for its academic success, and is also a member of the Russell Group. The Russell Group comprises of twenty UK based universities who receive two thirds of research grant and contract funding in the UK; generally these are rated as the top universities in the UK. The University’s excellence in research fits accordingly with its motto. “Rerum Cognoscere Causas”, meaning, “To discover the causes of things”.

Furthermore, the university is ranked in the top 100 in The Times Higher Education World University Rankings and has produced five Nobel Prize winners, the most recent being in 1996. Other infamous alumni include former Home Secretary David Blunkett, comedian Eddie Izzard and the pride of Sheffield, heptathlete, Jessica Ennis.

With the South Yorkshire region being covered, my trip next week will take me down to sunny Devon, Bristol and South Wales, including numerous sites I have yet to visit, which gives me the opportunity to put more faces to names, as my voyage across the UK continues.

Traditionally recognised for their native dialect, football team and hosting the Great North Run, Newcastle is a city which has benefited from a huge increase in tourism over recent times. The city has a fantastic selection for shoppers and the vibrant nightlife is emerging as one of the best in the UK. Newcastle now accommodates two universities, Newcastle University and Northumbria University.

Newcastle University was ranked in the global top 200 universities in both the Times Higher Education (THE) and QS rankings published in 2010. Established in 1834 the university was originally a School of Medicine, and was later the first institution in the UK to be given permission to pursue stem-cell research. Along with excellence in Medicinal areas, in 2009 the university was in the top ten higher education institutions for income from UK research council awards, and attracted £87.8million through new research grants and contracts. This included the new Baddiley-Clark Building, which houses the £30million Bacterial Cell Biology Research Centre.

Furthermore, the university is also planning to go global. An international campus in Malaysia is set to provide its undergraduate degrees in Medicine and the Biomedical Sciences, along with opportunities for postgraduate study. The programmes of study are set to commence in 2012 and will be identical to those of Newcastle’s UK based provision, which will ultimately lead to the award of the same degrees. Overall it appears to be an extremely exciting prospect for the institute.

My northern trek will continue onward up through Edinburgh, Glasgow and Dundee before completing the 700 mile round trip by returning to my Sheffield roots, a place categorised as being in the north but considering where I will have just come from seems incredibly un-northern. My focus will continue to remain on arranging visits across the UK, as the summer is sneaking up on us it’s imperative that I get to every site and gain all the information possible in order to make 2011 another successful year for ask4.

Another one of my assignments was to aid in the installation of a digital signage solution at a couple of sites. Digital signage is basically a form of electronic display that shows information, advertising and other messages. Digital signs (usually in the form of a TV) are found everywhere, many retail outlets and corporate buildings have started using them instead of physical static signs. This signage is becoming popular in student residences, with hall staff updating them regularly with information about room inspections, rent notifications and events occurring around the site, they are proving to be an extremely effective tool.

Along with these main tasks I am also in the process of arranging more site visits for when my colleague returns from roving around France. I am planning trips to Scotland, Wales and London for the very near future, so these will more than make up for being based in one place for two whole weeks.

The University of Wolverhampton is noted for its success in promoting wider participation in higher education, and is the only University in the UK where the lion’s share of undergraduates are from a working class background, which ties in well to the Universities motto of “Innovation and Opportunity”. The University expanded in 1994 with the addition of the Telford campus, it is now spread over the West Midlands and Shropshire, and in 2000 the University underwent a multi million pound refurbishment. This included the £26million MC Building which was opened by the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown in 2003, and with the creation and opening of three new Schools: the School of Law, Social Sciences and Communications, School of Technology and the School of Health and Wellbeing in the past couple of years these are exciting times for the University. Also with the new Performance Hub set to open July of this year at the Walsall Campus, the area is hoping to attract a substantial amount of new business from communities across the UK.

And (A little off topic but also great to see such a fantastic success story) at last week’s Academy awards a Wolverhampton graduate was celebrating after winning an Oscar for his work on the hit film Inception. Peter Bebb led a team who worked on some of the film’s most memorable and iconic scenes, including inner-city Paris folding in on itself and fight scenes that defied reality.
The remaining few days of my week consisted of completing initial planning meetings all over the Midlands. After collecting a vast amount of information from more happy clients, and enviously driving past Villa Park and the Walkers Stadium wondering whether I would ever see my home team play at such venues, I headed back north to prepare for a fortnight in the office.

My first stop was the East Midlands and Leicester. Having recently begun providing broadband services to the De Montfort University Halls, Leicester is a place I will frequent regularly. The two sites I visited mainly house students from De Montfort University, renowned for its excellence in the field of research. The last couple of years has seen the University blossom, with the Hugh Aston building opening in September 2009 and numerous projects in the pipeline, including a possible expansion of the John Sandford Sports Centre.
The sun beaming down made my voyage onto Bedford considerably more pleasant, and for the first time this year I was able to wear sunglasses and drive with the windows down. The Bedford halls of residence are adjacent to the University of Bedfordshire Campus, perfect for students to roll straight out of bed and straight into lectures. Clearly an extremely popular location as it is already fully booked for September 2011. The University of Bedfordshire was created by the merger of University of Luton and the Bedford campus of De Montfort University in August 2006, and the number of applications to the University has nearly doubled in two years (UCAS) which makes it the most ‘upwardly mobile’ university in the country, according to the Times Higher Education. With this growth in mind it is essential for the accommodation to offer the best broadband solutions on the market, and with ask4 increasing speeds to a rapid 100Mb in September, and both clients and students are delighted with the service.