Australian ski resorts add digital signage

SYDNEY, Australia — Harris Corp., an international communications and information technology company, has supplied Australian Alpine Enterprises (AAE) with the organization's first digital signage network, which provides real-time ski conditions and other information to visitors at its Falls Creek and Mount Hotham resorts in Victoria, Australia.

AAE chose Harris Corp.'s InfoCaster, an out-of-the-box digital signage solution for content creators and cable broadcasters. A single InfoCaster workstation provides full-screen, multizone content to a local display screen. Systems also can be expanded to create an extensive digital signage network managed by InfoCaster Network Manager, which allows hundreds of InfoCaster players to be updated from a single location.

"We decided to replace the traditional signage with electronic signage because it allows dynamic changes to be made in real time as our marketing department sees necessary," said Ned Woolley, AAE IT manager. "Our aim was to be able to provide visitors in all areas of the resort with up-to-date information, including ski conditions, lift ticket pricing, 'What's On' info, weather news and entertainment."

For stage one of the Falls Creek project, AAE installed an InfoCaster network consisting of seven players and screens located all over the mountain that are controlled by a single Network Manager. The snowy, mountainous regions of Falls Creek presented significant technical challenges during the installation, particularly concerning networking.

"Due to the layout of the mountain and the cost of cabling, operators had to install a wireless 802.11b network over the mountain to get connectivity," said Don Dennis, Harris national sales manager. "The system performed so successfully that AAE decided to roll out three more screens."

The successful InfoCaster installation at Falls Creek led AAE to rollout a similar system comprising a Network Manager and three players at its Mount Hotham resort. Two of these players are used in the resort's ticketing area: one as a guest channel and the other as a point-of-sale channel. The third player is used as a channel on the internal master antenna television system.