articles link to it . please introduce links to this page from related articles ; try the find link tool for suggestions . april 2010 optilan type private industry communications equipment founded 24 january 1990 founder tim allen richard buckland eamonn mcfadden headquarters coventry united kingdom services system design system integration and installation maintenance cable and fiber optic installation product build and test number of employees 240 2015 website www.optilan.com optilan is a communication and security systems provider operating worldwide . the company was originally founded in 1990 . with the head office located in coventry optilan now also operates at offices in russia azerbaijan united arab emirates india and the united states . it is a privately owned business employing around 240 people on a full time basis in addition to a number of field experts brought in for specific projects . the times profit track 100 named optilan among the 100 fastest growing private companies in the uk in 2008 . contents 1 history 1.1 early years 1.2 channel tunnel rail link 1.3 coventry citywide network 2 head office locations 3 examples of optilan s projects 4 references history edit early years edit optilan was first formed in 1990 by good friends and co apprentices from gec telecommunications now telent ; tim allen richard buckland and eamonn mcfadden . prior to forming the company richard buckland and tim allen had been working at walmore electronics a fibre optics company in central london from which they left as the company moved into other areas . after discovering that walmore were no longer continuing in the field of the contracts they had been working on ; tim and richard gained their blessing to secure work with the number of the clients including ; the bbc royal albert hall honeywell in taiwan and dubal aluminium in dubai . eamonn mcfadden who had been working for gec in thailand then joined the pair to become the third member of the team . from as early as 1991 optilan had started taking orders over 100 000 the first of which being in the isle of wight for plessey radar where optilan installed a fibre optic transmission system . as the company grew in size bal kler and chris yarwood joined the three original company founders on the board of directors and increasingly more staff were employed on a full time basis . ken taylor from coventry city council awards optilan the contract channel tunnel rail link edit in 2001 optilan were given the contract to work on the channel tunnel rail link providing the cctv data transmission network dtn and the local area network lan . optilan was also offered the maintenance contract for the support of these systems . coventry citywide network edit coventry city council s own network was the first of its kind to be installed in the uk in 2007 . with over 87 miles of fibre optic cables being laid around coventry by optilan the system now reaches all the areas council buildings and schools to meet the demands of the city s 300 000 residents and enable local schools to get faster broadband access . this was also optilan s first contract for over 10 million . head office locations edit optilan head office optilan s head office is located in coventry england . the company had previously been located in kenilworth ; however had to move due to an increase in company size . optilan s equipment build and test areas are also located at the coventry site . products from here are distributed worldwide to be fitted within communication and security systems . optilan also operates from offices in moscow russia baku azerbaijan and the company s us subsidiary optilan inc. operates out of houston united states . examples of optilan s projects edit channel tunnel rail link providing bespoke telecommunications station communication and security systems . scottish telecoms operator thus previously scottish telecom principal contractor for ohl overhead line fiber wrap replacement projects over scottish power s infrastructure university of hertfordshire providing optical fiber based telecommunications network and cctv security systems for their new de havilland campus . russian permafrost projects design and supply of communications infrastructure for the south shapkino project encompassing wellheads process plant and export pipeline easynet england fiber works contractor for easynet and has been providing preventative and emergency maintenance services to the 6000 km national network since 1998 as well as expanding the network over waterways and highways infrastructure throughout the uk . coventry wide area network covwan a 10million upgrade of coventry city council s ict network called the wide area network wan connecting all council buildings and schools to meet the increasing demands of delivering services for the city s 300 000 residents and enabling local schools to benefit from improved broadband access and faster internet services . references edit optilan homepage profit track 100 league tables ken taylor coventry city council news retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title optilan & oldid 734086800 categories companies based in coventryhidden categories orphaned articles from april 2010all orphaned articlespages using infobox company with unsupported parameters navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages add links this page was last modified on 12 august 2016 at 01 55 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; 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