Challenge
A nationwide paint-retail group relies on network-enabled painting machines in every branch to create custom colours on demand. The existing single-network connectivity model was creating five critical pain points:
- Rigid, up-front contracts that blocked fast scaling and tied the budget to fixed annual fees.
- Zero real-time visibility of individual SIM usage; store teams and HQ could not pinpoint data spikes or inactive lines.
- Unexpected overage bills caused by pooled data being consumed unevenly across 2,000-plus outlets.
- Inconsistent signal strength in both densely populated retail parks and remote trade counters.
- Stalled European expansion because the incumbent provider lacked a seamless cross-border option.
With growth plans in the UK, Ireland and the EU, the retailer needed a reliable connectivity partner that could deliver redundancy, granular control and a friction-free rollout with great customer service.
Solution
Cellhire supplied an unsteered multi-network IoT SIM estate, preconfigured for plug-and-play insertion into over 2,000 paint-mixing machines.
Key elements included:
- Multi-network roaming across EE, Vodafone, O2 and Three in the UK, plus tier-one carriers in Ireland and mainland Europe, so each machine always locks onto the strongest available signal.
- Live SIM management portal providing granular usage monitoring, location tagging, and instant bars or renames.
- Monthly “only-when-live” billing model eliminating up-front charges and allowing staged migration without financial penalties.
- Logistics support: 2,200 SIMs were shipped, staged, and labelled, ready for engineers to swap during routine maintenance windows.
- Seamless onboarding with expert guidance: Cellhire’s IoT specialists handled configuration, staff training. go-live, and continue to provide responsive, best-in-class customer service for day-to-day queries.
(4 in the UK)
Result
- £60,000 + annual saving on connectivity through right-sized tariffs and usage-based billing.
- Zero unplanned downtime thanks to automatic network switching and fixed-IP connectivity for secure remote access.
- Full estate transparency: every SIM, every store, every megabyte visible in real time.
- Accelerated rollout into new UK branches plus Ireland and EU sites under the same aggregated tariff.
- Single contract, single invoice simplifying vendor management for the procurement team.
“Cellhire delivered everything we didn’t know we needed – from full portal visibility and multi-network reliability to real cost control. We’re now rolling out across the UK, Ireland and the EU with complete confidence.”
UK IT Services Manager, national paint retailerReady to connect your own paint-mixing estate or start your
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