Boosting connectivity at one of central London’s most innovative universities

The challenge

In the City of London, many factors were limiting reliable, fast connectivity for the campus building. These include location challenges, building materials dampening the signal, and the need for a solution that works with multiple mobile carriers. The project also required planning permission and installation work outside of regular hours.

Results

UCtel implemented a solution that vastly improved mobile connection within the campus building’s walls, providing all students and staff with consistently excellent mobile signal, regardless of which network they used.

Summary

In a university environment, students and staff need their mobile connections to be fast and reliable, no matter where they are on campus.

What’s more, students will all use a different network provider, meaning that there is no one-size-fits-all solution to provide it.

University students are a data-hungry user base. Providing them with a rapid and reliable connection puts significant stress on a mobile network – and in the heart of London’s densely-packed City, delivering it has unique challenges.

UCtel installed four CEL-FI QUATRA 1000 systems to provide the connectivity this university community needed to communicate, upload, and download data. Read on to see how this project unfolded.

The Client

Northeastern University London is a leading university in St. Katharine Docks, London, specialising in interdisciplinary and experiential learning, providing unique global mobility opportunities through Northeastern University’s global campus network.

The main campus building, Devon House, occupies 2.5 floors of a converted warehouse, with roughly 1300 full and part-time students relying on the building’s educational and administrative facilities.

Boosting connectivity at one of central Londons most innovative universities

The Challenges

In the City of London, reliable, fast connectivity is an expectation, not a privilege. However, several issues were restricting the campus building from delivering it:

Location – being located in the densely-packed City, there’s not only a great demand for mobile connectivity near Devon House, but many buildings nearby obstructing the ‘reach’ of the outdoor signal.
Building – in a recently-renovated, 21^st-century campus, certain non-conducting building materials and modern insulation can ‘dampen’ the signal inside the building.
Various networks – not every student uses the same mobile carrier. The university needed a solution that would ensure a consistent experience whether they used Vodafone, EE, O2 or Three’s network.

Notably, the project also required planning permission to place an external antenna, and the installation work had to be undertaken out of hours in order not to disturb students and staff.

The Solution

After surveying the building to understand where cabling, antenna, network and coverage units would be installed, UCtel fit four CEL-FI QUATRA 1000s to boost coverage of each one of the four major mobile networks in the building, in line with Ofcom regulations.

The CEL-FI QUATRA 1000 was the perfect solution given:

The size of the building (a former warehouse)
The data-hungry nature of student and staff mobile activities (uploads, downloads, streaming and real-time communications)
The populated, dense environment (on campus and in the nearby City)

The CEL-FI QUATRA 1000 repeats four mobile bands (frequency ranges) and supports multiple-in, multiple-out (MIMO) antennae – which dramatically increase the capacity and speed of connections.

The UCtel team worked with a university-designated partner to connect the CEL-FI units with CAT-6 cabling. This long cable was preferable to a coaxial cable in this building and ensured that no data would be lost, despite the comparatively long distances involved in data transfer.

The Results

The system vastly improved mobile connection within the campus building’s walls, providing all students and staff with consistently excellent mobile signal, regardless of which network they used.

After surveying, acquiring planning permission and working to install cabling with the University’s partner, the CEL-FI QUATRA 1000 systems were installed, configured and tested in less than a week – providing a seamless, noticeable uptick in connectivity for this academic community.

UCtel would like to thank Pioneer Solutions and Frequency Telecom for their support in providing Northeastern University London with high-speed indoor mobile coverage that students and staff could rely on.Does your university, school or college struggle to provide reliable mobile connection to staff and students? The solution is easier than you think. Read here to learn more about bespoke solutions for universities, or get in touch with UCtel to learn how to supercharge your mobile speeds.