We were contacted by a multi-national recruitment specialist who were looking to carry out refurbishment works in their London Farringdon office. These works would temporarily cease their internet connectivity, powering down their comms room and as a result they required connectivity and WiFi for around 100-150 concurrent users in their large open plan offices as they couldn’t close the offices, which are used as a drop in centre for London based staff or those visiting.
Foreseen Challenges
Having so many concurrent high bandwidth users operating over a temporary WAN presents the likely need for multiple WANs to support them. Also, in such a large open plan space it means that several wireless access points will need to be installed to provide the right coverage.
The Solution
Solution Proposed
After understanding network availability in the area, we proceeded with a four WAN solution which would load balance traffic, providing total bandwidth of around 350Mbps down and 150Mbps up. In addition we placed four high density, long range wireless access points in specific locations to allow signal to cover the whole open plan offices and meeting rooms.
Installation Process
Two engineers attended to run cables in existing ceiling trays and voids, placing the head end with all the core hardware and 5G WANs in a dedicated space in the corner of the offices. A WiFi survey was carried out to ensure best locations for the wireless access points were selected and then they were mounted to existing trays and tested.
Support Given
All hardware was configured to allow for remote monitoring, support and maintenance. We didn’t have someone onsite to support the hardware as it was a 14 day shutdown but with an engineer on call to attend should it be needed.
Outcome
Indeed were able to operate as normal from their offices, albeit with a different SSID (wireless network name) and password due to this being a technical request.
