Construction Companies Connectivity Services 2017

Not only are telecoms key to our personal lives, but they are essential in our professional lives too. We wonder aloud how on earth people managed 20 years ago – before Google Maps before you could send a text or online bank. And it’s just as much of an intrigue wondering how construction companies managed to run projects successfully without the modern communication systems we have today.

So how are construction sites using telecoms? Sites are temporary, the infrastructure is constantly changing; how can a permanent solution be delivered to an impermanent structure? See below for a breakdown of the most popular solutions.

• Fixed Line: a fixed-line solution is potentially the most mainstream option out there for site. This, however, does not guarantee its trustworthiness. Because the market is so dominated, companies are often slack with their customer care, with house-builders waiting on average 3 months for lines to be installed by big players like BT. Fixed-line solutions are DSL lines that are physically placed on-site with fast speeds and no data limit. They can sometimes incur unseen costs from faults and damage.
• Satellite: again, a solution that may take 90 days to be installed, and you are required to host a large satellite dish on site, which can be unreliable in bad weather, and has poor bandwidth. A satellite does, however, provide connectivity to anywhere in the UK, and when conditions are good, service is usually rapid. This service is typically more popular in areas where fixed lines cannot be delivered.
• Dongles: seems like an easy solution, as a handy USB device that allows users to access the internet via 3G mobile broadband connection. In the UK alone, a quarter of a million units are sold by the month. A dongle is advantageous because it’s conveniently portable; as tiny as a USB flash disk, anyone can simply plug the device into a port. A dongle, furthermore, is universally compatible. Not a longterm solution in reality; particularly with speeds of 3.2 Mbps to 7.6 Mbps. Further, a dongle is typically only happy dealing with one device because of their bandwidth and can be affected by the Faraday effect.
• Internet broadband solutions: pioneered by Countrywide Telecoms, an internet broadband solution on-site enables your device to connect to the network. LTE-Advanced allows the router to receive two signals from a single mast. This effectively doubles bandwidth. It can be delivered in 10 days from the order. The speed of the service is vast, with up to 100mbps minimum speed (the UK average is 23mpbs), and the solution can be up to 30% cheaper than going to BT. The number of users is significantly higher than, say, a dongle- 30 people can access a single device.

Whilst fixed-line solutions are typically a favourite with the industry, this is generally simply because other solutions have not been heard of or explored. Rising in popularity are the short-term dongle solution and internet broadband solutions due to the level of service that comes alongside the solution. Rather than installing then leaving, broadband solutions allow the client to stay in touch with their solution through the provider and feel more secure with 24/7 monitoring and disaster recovery solutions (especially valuable as a feature where the project is high-priority).

Looking for more information about connectivity and the construction industry? UK Connect’s (previously Countrywide Telecoms) website has an honest breakdown of each solution on their website: http://ukconnect.com/services/construction-site-broadband/

And the team is happy to explain the benefits, and drawbacks, of each solution on 0333 015 5368.