Case Study

Humberside Police

October 2022

The Problem

We were contacted by Humberside Police to carry out a signal site survey at Melton Police Station in North Ferriby. The station is a new construction and the modern building materials, made up of metal cladding and concrete floors, were blocking the mobile signal. The staff were experiencing extremely poor signal, zero data speeds and calls were continually dropping.

This was a large project for our team. The building is 10,000sqm, spread over 3 floors; but the main challenge for our engineers was that this facility has high security requirements. Our team needed to be escorted throughout the complex at all times. The building was extremely busy with staff carrying out confidential and sensitive work and it was paramount that our engineers remained discrete and professional.

The facility has solar power on a flat roof which meant we needed to strategically plan the position of the external antennas and carefully work around the solar panels.

Following on from our site survey and signal tests, a bespoke signal solution was designed to cover all 4 networks throughout the whole of the building.

no signal

NEW BUILD MATERIALS BLOCKING EXTERNAL MOBILE SIGNAL

10,000 sqm

Large area across three expansive floors

Amplifi-Qx Digital

mobile signal booster solution using cel-fi technology

The SOLUTION

The chosen solution

Our Amplifi-Qx Digital solution was selected with the CEL-FI QUATRA 4000e. The QUATRA 4000e is a multi-carrier active DAS hybrid for 3G/4G/5G voice and data and delivers mobile signal that is up to 1000x stronger. The design was made up of 2 network units, 9 coverage units, 47 internal antennas and 8 external SISO antennas. We were able to utilise the false ceilings in the building to run our cables and we were required to fire seal throughout the installation.

Installation challenges

Each project that we carry out has its own challenges and our engineering team are well equipped to adapt and make the necessary changes on site if needed.

Our original design for Melton Police Station included utilising a riser as a cable route. During the installation our team discovered that the riser did not lead to the area required which would increase the cable route. We always try to keep the cable used to a minimum in order to reduce the dB loss that naturally occurs when passing signal through coax cable. The engineering team redesigned this part of the signal solution on-site and the outcome was even better than our original plan.

Our mobile signal solutions are licence-exempt and fully meet the regulatory requirements in the UK (Ofcom SI 2022/595)

The Result

Significant improvement throughout

The results following our installation were excellent. The staff at Melton Police Station are delighted with the mobile signal that the whole building now receives. They are able to make and receive clear calls and the staff have seen an instant and dramatic improvement.

Immediate results

The customer was immediately able to see the results of our work with productivity and operational advantages. All areas of the building now receive strong and consistent 3G & 4G voice and data coverage.

Signal reading comparison

On completion of any installation we’ll always walk around the building to test the signal in various locations – comparing the boosted signal to the original signal readings.

We use professional signal testing equipment to take dBm readings (decibel milliwatts) – we then compare these to the pre-install readings to calculate the increase in mobile signal. A really good dBm reading will be somewhere between -70dBm and -90dBm … the closer to zero the better!

3G Results

dBm

Vodafone 3G

dBm

O2 3G

dBm

EE 3G

dBm

Three 3G

4G Results

dBm

Vodafone 4G

dBm

O2 4G

dBm

EE 4G

dBm

Three 4G

Customer Testimonial

Tony Green

Project Manager, Melton 2 Project

We struggled to get a signal from within the building, and as a new operational police station it was critical we had a decent mobile phone signal. We were experiencing poor signals, dropped calls and no data signal.

Our staff have seen an instant and dramatic improvement in the signal across all areas of the building. They now have full bars and a clear signal. They commented on the improvement almost as soon as the new system was turned on.

The Signal Solutions team were very accommodating with a very tight timescale for installation. They stayed late and gave our project priority. The team came across as very professional and made sure they communicated with us throughout.