CLIENT: Adur & Worthing Councils, England
PROJECT MANAGER: Colin Henderson, Senior Consultant at FarrPoint
Project Overview
Our client, Adur & Worthing Councils, was seeking assistance to launch a public Wi-Fi service in the Worthing town centre and beachfront. One of their key requirements was to identify key spots for new Wi-Fi infrastructure deployment to achieve the maximum return on investment. The client also wanted to access how this new connectivity infrastructure could be deployed alongside their planned fibre roll-out, as the end goal was to extend and enhance connectivity in Worthing in general, including mobile and Internet of Things (IoT) coverage.
Our advice included a full public connectivity strategy: from mobile coverage surveys to Wi-Fi infrastructure planning and mapping.
When asked about the project, Colin Henderson, Senior consultant at Farrpoint said:
"This was an extremely interesting and rewarding project to work on. It required careful planning and modelling in order to map the right assets and strategic locations that would improve connectivity in Worthing."
Mobile Coverage Surveys
We were required to map clear locations where coverage could be improved and provide recommendations on which assets and fibre locations could help to achieve improvement. We also provided not-spot analysis and suggested workarounds following mobile surveys and they planned and plotted Wi-Fi and IoT coverage based on defined areas and providing best possible coverage
Internet of Things (IoT) Assessment & Case Development
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Requirement
- What was the client’s specific need? They primarily wanted to launch a public wi-fi service in the main shopping and event areas in Worthing town centre and the beachfront.
- What business or organisation benefits would this project bring? They want to provide a state of the art wi-fi model which not only is free at the point of use but which is immersive and informative for local residents, businesses and visitors but, it also a collaborative platform for innovation and local businesses to use (i.e businesses could potentially bundle offers so that a restaurant and theatre could offer a half-price meal and half-price ticket together)
- Technologies:
- What technology was being replaced, updated or implemented etc.? Public Wi-Fi and IoT were being scoped as new services which were assessed alongside planned full-fibre installations and public sector assets such as lampposts and bus shelters as well as public buildings. Mobile coverage was surveyed and assessed in the same way but for the purpose of defining 4G not-spots (and future 5G ones) again with the notion of identifying and using (or relocating) full-fibre installations to “fibre enable” locations within the not-spots to make them more attractive to MNOs
- What knowledge was required from our staff? As a starting point, we needed to understand the site locations, the extend and locations of available assets and where the defined wi-fi areas would be.
Our Approach
- What did FarrPoint do? There was quite a lot involved.
- What were the most challenging aspects? Planning the Wi-Fi locations was a big task as originally there were 4 defined locations which after the initial assessment, grew to 67 locations (internal and external). Of these, FarrPoint planned approx 48 outdoor coverage areas which then had to be categorised into primary and secondary shopping areas, leisure centres, cemeteries etc. All of this had to be done using available assets such as lampposts and buildings all the while keeping an accurate inventory so that they could be referred back to when the council plans to procure and specify for a procurement (which they’re now doing)
- What expertise from other projects did FarrPoint use? Mobile surveys and Wi-Fi planning
Project Outcome
- What did FarrPoint deliver?
- Was it on time and on budget? The project went 2 weeks over on timescales and the budget was extended when the Wi-Fi scope was increased. Othewise, it came in just under the overall budget and was based on a task-based outcome.
- What were the tangible benefits and improvements this project brought to the client? (please use numerical values where possible). FarrPoint identified and made recommendations for the following, none of which was known prior to the start of the project and all of which was meticulously laid out in the report with asset and location data and justification:
- 83 planned fibre locations – 4 of which were recommended to be relocated to infill 4G not-spots
- 5 x 4G Not-Spot clusters were identified with 12 individual locations in total
- 46 outdoor Wi-Fi locations were assessed and planned with a recommendation to cover them using 60 Wi-Fi Access Points
- 9 IoT Gateway locations were identified to provide good coverage across the area. 4 of the planned fibre locations were suggested as these locations also served either Wi-Fi, 4G or both.
- Of the original 83 fibre installation locations, our analysis showed a match for:
- 8 x not-spot
- 30 x Wi-Fi
- 5 x IoT
- 14 x CCTV
Any additional background info?
- Is there any additional information that may be useful to Marketing but didn’t fit the above sections?
- Part of the remit for the IoT assessment was to look at and suggest a number of potential scenarios and use cases which the council could consider as applications to launch and then blend into their public wi-fi solution (for example, providing air quality information so that older people with respiratory problems could make a judgement on going out and a flood warning system that could alert people when the sea waters rise in the estuary which is a common problem)
