Connecting Europe’s Biggest Single-Priced Retailer

One of Europe’s biggest single-price retailer with a robust network of warehouses and distribution centres across UK depend on mobile signal network for internal and external corporate communications.

The Problem

Like any other, the retailer’s warehouses are constructed using steel, which is well known to block the mobile signal. Thus, mobile signal coverage has been an existing issue in four of their distribution centres located in Wolverhampton, Wigan, Barnsley & Harlow UK. As a corporate user of Vodafone, the single-priced retailer has been using Vodafone’s inhouse solution to overcome the signal issue, until it was discontinued by Vodafone. This meant no mobile signal was available indoors, which made communication between the distribution centres limited to desk phones.

The internal team within the retailer’s transport division needs to liaise and coordinate with their drivers as well as their colleagues in the other warehouses for business-critical matters. For ensuring optimum productivity, mobile communication is a key enabler in the retailer’s growth strategy.

The Solution

The IT department reached out to Frequency Telecom in a quest to find a solution. Following a desktop survey and an on-site signal survey, the account manager engaged one of the trusted and CEL-FI certified installers to design and install the solution.

CEL-FI QUATRA 1000 was used in this project due to it’s ability of boosting single network within a large area.

Challenges

The brief to Frequency account manager was to improve the Vodafone signal within the office and chiller areas. The pre-installation assessment highlighted the need for some fibre extenders due to 3 of the locations within the Chiller area having switches with fibre connections instead of copper.

Installation

The Results

The installation of QUATRA 1000 resulted in full coverage within the agreed areas of all four of the warehouse locations.

At the installation stage, we carefully designed the installations of the CUs to provide sufficient coverage in the chiller areas without the fibre extenders. This resulted in a 5% reduction in the estimated cost.

• Significantly improved communication
• Cost-efficient solution
• 50% improvement in productivity
• Full coverage for Vodafone network