14 March 2017
Set over three floors, Sky Central has a total combined area of around 46,000m2.
As part of consolidating its operations, Sky has extensively redeveloped its offices. But with multiple floors and the use of dense materials at its site in Osterley, west London, wireless signals were heavily affected.
The biggest area of concern involved the second phase of the development, Sky Central. Set over three floors, this has a total combined area of around 46,000m2 encompassing office space, a studio, production facilities, and R&D zones.
It was vital for Sky to be able to provide a consistent, strong signal source so that employees could use their mobile devices, connect to the internet and communicate wirelessly wherever they were on campus.
While the company had installed a single operator DAS (distributed antenna system) in the existing buildings at its site, it wanted multi-operator coverage to cope with user volumes throughout the much larger Sky Central area.
Martin Eddleston, planning and delivery manager for network implementation at Sky said: “With the number of colleagues occupying our new building and the importance of mobile communications, it was imperative that a scalable, high performing and future proof solution was selected.”
Systems integrator Herbert In-Building Wireless recommended Zinwave’s UNItivity system because of its ability to support multiple mobile operators, services (2G, 3G and 4G), and public safety access services. It delivered an end-to-end all fibre solution on a single converged system within the building.
In addition, Zinwave claims the platform’s “unique” wideband architecture “breaks the cycle of endless DAS upgrades” because it supports any frequency from 150MHz to 2700MHz, accommodating current and future wireless services, such as 5G.
Furthermore, it says UNItivity is the only solution that can provide consistent mobile phone coverage inside metal lifts.
