Internet connectivity is a valuable tool for businesses working on construction sites. With connectivity, your portable cabins become fully fledged offices; allowing your building team to download drawings, send emails and keep in touch with clients and colleagues.
The importance of internet connectivity on a construction site cannot be understated. That’s why we’re provided a top 10 easy steps you can take to improve your internet connectivity while you’re on site.
1. Upgrade to a 4G WiFi solution
We often find that a lot of construction companies are still using low speed, old fashioned mobile dongles to provide their staff with internet connectivity while on site.
These mobile dongles are often frustratingly slow and can be less cost effective than the alternative: 4G WiFi.
Using a 4G WiFi solution, your construction workers can connect to the internet as they would do in any office or home environment. Our 4G solution is specifically designed for the construction industry, with reliability and ‘robust-ness’ in mind.
Using a 4G WiFi solution is a great way to improve your construction site’s internet connectivity. In fact, our solution is currently in use across the UK, with hundreds of routers helping building sites to stay connected.
2. Use an external antenna
The most common place for construction workers to use our 4G WiFi connectivity is inside a metal module building/portable cabin.
These cabins often block incoming 4G signals, making it impossible for dongles to establish a strong/reliable connection. This is why we provide our customers with an external antenna. These antennas are used to bring the outside 4G signals inside your cabin.
With a simple plug and play setup, your construction site will have access to more reliable internet connectivity using an external 4G antenna. The antenna also helps with data speed too—maintaining a reliable connection while in use.
3. Change your networks
In 2021, mobile coverage is very rarely an issue for most businesses. With a very high percentage of the UK able to receive 4G LTE, almost every construction site is covered.
However, in particular areas, you may find that one network is stronger than another. For example, if you’re out in the sticks, it might be that one network has coverage and one does not. This is why we provide multi-network enabled routers.
With multi-network routers, we can switch you over to the strongest available network in your area. This increases our coverage and speed range access the UK, and gives you the reliability that your construction site requires.
4. Change to wired connection
A more simple method for improving internet connectivity on your construction site is to change your most important equipment to a wired connection.
As with any internet connectivity solution, WiFi is never as strong as a physically wired connection. With that in mind, switching to a wired connection may be the best way to provide your most important devices with internet connectivity.
Devices such as printers/laptops and alike will often benefit from a physically wired connection, in fact, many of our customer’s use the LAN ports on the front of our 4G routers to increase the reliability of their connection.
With peripherals such as printers and networking equipment playing an increasingly important role in construction sites, keeping them online is important.
5. Reposition your router
Often, a simple solution to improve your construction site internet connectivity is to physically move your 4G WiFi router.
Sometimes, moving your 4G router often helps improve the WiFi within your cabins. Obstructions such as walls and furniture can impede the WiFi coverage in your cabin, and great ‘black spots’.
By moving your router to a different location within the cabin, you may be able to improve WiFi throughout the construction cabin.
6. Reduce the network load
Network load is another factor to consider when making decisions about your construction site internet connectivity. If you’re experiencing some slower speeds, this might be because the load on the network is high.
There are two ways to mitigate high network load, firstly, you can reduce the number of devices using the network at any one time—but we realise that this is often unrealistic.
Secondly, you could split the load over multiple routers. This is often the preferred solution, as it allows you to maintain a high load, but keeps it spread evenly between multiple routers.
A common example we see is to have managing staff connected to one router, with laptops and printers etc also connected. And then another router for the site workers, who may need to use their mobiles and tablets while in the cabin. This reduces the load on each single router and therefore creates a less congested network.
7. Move your external antenna
Another simple way to improve internet connectivity on your construction site is to change the positioning of your external antenna. A simple adjustment of your antenna may yield better, stronger connectivity to the 4G network.
We often find that some construction site cabins are positioned close to the work itself, and as the work progresses, this cab impede the signal strength. However, by moving the antenna higher up, or to a slightly different location, you can often find speed and reliability improvements.
8. Speak to a member of our team
If you’re looking to improve internet connectivity on your construction site, speak to a member of our team today to find out what are the best options for your business. No sales talk, just honest, tailored advice about your construction site internet connectivity.
If you’re a Bytes Digital customer, our team can login to your router remotely to run a diagnostics check and ensure that all systems are running as they should.
Our friendly team are here to help on 03331 301 021.
9. Load balancing
Load balancing is when multiple sources of broadband are used simultaneously to ‘balance’ the load of your internet traffic.
For example, a 4G WiFi solution may use a SIM card as one point of connectivity, and another WAN (such WiFi from another router). Traffic can be actively distributed between these two WAN connections to ensure that the load on each individual connection is lightened.
By balancing the load, you can improve reliability and keep the workflow on your construction site running smoothly.
10. Upgrade additional network hardware
Often, there are more than one individual hardware elements linked to your WiFi network. This might be cabling, access points or WiFi adaptors. This additional equipment is sometimes the cause of frustration for some construction sites.
When upgrading to a 4G WiFi solution, it is important to look at your current networking setup, and find if there may be any other pieces of hardware that are slowing your connection down.
However, our experience has taught us that most construction sites only need a simple internet connectivity setup, and as long as the workers on site have connectivity, this is normally more than suitable.
For more information about upgrading to our 4G WiFi solution to improve internet connectivity on your construction site—use the ‘online quote’ button, or give us a call on 03331 301 021.
