A construction site has the same needs as an office, with one difference: it opens in six weeks, moves twice, and closes in eighteen months. The office containers arrive before anyone knows exactly where they will sit, the site manager needs the drawings on a screen on day one, and the leased line everyone wants takes longer to install than the groundworks. So the order you do things in matters more than which connection you pick.
Day one: 5G, with a proper antenna
A fixed line of any kind takes weeks at best, so the site goes live on mobile data. We put a business 5G router in the site office with an external antenna on the cabin roof, after checking which network performs best at that postcode and in that direction. Done properly this gives a site tens or hundreds of megabits from the day the cabin lands, and it carries the phones, the drawings, the CCTV and the welfare unit’s Wi-Fi until something better arrives.
The router is managed by us, so when the office container moves, the connection moves with it. Nothing on site depends on a cable that has to be dug up.
Then the connection the site deserves
Whether the site gets more than 5G depends on how long it will be there and what it has to carry.
A leased line, if the site will outlast the lead time
A leased line gives the site a dedicated connection with the same speed up and down and a contracted fix time, which is what a site running BIM models, video calls and cloud project tools all day wants. The catch is the lead time: typically 60 to 90 working days from order, because the carrier has to survey the route, often dig to the compound, and sometimes get the landowner’s permission. Our guide to leased lines explains the cost and the process. If the site will be there for a year or more, order the line in the first week and run on 5G until it arrives. If it will be gone in nine months, do not.
A microwave link where cable cannot reach in time
A microwave link does the same job through the air where a cable cannot reach the compound in time or at a sensible cost. A dish on the site cabin and a clear line of sight to a point on our network gives a dedicated circuit in weeks rather than months, and the dish comes down and moves when the site does. We survey the line of sight before proposing anything, so you know it will work before you commit.
Starlink as the backup
Several sites now bring Starlink with them, and it is a sensible backup: it works anywhere with a view of the sky and does not care that the compound is a mile from the nearest cabinet. It is less good as the only connection, because the speed varies with weather and load and the latency unsettles phone calls. We put it behind the same managed router as the 5G or the leased line, so it takes over automatically when the main connection fails and hands back when it returns, and the site never notices which one it is on.
Around the compound
The site office is rarely the only cabin. A point-to-point wireless link joins the welfare unit, the stores container and a second office to the same connection without trenching between them, and site Wi-Fi covers the compound so a tablet works at the gate as well as at the desk. Each move of a cabin is a re-aim and a reconnection, done by the same engineers, not a new order.
Access control and cameras on the same visit
Two things get asked for in the same breath as the internet, and they run on it.
Access control on the site office, the stores container and the compound gate means a fob or card for everyone who has been inducted and nothing for anyone who has not. Contractor fobs can be set to expire with the induction or the contract, so the register of who came through which door is kept for you, and a lost fob is cancelled from our service desk rather than a lock being changed. Our guide to door access control covers how the systems work; on a site the difference is that the controllers sit in the cabin and come with it when it moves.
CCTV on the compound covers the plant, the materials and the gate, recording to secure storage with remote viewing from the site manager’s phone and the head office. Cameras are positioned from a survey for what the footage has to show, a plate at the gate or a face at the stores door, and they sit on a separated network rather than the office Wi-Fi. When the site closes, the cameras come down and go to the next one.
Both are installed by our own engineers, who are the people who fitted the router and the cabling, so there is one survey, one visit and one number to call. We work this way for construction and quarrying clients with permanent sites, and the temporary ones are run the same.
What we need from you
- The site postcode, or a neighbouring one, and a plan showing roughly where the office containers will go. Exact positions can come later; the postcode decides the 5G survey and the leased line proposal.
- The opening date and the expected end date. Those two dates choose between 5G alone, a microwave link or a leased line.
- How much bandwidth the site will use, and what for. A site running drawings and email is different from one streaming cameras to head office all day.
- Whether the client is bringing Starlink or anything else, so it can be built in as the backup from the start.
We can survey a site anywhere in the North East, and we have connected sites well beyond our usual area where the client already works with us. Send the details through the proposal form, or call 01642 661888 and the service desk will answer within three rings.