Network Communications News (NCN) October 2017 | Page 42
WIRELESS NETWORKS
Fossils fuel Jurassic Coast
broadband evolution
Kimmeridge residents rejoice as superfast broadband brings them out
of the stone age, ahead of the opening of lottery funded museum.
S
et on the Jurassic
coast of Dorset,
Kimmeridge is a
renowned tourist hub
for its ‘Outstanding
Natural Beauty’, World Heritage
site and Special Scientific Interest
sites. Not as impressive though,
was its notoriety for its lacking
communications infrastructure.
Depleted investments in the
area had rendered communication,
unreliable with sub 200k internet
connectivity and abysmal mobile
phone signal. “It wasn’t that it
was slow, it wasn’t there at all”
Helen and Stephen Earwicker,
Kimmeridge residents recall.
Up to speed
The already prevalent
communications issue came
to a-head when, thanks to
lottery funding, Kimmeridge was
announced to soon home a new
museum hosting one of the largest
fossil collections in the area, The
Etches. The museum identified
it would need to have a strong
online presence in order to attract
42 | October 2017
tourists from other hotspots, but
with residents, schools and even
businesses struggling to be able to
achieve 200kbps broadband, the
likelihood of rolling an influential
online presence looked slim.
The growing picturesque
village, though previously
considered ‘too small’ to
justify the attention of a larger
commercial investment, decided to
tackle the ever-prominent issue.
By no means a small project,
independent communications
specialist, Voip Unlimited, were
selected to bring Kimmeridge out
of the stone-age.
On completion of a site
survey, Voip Unlimited engineers
were presented with a host of
problems. With most issues being
geographic, the engineers had
to create an innovative wireless
network design. Utilising Portland
Harbour, which had a direct line
of sight to one of the highest
points in Kimmeridge, a plan was
devised to run 2km of fibre across
Portland, connecting this to a
licensed microwave link which
spans the bay to a newly installed
mast. By over engineering the
project and adding two antennas
on the mast, engineers created a
dual resiliency for the connection,
meaning that services would be
100% reliable once live.
A problematic instalment
“A protected
Special
Scientific
Interest
(SSI) zone
meant
engineers
were unable
to make
changes to
the ground
structure.”
There were various hurdles in
deployment stages, adhering to
legislations with the land being
protected; mandatory visual impact
statements and the requirement
for an archaeologist to oversee
any excavation. Though keeping
disruption to a minimum, there
was a small period of time where a
road closure and temporary power
downtime was necessary in order
for a third party to install electricity
supply. Winter weather conditions,
together with a steep incline hill
location, also meant the fibre
installation digger needed to be
supported by a bulldozer for added
stability. Securing the new mast
with concrete proved to be another
challenge as, due to the gradient,
the mixing process had to be done
at the top of the hill.