Luxury retirement living shouldn’t come with living restrictions. When potentional buyers and investors were put off by the poor mobile signal at key areas of the building at Riverstone Kensington, they had to find a solution to provide the high-end living their customers expected.

Riverstone offers luxury retirement living with a choice of beautiful and fully equipped apartments with contemporary architecture and design details in Kensington and Fulham, London. Riverstone Kensington is an award-winning residence of one, two and three-bedroom apartments in one of London’s most sought-after neighbourhoods. Located near to south Kensington high street. Riverstone offers a range of amenities including spa, restaurants and health & wellbeing facilities.

The Problems

Riverside Kensington offers contemporary living to its residents, however, potential buyers looking to purchase an apartment were put off when they discovered the mobile signal strength around areas of the building was extremely poor.

Poor indoor mobile signal in key areas within the luxury retirement accommodation was affecting the sales of Riverstone Kensington. The contemporary building was built with energy-efficient construction materials along with a glass front elevation. Initially they needed to improve the signal in the Communal Cinema in the basement area with a view to improving the signals in the ground-floor communal gym, restaurant and bar area, as well as their Fulham Site.

  • Poor mobile signal in key areas
  • Potential buyers and investors put off
  • Modern construction materials

The Solution

Following an initial desktop survey, Frequency Telecom worked with PSZ Direct, one of their certified resellers to conduct a full site survey to identify the problem areas and installation requirements. Due to construction materials, layout and size of the basement floor at Riverstone Kensington and the requirement to cover all of the living and communal areas on that floor.

The client needed a multi-network solution for residents, employees, and guests that would provide coverage for the size of the building. Quatra Q4000e solution was recommended due to it’s multi-network capabilities, scalability and easy maintenance features.

Installation

The survey identified that the best place to install the external donor antennas was on the roof of the building. This is where good mobile signal is available externally from the macro networks and is near to the plant area on the roof for accessing the building internally.

The internal 4G signal on all mobile networks is weak, with many test locations recording signal strength (RSRP) weaker than -110dBm and signal quality (RSRQ) weaker than -16dB which is when issues with call & audio quality become significantly more noticeable.

With the building being a luxury, high end retirement property with high end finishing. It was not possible to alter the fabric of the building to lay new cabling. The internal antennas had to be low profile ones and installed discretely to avoid any changes to look and design of the interior. Due to difficult cable runs, some antennas were swapped for more powerful panel antennas to counter the shorter distances and provide more directional coverage.

The Results

The installation was successfully installed and completed within three months. The signal solutions were discreetly placed not impacting the interior of the building. Now with the installation of a mobile signal solution, this has removed the negative impact for potential buyers and investors. The averge reading of LTE 4G around the building has increased from -110dBm to -58dBm.

Following the successful installation at Kensington, the client commissioned another install at their Fulham site.

  • Improved signal
  • Multiple network coverage
  • Future installation in their Fulham building