Protecting Staff with Reliable Cellular Coverage

In a critical moment, staff safety is at risk when WiFi goes down – especially if there’s no mobile signal to fall back on. Whether it’s an emergency call or coordinating help, unreliable communication can cause operational delays and hinder effective response.

This post explores how mobile signal boosters are crucial for emergency planning. We’ll cover how they enhance health and safety, and communication in weak signal areas, supporting staff safety, first responders, and fulfilling duty of care during emergencies.

The Importance of Signal Boosters During Emergency Response

In emergency situations, maintaining communication is critical for ensuring staff safety, especially when WiFi fails and mobile signals are weak or nonexistent. For any business, losing connectivity can lead to severe consequences – delayed responses, miscommunication, and even life-or-death situations.

Mobile signal boosters work by amplifying weak signals in key areas of your building, ensuring that calls go through and data remains accessible. These boosters consist of four key components that work together to enhance weak signals and provide reliable coverage throughout your building. Here’s how each part functions:

• External Antennas: These antennas are mounted outside the building, where they capture the existing mobile signal from the nearest cell towers, even if the signal is weak. The external antennas are crucial for bringing in the best available signal to be amplified.

• Network Unit: This acts as the central control system, managing and regulating the signal distribution. It ensures the amplified signal is delivered smoothly and efficiently to the required areas.

• Coverage Units: Once the signal is received by the external antennas, it passes through the network unit to the coverage units. These units, typically positioned throughout the building, are responsible for redistributing the amplified signal inside, ensuring strong coverage in previously weak or dead zones.

• Internal Antennas: Strategically placed within the building, these antennas broadcast the boosted signal to different areas, ensuring seamless communication and mobile connectivity for all users.

In these pictures you can see our engineering team has installed external donor antennas, a CEL-FI QUATRA 4000e Network Unit, a coverage unit mounted in a tray and internal antennas which distribute signal throughout the building. There pictures showcase the different jobs we have completed. From The Arterial Group to Harvey Norman retail stores in Belfast, we cover all across UK and Europe.

The Real Impact of Poor Mobile Signal During Emergencies

While WiFi is often consistent, it’s not immune to outages or disconnections in larger buildings, particularly in areas like basements, stairwells, or rooms with thick walls. In an emergency, these weak spots can compromise staff safety, and statistics support the need for backup solutions like mobile signal boosters.

• It’s estimated that around 49% of UK office workers in London experience mobile signal problems, particularly in areas like basements and large office spaces. These challenges are primarily due to modern construction materials like steel and concrete, which block signals.

• 1 in 4 people in the UK have faced moments where they were unable to contact emergency services due to poor signal. This highlights the potential dangers when communication is compromised, especially in large workplaces, where a lack of signal can delay life-saving actions during emergencies.

• An estimated 565,000 workers sustained non-fatal injuries according to self-reports from the Labour Force Survey, and 123 workers were killed in workplace accidents during the same period. While we don’t know how many of these incidents were impacted by poor mobile signal hindering access to emergency services, these significant numbers highlight the frequency of workplace emergencies.

Real Life impact

There have been several cases in the UK where people struggled to contact emergency services due to poor mobile signal. For example, the London Underground Incident in 2016 where a freight train derailed at Ealing Broadway station. While this particular station is not entirely underground, parts of its infrastructure and nearby facilities experienced poor mobile signal due to the structural materials and subterranean areas. Dense construction materials like concrete and metal can obstruct mobile signals as well as underground passages, maintenance areas, or nearby tunnels may also have limited reception.

There are a number of consequences when it comes to having a lack of mobile signal like delayed reporting of the incident, passenger and staff safety, challenges in coordinating emergency response – the list goes on.

In situations like these, our tailored installations can help ensure that critical areas, such as basements or buildings constructed with signal-blocking materials, remain connected even during urgent situations.

Industries That Benefit from Signal Boosting in Emergency Planning

Mobile signal boosters are crucial across various industries, especially in ensuring uninterrupted communication during crises.

Office settings:

• Unreliable communication can put employees at risk during emergencies. Weak mobile signal may hinder contact with emergency services or coordination efforts, raising concerns about the employer’s duty of care. Mobile signal boosters provide essential connectivity, helping to safeguard employees and meet safety responsibilities.

Warehouses and Factories:

• In large warehouses and factories, Wi-Fi may be available, but it’s often unreliable for mobile devices. Signal boosters ensure constant connectivity, allowing quick communication for coordination, safety alerts, and incident reporting. Without strong mobile signal, employees may struggle to get help when it’s needed most.

Retail:

• Signal boosters ensure that employees can communicate instantly with emergency services, security, or management from anywhere in the store, even in areas with poor reception. Whether it’s a medical incident, security threat, or evacuation, having consistent mobile signal ensures that staff can take immediate action, protecting both customers and employees. Without this, delays in communication could put lives at risk.

Healthcare:

• In hospitals and clinics, consistent mobile signal is crucial for real-time communication and staff safety. Mobile signal boosters keep doctors, nurses, and first responders connected, even in areas with poor reception, enabling quick coordination of life-saving actions. Strong connectivity is vital for accessing medical records and alerting external responders. Without boosters, communication delays can jeopardise both patient outcomes and staff safety, making robust mobile coverage essential for healthcare.

Every business, regardless of size or industry, can benefit from improved signal strength, ensuring consistent connectivity across their operations.

Choosing the Right Signal Boosting Solution

We make the process of improving your mobile signal simple and hassle-free. We start with a free desktop survey to identify your building’s mobile signal issues, followed by an in-depth site survey to pinpoint any weak signal areas. Once we’ve designed the perfect solution, our team handles the entire installation process for you, ensuring minimal disruption. From start to finish, we take care of everything, giving you peace of mind that your staff will always stay connected when it matters most.