Connecting Whitehill and Bordon Town Centre: Prince Philip Park Regeneration Programme
Prince Philip Park is part of one of the most exciting and innovative and largest regeneration projects in the UK. The development will provide sustainable growth in Whitehill & Bordon taking a community of 14,000 people to one with over 23,000 people. Our vision is to make Whitehill & Bordon one of the most desirable places to live, work and play in the region.
The Solution—100% Connectivity
Whitehill and Bordon Regeneration Company (WBRC) deployed a private 4G Long Term Evolution (LTE) mobile network in its development of the new town centre which delivers reliable and secure connectivity providing groundbreaking uplink and download internet speeds. To deliver on its ‘digital’ vision WBRC invested in its own dedicated private fixed and wireless networks. WBRC’s vision was a hybrid network with traditional Wi-Fi but also to futureproof the town centre site by adding a 4G LTE private mobile network for some critical services on site such as push-to-talk and IoT.
The technology was designed and implemented by internet specialist Electronic Media Services (EMS) in partnership with Athonet and Tatnam Consulting.
EMS deployed a self-contained 4G LTE private mobile network consisting of the Athonet 4G private mobile network core software and hardware, 4G base stations with remote radio heads and 4G LTE Push-to-Talk (PTT) software for dispatch operation. A back-office software application supplied by Athonet allows EMS to easily create SIMs and authentication devices on the 4G private mobile network for WBRC. Additionally, EMS has also acquired new OFCOM Shared Spectrum Innovation licenses which provides WBRC with licensed spectrum using existing mobile operator’s spectrum (1800MHz, 2.1GHz or 2.6GHz) that is otherwise not being used in the town centre. EMS installed the 4G LTE private mobile network core hardware and software in the existing Meet Me Room in the town centre and installed the remote radio heads or small cells on existing poles in the town centre to provide coverage both indoors and outdoors as well as installing a 4G LTE small cell at the BOSC and Hogmoor Café sites both outside of the current town centre.
Connection of the 4G LTE private mobile network to the core is connected by fibre through existing ducts also installed by EMS in the town centre and simply used the existing WBRC internet connection and firewall. The public Wi-Fi network was also designed, implemented and commissioned by EMS and is connected to the same fibre network as 4G LTE private mobile network. EMS will also provide the long-term management of this Wi-Fi network. The deployed Wi-Fi network of 802.11ac MU-MIMO access points, intelligent network switches and security gateways covers all the current indoor and outdoor areas of the Town Centre. The Wi-Fi network and infrastructure has been designed to be scalable by 200% to allow for the remainder of the Town Centre and remote locations to be included in this Wi-Fi network. EMS integrated all the installed components into the network including the controller platform for device discovery, provisioning, monitoring, and configuration for centralized control of devices.
The network has also been designed to support the attachment of LTE-M IoT devices for the connection of sensors around the town centre with interesting future applications such as equipment / infrastructure monitoring – for example, sensors in an IoT system on water drains can detect a maintenance requirement before pipes actually burst, saving public money and preventing mass disruption.
Andrew Lambert, CEO of Electronic Media Services commented:
“The solution provides the flexibility and growth path to support 5G and Massive IoT as the new town centre grows and creates demand for new innovative services that rely on fast digital connectivity.”