“We were initially sceptical. However, seeing it in operation you realise how this can offer real tangible benefits – not just from a cost perspective and saving on mobile calls, but the fact that my guys can concentrate on what they do best,” comments Robert Hughes, Company Founder and Managing Director.
Robert Hughes Ltd has initially deployed the RDU on a multi-storey, multi-dwelling site with extensive work taking place in a newly created underground parking area excavated from two metres of solid stone. Contact with personnel on the lower levels was impossible on the standard mobile network.
“Construction is an industry in which we constantly need to ask questions, to verify, to quantify – and the amount of time we save not having to go and find the right people to answer questions is staggering,” explains Hughes. “We were amazed that we could arrive up on site, walk in with the unit, turn it on and we were up and running within minutes,” he added.
The RDU is housed centrally with handsets distributed to key staff to provide contactability across all levels of the site. Designed for challenging environments, the unit is housed in a self-contained hard-shell case and built to withstand heavy use, while the GSM handsets are impact, water and dust resistant and much easier and cheaper to replace than DECT or PMR handsets.
The solution removes the need for physical infrastructure to be installed or reliance on public mobile networks. Calls between handsets incur no charges and, where some infrastructure is in place, the unit can be connected to a standard phone line to allow users to make outbound calls at the standard landline rate.
The construction industry is one of the early adopters of private mobile networks and the deployment at Robert Hughes highlights many of the key advantages of the technology. Dean Parsons, Managing Director of Private Mobile Networks Ltd, explains, “In this case, they are using ruggedised GSM phones solely for voice, but any GSM technology will work with the unit and the portability of the RDU base station allows it to quickly go wherever it’s needed – irrespective of local conditions.”