-Construction site connectivty-
-Overview-
In 2026 we was contacted by a well known national housing developer to help build them an construction site network connectivity. The construction project was expected to take a number of years so need a robust solution that would last. We worked with their in house technical team to build the solution.
-Objectives-
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Redundant WAN connections
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Wireless connectivity to onsite work cabins
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Wired connectivity for CCTV and gate control systems
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Secure connectivity to company data centre.
-Solution-
Once all requirements where gathered it became clear we needed to go with a form SD-WAN solution. We decided to go for a duel HA pair of Fortigate 90G firewalls. These firewalls acted as a wireless lan controller two Forti 231K access points mounted within the site office and staff canteen cabin. We then utilised the SD-WAN feature paired with IP SLA to load balance two WAN connections. These WAN connections where a 5G cellular connection from Vodafone and a LEO satellite connection from Starlink.
Once the construction site internet solution was built. We could then create duel IPSEC tunnels back to the clients data centre for on premise systems access.
All the of the above was assisted by a 24 port managed PoE switch from Cisco. This served as power and data for the access points and the cctv cameras mounted on cabins.
-Benefits-
Once construction site connectivity was implement the client had full confidence that their and digital services would fully work into the project.
The rural site remained online, even when cellular coverage was lost.
CCTV and access gateways remained online and monitored out of hours.
On site staff moral was maintained due to having a fast and reliable wifi connection.
In house IT staff could remotley managed and and support onsite staff corporate devices.