Car Charging stations on lower ground needing signal for service

[Hughesie99]

Hi

Apologies but I cant find my query from Monday and I had hoped to have some information for the board meeting for our building happening Friday.

The building has had AV charging points installed in the basement, we are a 6 storey block in a built up area of East London. The charging points need to allow the tenants to pay with their cards and be notified when the car is charged so they can move, or there is heavy fines for not moving the car out of the space to allow others to use the charging point.

The company supplying is Octopus AV Charging points and there is intermittent success, but this has caused issues with some tenants being unable to pay to charge up, the AV company has since told me to contact the local network (yourselves) and see if there is any way to improve the signal in that lower ground area, so can you help me there, the alternative I have found since yesterday was from a company quoting almost 10k to install a private booster system from them .

My query if you can help is will Vodafone have any way of helping, the building is  located here EC4V 3PN or do I need to talk to the board about a 3rd party install at our expense?

If anyone has any experience of how to solve this issue or advice on what company to use for a private install it would be appreciated 

Thanks

David 

[Gemma]

Hi @Hughesie99 - thanks for explaining the situation. I've taken a look at the general coverage in that area, along with the local serving site (1920). This is performing as expected without any faults. With this being in the basement, this will be the reason for the connection issues. I'd advise to contact the supply company to see what they can do. 

[Hughesie99]

Thanks Gemma

They had advised contacting yourselves and are not very helpful, research into signal boosting companies gave me some names but I have never had any dealings with  this issue before, this company came recommended Mobile Signal Solutions would it be one that Vodafone would have used before, or do you engage / recommend  any particular company I could try and talk too? I also tried some others but they were not based in UK and only posted the equipment, I need a company that would supply and fit a booster in London area. Ideally Vodafone themselves,.

We have maybe 130 tenants in the block, some areas are fine but as I have been checking into this all week I have found there are many floors with blackspots inside,  I am sure many would switch to Vodafone if Vodafone could improve the signal with a booster, is this something you would consider installing in the local area/the building itself, if so I can bring to the board and try get pre approval?

Thanks again for the help to date, I appreciate it

[Gemma]

@Hughesie99 - You could contact Cornerstone by completing this form. There's a 'connectivity solutions' option on the form. I hope you find a solution. 

[Hughesie99]

Thanks Gemma - Perfect, I needed an extra reference to be able to make a recommendation on next steps to the board on how to solve. Looks like we will go with the other Mobile Signal company, they do basements like ours a fair bit from what I can tell.

I spoke to the Cornerstone customer service,  the solution from Corner stone was way out of budget coming in at 6 figures whereas the Mobile Signal Solutions company estimate it at under 10k for what the board needs, I expect to get a survey booked in next week, they also explained the issue was 100% not Vodafone at all, but the fact the building being well build and insulated is retaining heat but blocking the Vodafone signal! They shared a really good article on basement boosters that was really helpful https://mobilesignalsolutions.co.uk/mobile-booster-for-basements/

Gemma thanks for the help here - brilliant service to be able to avail of, I would have been at sea without you