Crown Hall Chambers – Ipswich
In early 2021, the trustees of Crown Hall Chambers carried out a major refurbishment of the premises. As part of this work, they needed to tidy up all the telecoms and data cabling infrastructure in the building, there being evidence of multiple installations over the years, most of it surface mounted, with previous redundant infrastructure left in place. A key consideration was firstly how to go about establishing exactly which infrastructure needed to remain, or could be updated, and which could be removed. This investigation work alone was a potentially costly and time consuming task, complicated by a lot of the infrastructure appearing to belong to Openreach, with some of it possibly serving adjoining premises. The trustees engaged Beyond Telecoms (BTC) in January 2021 to assist them by project managing this task. Furthermore, BTC was tasked with looking into improving internet connectivity to the building as a means of future proofing its services.
The Solution
This work involved BTC carrying out the following tasks:
1. Liaising with Openreach to find out if they could carry out test and trace work to establish the location of distribution points within the building, which lines were still in use and which could be removed.
2. Establishing if Openreach could relocate or replace DP boxes within the building
3. Obtaining a breakdown of costs for 1. and 2. above.
4. Researching options for getting better internet connectivity The outcome of the above was that Openreach confirmed that they could do both the
test and trace work, and relocate or replace DP boxes. However, the cost of this work would amount to a considerable 4 figure sum, with half of it relating to the test and trace work. Therefore whilst Openreach was engaged to replace the main DP box, the trustees accepted an offer from BTC to carry out the precursor to this, the test and trace work, for a much lower sum than quoted by Openreach. BTC established which lines were live at the main DP, these being marked with identification. All others were disconnected and removed from the DP, enabling them to be stripped out all the way back to their master sockets, by the electrical contractors who were carrying out the refurbishment. Concerning improving internet connectivity to the building, various options were put forward including having full fibre (FTTP) or a leased line connected at the premises or going with the immediately available option of partial fibre. BTC also set up a watching brief to monitor the situation should FTTP become immediately available.
The Benefits
✅ By working with BTC, the trustees gained access to BTC’s expertise and contacts.
✅ This firstly helped them progress the refurbishment work in the Chambers without the
time and hassle of them having to deal with Openreach directly and at much reduced
cost compared to Openreach, with respect to the test and trace work.
✅ Also it enabled them to find out what connectivity solutions were available across a
range of providers, without them having to spend the time to research the market and
monitor the ongoing situation.