The Challenge:
Housed in a three-story brick building built around the turn of the 20th Century, the Lancaster Center for Classical Studies hosts students both on site and remotely. As beautiful as the building is, it was causing major technology issues in terms of reliable internet for the school. The source of the internet was on one side of the building, while classroom operations were on the other. Due to the location of the service and the construction of the building, the internet was virtually unusable, making teaching a challenge for the owners of the school, Laurie and Peter Brown.
The Solution:
The Browns reached out to Heritage Communications to see if we could help take care of the problem. Initially, we were looking at deploying a new state-of-the-art wifi network, but due to the building construction, that wasn’t feasible. Built in the late 1800s, the walls were lined with plaster which blocked the signal and reduced it to almost nothing.
It became pretty apparent that the only solution was to install a hard-wired system that would allow the school to operate with full functionality and not have to rely on wifi for its remote and on-site learners. This solution presented its own problems, however. The home is very regal, the ceilings are very hard, and we didn’t want to ruin the interior aesthetics by running cable within the facility.
The exterior aesthetics were another issue. Our cabling solution involved running conduit outside and around the building. To do this, we had to ensure it was strategically placed around the roofline and painted to match the brick exterior, so it was concealed. Coming in to the building at the correct location was also a delicate matter, because we had to go through the wall to where the classroom is located.
The Result:
Although it was a challenge both internally and externally, we were able to provide the Lancaster Center for Classical Studies a sound, reliable, hard-wired internet connection that met their needs of the owners and their students. Internet has become an enhancement to their operations, not just a tool.
Here’s what Mr. Brown had to say:
“Chris Sloane and his team at Heritage Communications recently undertook work designed to improve our internet and telephone communication systems. They studied our existing system, gave careful consideration to the kinds of problems that we were having with it, designed a complete modification of the system that addressed those problems, and installed the new system. Their analysis and design proved to be right on the mark. They undertook their work in a skillful, careful, neat, efficient, studious, and courteous manner, always respectful of us, our property, and our own business operations. The result of their work proved to be a complete solution the problems that we had been experiencing and a significant improvement in the quality of our technical operations.”