The Jointworks, a revitalised Grade II listed building located in the heart of Birmingham's eminent Jewellery Quarter is a flexible, creative co-working space. This collaborative, open-plan space houses over 70 hot desks, providing modern conference rooms of different sizes with top-of-the-range utility and amenity spaces for the most innovative creative and technology companies in Birmingham City.
The challenge
The Jewellery Quarter and its surroundings contain the best and most extensive surviving group of Victorian and 20th-century buildings, whose connectivity infrastructure was limited and difficult for internet service providers to access and support.
Resolving the Jointworks’ connectivity issue was vital to the success of their users’ experience and the space's ultimate success. An increase in flexible working spaces, a direct result of the working-from-home format, has left a greater demand for ubiquitous and scalable office connections capable of seamless upload and download capabilities. Flexible space connections are expected to empower users to seamlessly carry out their day-to-day activities, with the Wi-Fi being an afterthought.
Solution
Connecting to the Glide Birmingham fibre ring, Glide installed fibre up the length of Albion Street (on which The Jointworks is located), connecting the Grade II listed building and any future surrounding buildings with Glide fibre in this hard-to-reach area.
Glide's infrastructure offered the Jointworks 1 Gbit/s connection for upload and download, giving an FTTP (Fibre to the Premises) service scalable to 10 Gbit/s for future technologies. Using Ruckus Wi-Fi 6 Access Points, Glide was able to provide The Jointworks with office-wide pervasive Wi-Fi technology allowing seamless working from any area within the flexible workspace.
Results
Since the initial consultation process, Glide has assisted with The Jointwork's new building developments, connecting their location with scalable and unlimited fibre for future growth and other creative technologies whilst providing site-wide network and wireless connectivity.
The Jointworks was offered a 1 Gbit/s upload and download with an FTTC (Fibre to the Cabinet) backup and a fully managed Wi-Fi service over Glide's uncontended Birmingham fibre city network.
We struggled with the internet previously in the Jewellery Quarter, traditionally, it was difficult to get internet lines in. Glide, however, was able to provide us with a multi-gigabit connection which is perfect because we have video production companies coming in moving massive files around and design agencies moving big files. It is never an issue and never gets flagged that the internet connection is a problem
Andy Hartwell, CEO of the Jointworks