Resident WiFi that actually works. And stays working.

A Worthing nursing home was running resident internet over its office network, with thick walls cutting signal and complaints growing. We built a dedicated, fully isolated resident service from the ground up.

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1. What was the client’s problem?

The nursing home had a problem that is more common in care settings than most people realise: resident WiFi was not really a resident service at all. It was the upstairs office network, informally extended downstairs, doing a job it was never designed to do.

For a time that was manageable. It stopped being manageable as resident expectations rose, device use increased, and the building’s fabric worked against every attempt to push a reliable signal through floors and thick walls.

Symptoms

• Coverage in resident bedrooms was weak and inconsistent, with dead spots across the building.
• Thick walls and the floor and ceiling structure between levels caused significant signal loss.
• Residents could not reliably use iPads, phones or laptops from their rooms.
• The problem had been present for years, but became increasingly difficult to tolerate as resident demand grew.

Business impact

• Complaints increased as reliable internet access became a basic expectation, not a bonus.
• Visiting family found connectivity was poor when they came to see residents.
• The office network was at risk from unmanaged resident device usage sharing the same infrastructure.

What triggered the project: A clear decision by the nursing home to provide a proper, dedicated resident internet service, separated from the office network, and designed to work within the constraints of the building.

Client requirements

• A dedicated, controlled connection run from the upstairs office comms area down to the resident floors.
• A VLAN ensuring resident internet traffic has no access to or visibility of office systems.
• Structured cabling installed throughout the resident areas.
• Access points covering all bedrooms and communal spaces reliably.
• A stable, straightforward solution to support in a care environment.

Constraints

• Older building with thick walls and challenging internal structure causing significant WiFi attenuation.
• Long cable runs required to reach all wings and coverage zones.
• Care setting constraints: installation routes needed to be tidy and disruption kept to an absolute minimum.

2. What we carried out in the survey process

The survey mapped the building from the perspective of signal behaviour and practical cabling reality, not just floor plans, and identified the decisions that would determine whether the final result held up under real resident usage.

What we checked

• The upstairs office network: where the connection would originate, and how to extend it in a controlled way.
• Building layout, wall thickness, and the likely attenuation between rooms, wings and levels.
• Cable routes and containment options appropriate to a care setting.
• Access point placement options in bedrooms and communal areas, balancing coverage with the constraints of a lived-in environment.
• Switch placement to manage long cable runs without compromising performance.
• VLAN design: how to give residents internet access while keeping office systems completely separate.
• Additional WiFi-dependent device requirements: wireless handsets and a door entry trigger system.

What we found

The resident areas had never been designed with WiFi in mind. The upstairs office network could not penetrate reliably through the floor and thick wall construction between zones. There was no shortcut available. A proper wired backbone, running cables to the right locations throughout the building, was the prerequisite for consistent wireless coverage. Without it, even the best access points would have been compromised by the structure they were working against.

The additional device requirements, particularly the door entry trigger, meant the network design needed to accommodate non-resident systems from the outset rather than as an afterthought.

Risks and how we mitigated them

3. The solution we provided

We built a fully dedicated resident WiFi service from scratch, routed from the upstairs office comms area under strict VLAN isolation, cabled throughout the building, and designed for the specific challenge of providing consistent coverage in an older property with thick walls.

Dedicated connection and VLAN isolation

We extended a controlled connection from the upstairs office comms area down to the resident floors. VLAN segmentation was configured so that resident devices have internet access and nothing else. The office network is invisible to anyone on the resident WiFi, and resident traffic cannot reach it. This protects the business from both a security and a performance perspective, and it is the right approach for any setting where two user groups share a building but must not share a network.

Structured cabling throughout

We installed structured cabling across the resident wings and communal areas, following routes appropriate to a care environment. This wired backbone is what makes the wireless layer reliable. Without it, access points end up placed where cables can reach rather than where coverage is needed. Every run was terminated and tested before access points were commissioned.

Access point deployment

Access points were installed to cover bedrooms and all communal spaces, with placement decisions based on survey findings rather than guesswork. The older building fabric required careful positioning to ensure signal reached the corners of rooms and the areas furthest from the nearest AP. Coverage was validated after installation and adjusted where needed.

Integration of additional WiFi-dependent systems

The new wireless platform was not just for resident internet access. We integrated a small number of wireless handsets and a door entry trigger system onto the same infrastructure, configured appropriately so these systems operate reliably alongside resident device usage without interfering with either.

Why this approach rather than alternatives: The temptation in this kind of project is to add access points and hope the signal improves. It rarely does in an older building with thick walls, because the bottleneck is the physical fabric, not the number of radios. Building the wired backbone first, running cables to the right locations and placing APs based on survey findings, is slower and more involved, but it is the only approach that produces a result that actually works and keeps on working.

Implementation

• Extended and configured the connection from the upstairs comms area, with VLAN isolation applied before any resident traffic flowed.
• Installed structured cabling across the building with appropriate containment throughout.
• Installed and commissioned access points across all resident zones.
• Integrated wireless handsets and door entry trigger onto the platform.
• Validated coverage across bedrooms and communal areas after commissioning.
• Provided staff with clear handover notes covering WiFi access and the support route.

4. The aftercare

The nursing home receives ongoing managed WiFi and network support as part of a wider IT relationship. Day-to-day monitoring and maintenance are handled remotely, with proactive intervention before issues affect residents or staff.

• Remote monitoring: Access points and core network devices are monitored continuously. Any offline device or degradation in performance triggers an alert, so problems can be identified and addressed without waiting for a resident complaint.
• Planned maintenance: Firmware updates and patching are scheduled to minimise disruption, with the rhythms of a care environment in mind. Changes happen at appropriate times, not during peak resident usage.
• Change support: Any changes, whether adding new systems, adjusting coverage or reconfiguring access, are submitted via the agreed support channel, logged and implemented under change control.
• Review cadence: Periodic reviews plus ad-hoc checks when resident demand increases or new WiFi-dependent systems are considered.

What comes next: Ongoing optimisation as resident usage grows, and future planning for additional WiFi-dependent systems if the home expands its technology offer.

Before and after

Frequently asked questions