A Shared Office Floor Needed Cleaner Connectivity
The client was a serviced office operator in Century City, Cape Town, managing multiple tenants on one floor with shared reception, meeting rooms and a small comms area. The space had grown quickly and the existing network was starting to show its age, especially when several businesses were online at the same time.
The brief was practical: improve WiFi coverage across segmented office areas, upgrade the switches feeding the floor, and sort out reception telephony so calls could be answered and transferred properly without dragging staff away from their other duties. The client also wanted a setup that would cope with load shedding, and still work neatly when the building was busy.
- Location: Century City, Cape Town
- Property type: serviced office floor with shared spaces
- Main needs: segmented WiFi, reception telephony, switch refresh
- Working pattern: phased installation around occupied offices
The Constraints We Had To Work Around
Like many office floors in Century City, the space had tenants coming and going through the day, so downtime had to be kept tight. There was also a mixture of older cabling and newer endpoints, which meant we could not treat it as a simple plug in and go job. Some meeting rooms had weak signal, and reception wanted a clean handover process for calls between tenants and the front line.
The building environment mattered too. In Cape Town, you plan for load shedding, and you also plan for summer heat in equipment cupboards plus the kind of coastal humidity that can affect terminations over time. The client needed equipment mounted and dressed properly, with enough headroom for growth but not too much clutter in a small room.
We also had to keep the solution suitable for a serviced office model, where one tenant may move out and another move in with little notice. That meant structured labelling, sensible network separation and a layout that a support tech could understand quickly a month later, not only on install day.
- Occupied workspace with limited after hours access
- Mixed cabling and legacy patching
- Need for clear tenant separation on the network
- Small equipment area with limited rack space
What We Supplied And Installed
NewTel designed and installed segmented WiFi coverage across the floor, with access points placed to suit reception, open plan counters, meeting rooms and private suites. We upgraded the switching to improve port capacity and network stability, then reworked the patching so the floor was easier to manage. The telephony side was set up so the reception area could handle shared office calls cleanly, with proper routing for the different tenant extensions.
The network was built to support everyday office use such as cloud apps, voice traffic, printing and video calls. We also made sure the setup was ready for a backup power solution, because in South Africa if you do not plan for outages, staff end up working around the outage instead of through it.
- Segmented WiFi for shared and private office zones
- Switch upgrades for better port density and traffic handling
- Shared reception telephony with extension routing
- Structured patching and cable labelling
- Preparation for backup power and future growth
The Work On Site, Week By Week
The project ran over three weeks. Week one was survey, planning and sign off, including testing signal paths and checking the existing cabinet layout. Week two covered the physical installation, switch changes, access point placement and cabling adjustments after business hours. Week three was used for handset setup, testing, user training and a final handover with the facility contact and reception team.
We kept the changes staged so the floor did not lose service all at once. Where possible, one zone was completed and tested before we moved to the next. That kept the office running and made it easier to catch small issues early, like a label needing correction or a port mapping that needed tidying.
- Week 1: site survey, plan and equipment mapping
- Week 2: installation and switch cutover after hours
- Week 3: testing, training and handover
- Phased changes to keep tenants online
Results For Reception, Tenants And Support Teams
After the upgrade, the reception area could answer and transfer calls with far less confusion, and tenants had more consistent WiFi coverage from end to end. Meeting rooms stopped dropping signal at the edges, and the switch refresh reduced the strain that had been building up on the old hardware. Staff could finally use voice and data at the same time without regular complaints about slow access.
The client also gained a cleaner support picture. With better labels, a tidier cabinet and documented network zones, troubleshooting is quicker and handovers are less messy. That matters in serviced offices where the user list changes often and one small fault can affect several people at once.
In practical terms, the floor now has better uptime, clearer call handling and a network that can grow with the occupancy rate. It also looks and feels more orderly for visiting tenants, which matters more than people think when they are choosing a shared office space.
What We Would Do Again On A Similar Floor
If we were handling a similar serviced office project in Bellville, Somerset West or Stellenbosch, we would use the same approach: survey first, phase the work, label everything properly and make sure the reception telephony is tested with real use cases, not just on paper. That keeps the install manageable and the handover simple for the client.
We would also keep planning around the building schedule, especially where access is limited after hours or where tenants cannot afford much interruption. For office floors in Cape Town, that means allowing for load shedding, checking cupboard heat and making sure the network can be supported by staff who are not on site every day.
- Start with a full survey and port map
- Phase work around occupied hours
- Document tenant zones and call routing
- Allow for backup power and future expansion
Key facts
| Project type | Serviced office floor upgrade |
|---|---|
| Town | Century City, Cape Town |
| Timeline | 3 weeks |
| WiFi | Segmented coverage across shared and private zones |
| Telephony | Shared reception VoIP with extension routing |
| Network | Switch upgrades, structured cabling and labelling |
