BP: Connectivity Solutions for Load Shedding

Customer:

British Petroleum Service Station based in JHB

Industry:

Other: Fuel and Gas

Installation Type:

Signal Booster For Connectivity During Load Shedding

Building Size:

1000m2 Fuel Station and Convenience Store

Product:

WilsonPro A1000

Cellular Connectivity Solutions for Load Shedding

British Petroleum South Africa is one of the largest oil and fuel companies in South Africa, with a national footprint of over 500 service stations. Our fuel stations predominantly rely on cellular connectivity for credit card machines to process transactions when clients purchase fuel.

THE PROBLEM

Cellphone reception is usually good during normal times, however during load shedding, the cell signal drops to an extremely low level, causing a huge delay in processing payments on our cellular card machines. This delay frustrates our customers, and they have to wait while forecourt attendants wave the card machines around in the air trying to catch a better signal. This delay translates directly into less fuel being dispensed, as some vehicles simply move on to another fuel station when they see the backlog in the forecourt.

THE SOLUTION

Cellular reception levels on all networks have significantly improved throughout the premises and during load shedding times, the cellular signal is still good enough for our card processing machines to operate, albeit a bit slower than usual but nowhere close to what we experienced before.

Mobile Network	Results
Vodacom	Improved by 6dB on average
MTN	Improved by 16dB on average
Cell-C	Improved by 20dB on average
Telkom	Improved by 16dB on average