Case Study - Scotsman Ice Systems

The Client

Scotsman Ice Systems is one of the world’s largest manufacturers of ice systems for commercial and residential customers. Following an acquisition by Ali Group, the company constructed a new two-floor, 90,000 square-foot headquarter office in Vernon Hills, Illinois. The weak cellular signal inside the building’s walls would have hampered productivity and Scotsman’s IT management sought to find an expert team that could turn their weak cell signal into 4-5 bars of cellular clarity.

The Challenge

This new facility’s 60,000 square-feet of corporate offices and a 30,000 square-feet of warehouse space was suffering from an unusably weak cellular signal inside the building’s walls. As an international and modern company, many employees relied on their mobile devices to connect with teams, partners, and vendors who were based in other locations.

Seeking assistance from a cellular signal solution expert, they turned to Waveform (RSRF), who moved quickly by performing a site survey that identified a near non-existent signal on both AT&T and Verizon. The survey also indicated that the building was equidistant from two AT&T cell towers, which created a congested outside cellular signal that unpredictably transferred calls from one cell tower to the other.

The Solution

We identified that Scotsman would need a turnkey solution that could support AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, Sprint, US Cellular, and all other US wireless carriers. The solution also needed to be affordable, deployable within a short timeframe, reliable and low- or no-maintenance.

The application required powerful hardware and creative thinking to design a solution that could take a very weak donor cell signal and amplify it into a signal that would support all users within the 90,000 square-foot building.

In five days, our team had installed two donor antennas outside of the building; one yagi directional antenna pointed at an AT&T tower and another omni-directional antenna to capture Verizon and all other carriers. Within the building we had also installed 7 SureCall Force5 cellular amplifiers, 48 indoor panel and dome antennas, and plenum coaxial cabling.

“SureCall boosters are the most durable and reliable we’ve used,” explains Sina Khanifar, Founder & CEO of Waveform. “Our clients trust us with solutions and we trust SureCall to produce reliable and high-performance signal amplifiers and antennas.”

SureCall cell signal boosters and RSRF’s cellular solutions experts have worked together to bring cellular clarity and connectivity to buildings across North America and Scotsman Ice Systems has also benefited from this partnership.

Teams at Scotsman’s HQ office now receive 4-5 bars on every major cellular network in every room of their new office and have run the solution without error since installation.

About Waveform/RSRF

Founded in 2006, Waveform is one of the leading systems integrators in the fast-growing “middleprise” in-building market. Waveform's RSRF division is focused on implementing small cell and sub-DAS solutions in offices, hospitals, industrial facilities, multi-family residential units, schools and universities. RSRF’s nationwide installation team deploys small cell, sub-DAS, and active DAS solutions across the country, with deployments typically happening in weeks rather than months. Recent customers include Kaiser Permanente, Barneys New York, and Culver Studios.

About SureCall

Founded in 2001, SureCall is the multi-patented, award-winning performance leader for cell phone signal boosters. Combining top-quality materials, powerfully innovative product designs, and industry-leading service and support, SureCall has given mobile device users access to reliable cellular signals in small and large homes, offices, cars and RVs.