Rochester Student Village CCTV & WiFi

Rochester Student Village is a purpose-built student accommodation site on Doust Way in Rochester, Medway, comprising five buildings with around 250 rooms in total. The site serves students attending the University of Greenwich Medway Campus and MidKent College, both within two miles. The management needed two things from Slam Systems: a modern CCTV system to replace ageing analogue cameras across the external site, and a reliable wireless network that students could actually depend on for day-to-day study and communication throughout all five buildings.

Replacing the Analogue CCTV System

The existing CCTV setup used analogue cameras recording to traditional DVR equipment. The image quality was limited and the cameras could not cover the open external areas between buildings effectively. Covering a multi-building site with separate courtyards, walkways, and entry points using analogue technology meant either accepting gaps in coverage or installing a large number of individual cameras with separate cable runs to each one.

We installed Hanwha multisensor IP cameras across the external areas of the site. Multisensor cameras house multiple lenses in a single unit, each covering a different field of view. One camera can cover a wide courtyard or the approaches to two or three buildings simultaneously, which reduces the number of mounting points, cabling runs, and maintenance points compared to using multiple single-lens cameras to achieve the same coverage.

The result is complete external coverage across all five buildings from a smaller number of well-positioned cameras, all feeding into a single IP-based recording system with significantly better image quality than the analogue equipment it replaced.

Installing Wireless Across Five Buildings

For students in 2026, WiFi is not an optional extra. It is the means by which they submit coursework, research assignments, sit online assessments, and stay in contact with family. For international students, which make up a significant proportion of occupants at Rochester Student Village, a video call home is often the main way they speak to family on a regular basis. A connection that drops, buffers, or fails to reach parts of a building is not just an inconvenience. It affects their studies and their wellbeing.

Five separate buildings, each with corridors, communal areas, and rooms on multiple floors, present a real challenge for wireless coverage. You cannot simply place access points at intervals and assume they will work. Signal behaves differently depending on wall construction, floor materials, the number of connected devices, and the layout of each building.

Before we installed a single access point, we carried out a full wireless site survey across all five buildings. This maps actual signal behaviour throughout each space and identifies where coverage is strong, where it drops off, and where interference could cause problems. The survey gave us the data to position every access point correctly.

We installed over 30 Ubiquiti access points, supported by network switches throughout the site. Ubiquiti's management platform lets us monitor the entire wireless network and identify any access point that is underperforming or offline before students notice a problem.

Why the Summer Window Mattered

The installation was planned for the summer break when the majority of students had returned home. This gave us access to every building and every area of the site without working around occupied rooms or disrupting students trying to study or sleep.

A wireless survey and network installation across five occupied buildings during term time would have required working around residents at every stage. Room access for cabling, drilling, and access point mounting would have needed to be coordinated with individual students. The summer window removed those constraints entirely and allowed us to complete the survey, installation, and commissioning of both the CCTV and wireless systems before the new academic year began.

The Result

Rochester Student Village now has Hanwha multisensor IP cameras covering all external areas across the five-building site, replacing the old analogue system with clearer footage and better coverage from fewer mounting points. All five buildings have full wireless coverage from over 30 Ubiquiti access points, with no dead zones in rooms, corridors, or communal areas. The network infrastructure is built to support 250 students connecting simultaneously and is monitored centrally so faults can be identified and resolved quickly.

If you manage student accommodation or a multi-building residential site and need CCTV or WiFi infrastructure that will hold up to heavy daily use, call us on 020 3302 6838 or fill in the contact form to arrange a free site survey.