In 2006, Alcatel Bell opens their new prestigious head-office in Antwerp, Belgium. The 4-tower design is - besides office - the home of the now world famous Alcatel IP Transformation Centre. The ICT infrastructure in the new building will include a dazzling 800 km of UTP cable, 285 km of glass fiber, 106 patch cabinets and 21.000 patch cords; as you might have guessed: Mulder – Hardenberg was involved.a worthwhile investment without maintenance costs falling outside the warranty.
The Challenge
When installing gas installations the manufacturer uses high The first point of consideration is the fact that the entire structure of cables has to last at least for fifteen years. In this period no additional cabling will be applied. Alcatel will have to deal with the current available capacity. The cabling should not obstruct the flexibility or the internal mobility of employees and departments. A third point is the available budget. Though the client is prepared to a 25% investment in the cable network – in a normal office environment the network cabling amounts to 4 to 5 percent of the total infrastructure cost – there are certain limits, even for Alcatel Bell.
The Solution
The high quality demands, the complexity and expected life endurance of the system, call for a product manufacturer of the highest grade.
To avoid any kind of obstruction for the employees, the entire cable system will be mounted in the ceiling of the building. M –H suggests Cat 7 cabling and fiber-to-the-desk, but this option turns out to be too expensive. Instead, Alcatel chooses another suggested solution: Cat 6 augmented copper cabling with a capacity of 10 Gigabits per second, the most attractive option considering the installation and management costs.
The Implementation
The enormous complexity of this challenging mission requires close cooperation with other parties. For the Alcatel Bell project, Mulder - Hardenberg joins forces with Siemon, industry leader in supplying cable networks. M-H takes part in designing and proposing the concept of the system for the customer and the installation, relying totally on the quality of Siemon products.
Despite the complexity and the very high demands of Alcatel and this futuristic project, implementation proceeds flawlessly, fully according to the demands of the customer and within the given time schedule.
The result
Siemon and Mulder –Hardenberg are fully able to guarantee Alcatel 20 years of trouble free use, both on the delivered material and the implemented concept. Alcatel Bell is satisfied. And so are we. The project is also subject for future improvements. Therefore, it won’t take long before other projects will come up that will demand Cat 7 1200Mhz network infrastructure.
