For Immediate Release
September 14, 2006
Siemon supplies cabling for new Alcatel Bell head office in Antwerp, Belgium
The ICT infrastructure comprises 497 miles (800 km) of UTP cable, 177 miles (285 km) of glass fiber, 106 patch cabinets and 21,000 patch cords
Siemon, global supplier of network cabling solutions, has supplied almost the entire network cabling for the new Belgian head office of Alcatel Bell in Antwerp, officially opened on 12 September. With the exception of the cabling of the 1,700 workstations in the office section, Siemon also supplied the cabling for the development and test laboratories and for the IP Transformation Centre located in the building.
In the design of the ICT infrastructure for the new Alcatel Bell offices a lot of thought went into the installation and the role of the cabling. "The first point of consideration was that the current cabling needs to last fifteen years", says Bram Chardon, who is responsible for the ICT-infrastructure as Project Director. "Over this period no additional cabling will be laid. We will have to make do with our current capacity." Alcatel opted for Cat 6 augmented copper cabling with a capacity of 10 Gigabits per second. "Of course we spoke about Cat 7 cabling and fiber-to-the-desk, but this option was the most attractive in view of the installation and management cost."
In addition, the cabling wasn't allowed to hinder the flexibility or the internal mobility of employees and departments. Flexible workstations are used in the office departments. There is room for 2,000 employees, who partly work from home. All cabling is in the ceilings and from there goes to the workstations. Exactly the same facilities are provided at every workstation: power and one cable (100 Mb) for the network connection and VoIP-telephony. Of course there are also standard spare cables for temporary extensions or emergency solutions.
Laboratories
The majority of the cabling is used in the many laboratories and computer rooms housed in the four buildings. Alcatel's IP Transformation Centre for Europe is also housed in the complex. About 100 Alcatel experts work in the IPTC who develop, test and build all kinds of new communication solutions for both the business and the consumer market. Not only for Alcatel but also for customers and partners. The IPTC covers 4,900 square feet (1,500 square metres) and has more than fifty advanced telecom and multimedia technologies at its disposal to experiment and test. The laboratories and computer rooms need enormous bandwidth and rapid switching needs to be possible between the different facilities. This is possible with an intelligent glass fiber backbone to which every lab, every computer room and every facility in every building and on every floor can be connected to each other. The cabling in the laboratories, with especially developed constructions, allows flexible development and test activities to be set up and connected. The laboratories can even be completely dismantled and moved within a couple of days.
In total just over 35,000 UTP links were created in the four buildings, the majority in the laboratories. In all almost 497 miles (800 kilometres) of UTP cable and 177 miles (285 kilometres) of glass fiber were laid in the four buildings. The complex has 106 patch cabinets and 21,000 patch cables were supplied - 17,000 of which for the labs and the computer rooms. The cabling required a big investment of course. In a normal office environment the network cabling amounts to 4 to 5 per cent of the total infrastructure cost, but in this high-tech environment the cabling cost amounted to approximately 25 per cent. "We need to be able to rely on the cabling implicitly", says Bram Chardon. "We even depart from 'zero defects'. That is why design and installation were done by other parties. The design was by INS, but the actual installation was completed by DAGO/Imtech. After delivery INS completed the quality control and tests to make sure the network was delivered in accordance with the specifications."
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- About Siemon
- Established in 1903, Siemon is an industry leader specializing in the manufacture and innovation of high quality, high-performance network cabling solutions. Headquartered in Connecticut, USA, with global offices, manufacturing and service partners throughout the world, Siemon offers the most comprehensive suite of copper (unshielded and shielded twisted-pair) category 5e, category 6 (Class E), augmented category 6/category 6A(Class EA) and category 7/7A (Class F/FA), and multimode and singlemode fiber cabling systems available. With over 400 active patents specific to structured cabling, from patch cords to patch panels, Siemon Labs invests heavily in R&D and development of industry standards, underlining the company's long-term commitment to its customers and the industry.
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