| Customer: | Irish Greyhound Board |
| Location: | Limerick, Republic of Ireland |
| Requirements: | A reliable and efficient, future proof network |
| Equipment: | 1300 Cat 6 points - Excel Cat6 UTP, patch panels and RJ45 outlets. Excel 42U cabinets, OM3 fibre cable and 100 pair voice cable |
| Customer's View: | "We now have a stadium which offers the best in sporting entertainment, with state of the art facilities all operated by a network which comes with a 25 year product and application warranty.“"
Vinney Barrett, Head of IT, Irish Greyhound Board |
The Irish Greyhound board (IGB), Bord na gCon, is a commercial semi-state body which is responsible for the control and development of the greyhound industry in the Republic of Ireland.
The IGB has a total of 17 licensed tracks in the Republic, 9 of which are owned and controlled by the board. The remainder are owned and operated by private enterprise.
One of the 17 stadiums is a new state of the art facility based in Limerick which was completed during September 2010. The brand new stadium boasts a 190 seater restaurant, four bars, two private suites, fast food and carvery outlets, along with indoor and outdoor viewing areas, and has the capacity for a total of 2,900 spectators throughout.
The IGB knew that it needed a robust cabling system installed in its new stadium, one which would provide reliability and efficiency within their network. The network also needed to be able to handle the stadium’s current bandwidth requirements as well as accommodating any future improvements or additions.
In the early stages of the stadium build it was identified that the IGB needed to work with an experienced installer to get the project completed on time and for it be brought in on budget. WestLAN Solutions Ltd, a data voice and wireless network solutions provider, were selected for the task. WestLan has offices in both Limerick and Cork so were on hand to provide a closely managed projects team.
WestLan Solutions Ltd worked closely with RWL Advanced Solutions to ensure that the project had the right product set and could be completed within the allotted timescales.
RWL Advanced Solutions are specialist distributors in the Data and Security industry and have locations in both Dublin and Cork. They are located in purpose built 8,000 sq ft offices with a trade counter and associated warehousing in Dublin.
Strategic locations, including premises based near Cork airport, allows the company complete coverage of the entire country.
Being a distributor of the Excel product range for over 10 years, RWL Advanced Solutions was able to supply all of the products required for the install, on time and at a competitive price. Being an official Excel Cabling Partner meant that WestLan was able to complete the install, offering the IGB a 25 year product and application warranty.
The Excel product range provides an end-to-end solution. Performance and ease of installation are its foundation, along with standards compliance, reliability and product availability.
Excel products come with third party verification, and are an independent ‘tick in the box’, verifying either a product or a set of products’ compliance with a particular standard. Excel works closely with third party test laboratories such as Delta, ETL, and 3P.
The network was designed to carry all of the stadium’s IP traffic for data and voice. Other applications that needed to run on the network were all Tote bookies’ kiosks, EPOS, CCTV and door access. All points in the main admin building were wired directly to the main communications room of the building.
Selecting the Category/Class of cabling to specify for this project needed careful consideration. Cabling systems are often required to have a long life, as it forms the fabric of the building and is disruptive to replace. Excel Category 6 cable was chosen to meet all application requirements as it is designed for optimal support of High-Speed data protocols delivering 1 Gbps performance to the workstation. It is also designed to be quick and easy to install.
The data points for other areas such as kennel managers and judge’s boxes were wired locally to sub distribution Excel cabinets. Excel 19” free standing cabinets were the ideal choice as they are designed for the installation of both cabling and networking equipment as well as for use across a range of applications including local area networking (LAN) cabling and hardware, plus the housing of security and AV equipment.
All Excel cabinets have been designed with strength, ease of use and aesthetics in mind. Each cabinet corner is welded for maximum strength, enabling up to 400kg loading per unit. The cabinets are feature rich including Incremental 1u markings on the mounting profiles, an enhanced vertical patch cable management system and quick release doors and side panels.
These sub communication cabinets were linked together using Excel laser speed OM3 Fibre Optic Cable. Excel fibre cables are designed and manufactured to ensure that optimum performance is possible from installed fibre links. Support of protocols such as 10 Gigabit Ethernet over maximum distances, 300 metres is assured, due to improved bandwidth available as standard.
The install was completed with the minimum amount of fuss as no major challenges were encountered by WestLan’s engineers.
"The IGB now has a robust, high speed data infrastructure from a single manufacturer, Excel. Having an end-to-end solution
which is backed by the Excel 25 year product and application warranty gives our customer the peace of mind to know that
they have a quality installation which is manufactured to European quality standards and covered by one warranty"
Tony Coffey, Director, WestLAN Solutions.
