NG Bailey’s IT Services division has completed an overhaul of IT infrastructure at the SSE Arena, in Belfast, pictured. The installer reports that it brought the project home on budget and in time – in eight weeks – for the 11,000 capacity venue’s sell-out relaunch in autumn 2015.
The £1.2m contract awarded to NG Bailey by the Odyssey Trust, required installation of 120km of Commscope Systimax CAT-6a structured cabling and a network of HP switches linked to a blown fibre ring enabling 10Gbp/s connectivity to edge devices and connecting numerous communications cabinets around the arena. The physical network equipment supports an Aruba high density Wi-Fi, which targets zones with directional antennas from the gantries above the crowd. In a UK first, this Wi-Fi enables visitors to order merchandise, food and drinks from their seats via the arena’s mobile app.
Also installed is IP-CCTV, comprising over 70 IP cameras from Axis, with a new payment acceptance terminals and tills, new IP telephony and an arena-wide network of digital signs to display booking information, crowd control messages and showcase forthcoming events.
Brian Hughes, Head of Facilities, SSE Arena Belfast, says: “NG Bailey really delivered for us. With an opening show scheduled, we had a challenging and immovable completion date which required the team to draw on its experience and expertise with intelligent systems installation. Multiple contractors were working on site which required both a collaborative spirit and a flexible approach to get the job done. The end result is excellent. It’s a huge asset for the people of Northern Ireland and thanks to its future-proofed IP-based systems, will remain at the forefront of intelligent stadium design for years to come.”
Lawrence Flavelle is general manager of KNI, the wholly owned trading arm of NG Bailey’s IT Services division that delivered the contract. He says: “This is the kind of contract that really gets us excited. Following this installation, the SSE Arena is now a world class intelligent stadium. The Wi-Fi system, for example, transmits a zone by zone high-density signal, enabling the crowd to connect to the network with 50Mbps plus speeds and interact with the shows using social media in real time. During a recent One Direction concert over 3,500 concurrent connections to the Wi-Fi were supported in the arena. The IP-CCTV and access control systems can use facial recognition, which can track the eviction of troublemakers throughout the stadium and into the perimeter grounds beyond. The live update feeds displayed on the digital signage can be dynamically over-ridden to display evacuation instructions in case of emergency. Not only is the arena now more functional and convenient for visitors, it also enhances security and safety, which is paramount to the organisation.”
All of the arena’s new assets are IP-converged, giving network administrators systems coordination via a single platform. Many of the systems also support cloud-based remote systems management.
The tight timescales for project completion required a number of contractors to be active onsite at once. As a result, says NG Bailey, it needed to manage the inevitable scheduling fluctuations. Visit www.ngbailey.com.
