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Contract Requirement: To Design, Supply, Install and Maintain an IRS, IPTV Fibre Network system across the whole of Heathrow Terminal 5A&B.
Approach, Project Delivery and Outcomes
SCS were awarded the contract and were involved from the very early stages of the project to help identify the Technology and Architecture to deliver a trial system for evaluation.
At the commencement of the project our Management team had several meetings with BAA’s Project Manager, demonstrating that the Trial System could be installed and that the tight deadlines could be met. KPI’s were agreed and set to meet the overall objectives; these were then monitored throughout the project.
A dedicated SCS Project Manager was responsible for the overall deliverables who undertook weekly face to face meetings with BAA’s Project Manager and any other members within his team.
In addition to the SCS Project Manager, BAA would have access to contact the support team if needed, these being: Engineering Manager and Local Senior Support Engineers for any site issues. In addition to the project delivery team, BAA were provided with an escalation process to Director level.
As space at an airport is at a premium, Fibre enabled us to provide a “Super” offsite facility for the Antenna and Aerials.
The system comprised of a 2.4mtr Satellite Antenna located at Spout Lane & a Terrestrial Aerial located at the energy center, both approximately 1.5km away from the main site. The Satellite Signals were converted to run over a 24 Core G652 SM Fibre and the terrestrial signals run over a Single Core G652 SM fibre. All the Equipment and Up-Converters were housed within an IP65 Glaston Cabinet at Spout Lane.
From the Cabinet location the fibre was installed to terminate into the main PCR room at the main T5 Terminal where the fibres were split to feed 12 x Sub-Headends located at the bottom of each riser that feeds the Basement, Apron, Arrivals, Gate Seating & Departures. The signals at the bottom of each riser were then converted back into a traditional IRS system feeding 12 x RF-IRS systems to distribute 8 x points at each of the 4 levels totaling 384 points.
In addition to splitting the fibre to feed an RF system, it was also split to in the PCR room to feed a further Sub RF-IRS Headend which was used to feed signals to an IPTV solution. This solution converted all the terrestrial DVB-T channels and a selection of DVB-S channels into an IPTV stream; these signals were injected in to the CAT-6 networks and separated onto a V-Lan being delivered to each CAT-6 point over the LAN as a Multicast Stream which did not compromise the network performance.
The IPTV system gave T5 A&B the flexibility that every Cat-6 outlet would receive broadcast quality TV and satellite channels viewed via a PC or a Set Top Box at each outlet with NO signal variation at each outlet. From the initial installation at T5 this has now been deployed across all terminals giving every Cat6 outlet at Heathrow Airport the facility to view TV channels.
The project had to be fast tracked with very tight time scales for implementation due to BAA’s opening of Heathrow Terminal 5. During the project the time scales were reduced again, requiring an increase in man power, demonstrating our flexibility to scale up were required. SCS had to re plan the overall project and re-allocate engineering resource to meet the increased project demands.
SCS continue to supply a fully managed service delivering client specific STB, these items are procured pre-programmed and dispatched ready for installation. |
