September 19, 2007 -- ADC announced that Duke University Medical Center, together with its key wireless service provider, has selected ADC's Digivance Indoor Coverage Solution (ICS) to provide wireless coverage inside its hospitals.
ADC reports that the Digivance ICS platform was custom-tailored to fit the university's needs for a flexible, non-invasive architecture that leverages the medical center's existing fiber infrastructure, while minimizing the amount of additional hardware needed. ADC says it worked with the university to secure coverage with a third major service provider that resulted in the medical center's ability to provide service to its employees as well as patients and visitors.
The Digivance ICS, ADC's distributed antenna system (DAS), augments wireless coverage within hospital buildings while minimizing the risk of interference to medical equipment. According to the company, the system does this by distributing mobile phone coverage throughout the buildings with a series of digital remote units (DRUs) and digital expansion units (DEUs). By careful placement of the remote and expansion units, wireless coverage can be customized to meet the requirements of any facility, says the company.
Coverage can be added to difficult-to-reach areas, such as basements, tunnels, and shielded rooms, by installing the remote units in those locations. Moreover, coverage areas can be expanded by adding or daisy-chaining the expansion units, without the need for RF re-optimization. Multiple areas, floors, or multiple buildings can be covered with uniform "digital quality" signals, contends the company.
The company notes that the platform's architecture permits solution expansion throughout the campus without degradation of signal quality. The wireless system can also expand to accommodate additional wireless service providers as needed. Also, the system's plug-and-play architecture allows solution growth as the campus radio frequency (RF) coverage expands to new areas, according to the company.
All equipment in the medical center deployment is connected via Duke's existing fiber backbone with the ability to route digital signals through the university's IT patch panels throughout the campus. According to ADC, this capability reduced the need for massive amounts of fiber, thereby reducing labor costs and time-to-market.
