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Critical Wireless Communications and
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Arlington County implemented its first Private LTE CBRS private network to provide connectivity for distance learning applications.
The plan was to use Private LTE to serve residential areas along the Arlington Mills and Randolph neighborhoods by connecting 10% to 15 % of available residents with school-aged children by the end of 2020. The project was conceived to alleviate the lack of access to commercial wireless services that low-income students have. The county will alleviate this issue by providing free of charge wireless services to the Arlington County Public School’s portal. According to survey data, up to 37% of families and 50% of families with school-aged children do not have reliable enough internet coverage. This project focuses on the needs of families who cannot afford to pay for sufficient broadband coverage in their home so they can have an option with sufficient bandwidth to facilitate distance learning, telework, and telehealth with support from other platforms for video conferencing.
The CBRS system implemented uses a network of Redline RDL6000 radios installed in strategic locations along Columbia Pike and adjacent to the aforementioned neighborhoods. The sites were determined after a detailed survey and RF study, which indicated that the system could make use of existing infrastructure. Arlington’s-fiber optic network and existing traffic light poles provided the necessary height, power, and connectivity to each node installed.
The equipment installed in the student's residence is a Cradlepoint E300 Router that operates in Band 48 (CBRS). This router receives the signals transmitted by the radios installed in the streets and converts the signal to the standard Wi-Fi 802.11 ac Wi-Fi that can have connectivity to any laptop or tablet.
The system provides direct wireless connectivity to the Arlington County Public School Portal @APS, allowing students to attend their classes. Enhanced configuration features allow the school system to configure the routers so that students may not have free access to the commercial Internet. This accomplishes two purposes: The Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA) Compliance and non-competition with commercial carriers.
The building serves as the new headquarters for both the Police Department and the Fire and Rescue Department.
The Public Safety Headquarters is a nine-story building (eight occupied levels, plus a mechanical penthouse) adjacent to the “Herrity” Building. The building has public access from Government Center Parkway and frontage on Monument Drive and Random Hills Road. In addition, the project includes the construction of a five-story parking garage. The building is the headquarters for the Police Department and the Fire and Rescue Department. The Public Safety Headquarters building replaced the original Massey Building. For several years, this building served as the headquarters for those two departments but has since been demolished.
The building and parking garage required 3G/4G access for mobile phones, smartphones, phablets, tablets, and the Fairfax Public Safety Radio systems. In addition to the county’s public safety frequencies in the 800 MHz bands, the DAS had to provide indoor cellular coverage for these Wireless Service Providers (WSPs): AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, and Sprint. It is challenging to combine public safety and cellular bands in a system because the higher frequency bands used by carriers require a higher density of indoor antennas than a public safety system. In addition, the carriers are reluctant to share the electronics (head-end and remotes) that P.S. uses with their own commercial bands.
Morcom conquered this challenge by designing a cutting-edge cellular system for public safety using the Corning “OneTM” system and the RIU/MA2000 combination. The final design had ten remote units of each type (to maintain the separation between different services) and 97 Andrew Cell-MAX-O indoor antennas installed. The signal is recombined into the wideband antennas by using direction couplers. The devices were all installed unobtrusively and complied with the architects' guidelines, Hellmuth, Obata & Kassabaum (HOK).
The installation was finished on time and on budget. The users at Fairfax County’s Communications Technologies Division appreciated the system.
The Savannah River Salt Waste Water Processing Facility (SWPF) was designed to process radioactive material. It is one of the key facilities operated under theDepartment of Energy (DOE) and it will provide this critical service into the 2030s.
The Savannah River Site (SRS) Salt Waste Processing Facility (SWPF) poses tremendous challenges to wireless communications. One challenge is that the three-foot-wide walls and internal wall compartmentalization block RF. This combined with the fact that instant communications are the facility's lifeline in order to provide a safe environment for its employees makes this a high-priority project.
Morcom International designed and implemented a VHF DAS capable of connecting the plant's interior to the campus's Motorola P25 system. The fiber-DAS system installed is designed to withstand the harshest environmental conditions.
The city of Herndon in Virginia decided to provide “SmartCity” facilities to the citizens and visitors that work and visit the city center.
With a population of approximately 24,500 residents, Herndon takes pride in its small-town charm, rich heritage, and a strong sense of community. Herndon's commitment to the community is evident in its various parks, award-winning community center, and vibrant metropolitan district. The Herndon Town Council is always searching for innovative ways to improve the community's livability, sustainability, and quality of life.
In 2019, Herndon launched a smart city pilot project in partnership with Vivacity Networks and several subcontractors. The Smart City technologies available throughout Herndon are complimentary wi-fi, an electric vehicle charging station, and Internet of Things (IoT) sensors.
Morcom participated in the installation of some of these assets and is tasked with making sure that they run 24/7.
The 1,275,000 sq. ft. military hospital features a six-level community hospital, and two clinics, including medical administration areas.
The Fort Belvoir Community Hospital has 120 in-patient beds, a 10-bed intensive care unit, a 10-bed behavioral health inpatient unit, a cancer center, an emergency department, pharmacy, operative services center with ten operating rooms, diagnostic centers, and outpatient modular clinic space.
In addition to the facility's square footage, the project includes two parking garages, surface parking for 3,500 parking spaces, a helipad, an ambulance shelter, and a dedicated central utility plant.
Morcom’s task was to design and implement an in-building wireless system capable of providing the following services in the hospital:
One of the most difficult challenges was providing enough indoor antenna density for the hospital's wireless Vocera phone service (35 ft. radius antenna spacing). The limitations imposed by physics in terms of avoiding co-location interference from neighboring antennas and antennas located in identical spots on two different floors.
Morcom used Corning M/A equipment for the head-end and the remote units. The system uses a three-rack headend that houses the Mobile Access conditioner, ancillary modules, and 40 remote cabinets (installed in the telecom closets). Over 490 antennas were required to provide coverage in all areas. In addition, Morcom had to provide a paging re-broadcast throughout the hospital. The Army uses the services of the U.S. Mobility, which sends pages in the 929MHz band. Morcom installed a donor antenna and BDA combination to bring the signal into the head-end and then distributed it throughout the DAS alongside the other services.
Having provided the underground Distributed Antenna System (DAS) for DC Water’s tunnels, Morcom was later selected as the vendor of choice to install an outdoor network of Wi-Fi access points capable of serving DC Water’s Blue Plains Campus.
Using cutting-edge Cisco Access Points, Morcom International installed and commissioned a Wi-Fi mesh system with 42 Access Points operating at the 2 GHz and 5 GHz bands. The DC Water Blue Plains Campus is a challenging location to install a system due to the numerous pipes, tunnels, tanks, pumps, and other infrastructure required to provide a global wastewater treatment plant. However, Morcom demonstrated that it is the industry's preferred leader in the demanding world of critical wireless communications technologies.
Read more about "P25 Coverage Below the Capital"
