Project Summary
In-Building Services for MobileAccess

Challenge
MobileAccess Networks engaged LCC to ensure that their converged wireless enterprise networks delivered high quality service within buildings and campuses, and integrated seamlessly with commercial wireless service providers. In building-services is one of the newest wireless frontiers and one of the fastest growing areas that service providers and vendors are pursuing.

LCC Team
LCC’s Broadband Wireless and In-Building Services was responsible for meeting MobileAccess Networks’ design and optimization requirements, despite the fact that the services and equipment were new and relatively unproven. MobileAccess Networks chose LCC because of our reputation for providing the most technologically advanced, cost-effective and appropriate solution to our customers, even for an emerging service with a short history, such as in-building. As with other emerging wireless markets, LCC drew upon our past experiences with macro networks, apply the sometime theoretical specifications of the new technology and provide an effective solution.

Scope of Work
There are three key pieces involved in providing in building services. First, LCC communicates with all the stake holders in order to thoroughly understand the specific requirements for the particular site being designed. Next, LCC visits the facility and completes a site survey, and then studies the specific nuances and conditions of buildings that may or may not show up in a floor plan or other information we’ve been provided. Finally, LCC completes the actual design for the site.

Client Benefits
The value of doing a site survey was clearly illustrated by one of the MobileAccess Networks projects, the American University in-building project, which involved a fairly large campus-wide design. The floor plan of the library showed the walls, columns and support structures, but the actual bookshelves were absent from that drawing. Had we gone blindly into the RF design using only the floor plan, LCC would have run into difficulties and probably not provided for enough antennas to supply the coverage that was really required. Because LCC completed the site survey, however, it was able to identify and measure exactly how the antennas would perform in the real environment of books and shelving, and demonstrate that the original design we had been given did not meet requirements.