CLIENT: Lepra - British Leprosy Relief Association (registered charity)
BRIEF: Installation of 120 CAT6 outlets to provide the charitys new head office with a flexible new workspace
When Lepra decided to move offices from their 30-year base in Fairfax House to The Octagon in Middleborough, Colchester, Octopus Cabling were commissioned to install a fully integrated voice and data network for the charity’s IT systems.
Working alongside Rose Builders, QED Projects and many respected local contractors, a full project was undertaken to
refurbish part of the former offices of Royal London Insurance.
Their new offices, which are spread over three floors, needed to have a fast, stable network. The new offices were installed with raised flooring and a new false ceiling. To safeguard their investment, Lepra decided that with the natural progression to Gigabit technology, the new cabling should be a full Connectix category 6 system ensuring the support of future IT.
Although the overall installation was only for one hundred and thirty points, the system was designed and installed with flexibility; the majority of the network outlets were installed in groups of six in each of the floor boxes for the floating desk positions, with each floor box having an additional three metres of cable. This will enable the charity to easily redesign their office space with the minimum of cost and downtime - future office relocations simply require lifting a section of the false floor, relocating the floor box and then relaying the floor and carpet tiles.
With the communications room located on the middle floor and the nearest riser only large enough to carry the power, it was considered that the interference from the power cables would detract from the gigabit performance. Therefore, diamond drilling was required to give access for the cables to be routed between the floors. Without the aid of cable basket, specialist fixings were used to hold the main cable routes together under the floor. Low smoke cabling was installed ensuring that all of the Category 6 bend radiuses were correct. Cable tray was installed to carry the cables between the floors and an access cover designed and built to cover it.
Eight outlets for wireless access points were installed strategically over the two main office floors to service the meeting rooms and those members of staff who work from laptop computers.
With the cables installed, terminated, fully tested and certified, the new gigabit switches were installed along with the phone system and the desired services were neatly patched to the required outlets. The new system was then handed over to the Lepra IT team.
Octopus Cabling were proud be part of this excellent project ensuring that Lepra have the solid office foundations to continue their essential work both here and abroad.
"We were very impressed with the skill, competence, attention to detail and pride that Octopus displayed when setting up our new voice and data network. We encountered one or two teething problems which turned out not to be related to the network at all, but Octopus still came in and gave their time and attention to trying to resolve them. I would be happy to highly recommend the company."
Chris Ransom, Lepra
www.leprahealthinaction.org/
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