Background

The Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland’s prestigious New Academic Educational Building (NAEB) in Dublin stands five storeys tall and occupies four basement levels. Costing €80m and with a total area of approximately 12,000m2, the building is constructed primarily of concrete frame with structural steel elements and accommodates surgical training, clinical simulation facilities, a 540-seat lecture theatre, a range of training rooms, a 600-student library, a sports hall and a gym.

Challenges and considerations

What became apparent during the construction, however, was that the building largely failed to support reliable in-building cellular coverage because:

• nearly 50% of the building is effectively underground
• the above-ground areas are shielded from solar heat gain by an additional external anodised mesh

The Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI) chose Boldyn as their partner to design and install a Distributed Antenna System (DAS) to achieve comprehensive coverage throughout their new building, spanning from the fourth basement level to the top fifth floor.

Solutions and delivery

As part of our commitment to deliver genuinely end-to-end projects, Boldyn took responsibility for:

• the design and installation of the system
• the procurement of materials
• the commissioning of the repeater-fed passive multi-operator system…

which now delivers 3G and 4G – and ultimately 5G – coverage to all nine floors.

The installation was challenging. We were working on a live construction site alongside other contractors, all with their own competing priorities. However, through focused project management and close cooperation with the main contractor, the project was delivered on time and within budget.

Technical summary

Boldyn’s DAS solution comprised:

• 52 antennae
• over 1200m of coaxial cable
• 50+ couplers
• dedicated 3G/4G repeater per operator
• 3G/4G multi-operator front-end combiner