Background
Rapier Systems are executing an ongoing networking project with the Dundee City Council in Scotland. The project has been evolving for the past 11 years and throughout this time has undergone 3 major capacity leaps. The project started off with microwave links providing a capacity of 10Mbs, the network was then ramped up to 30-35Mbs with Sub 6GHz technology, and recently
Siklu EH- 1200F links were brought on board for a major ramp up, and have successfully been delivering 1Gbps without a hitch.
Gigabit Connectivity Enables Smart City Functions
The Dundee City Council takes pride in being solely responsible for providing communication services in its jurisdiction. The council network is constantly growing and the amount of data transmitted to and from the sites is huge. When a tall building in the city center was to be demolished, the council took advantage of the change to upgrade the CCTV and surveillance system installed to 10 HD cameras, and added a number of Wi-Fi access points on the ground. Rapier understood the need to deploy a high-capacity solution capable of supporting the capacity demands of heavily used Wi-Fi as well as HD cameras, and consulted with Purdicom, its supplier. While Ruckus, known for its super high capacity per user in dense environments, was selected for the access indoor points, Siklu’s Gigabit radio was chosen to concurrently backhaul both the HD CCTV and the super-fast Wi-Fi.
Gigabit metropolitan connectivity
150 ‘always on’ sites are connected on a wide area network in Dundee, the largest metropolitan area in Scotland. The council network includes a number of schools, video surveillance locations, corporate traffic for council housing and municipal buildings, and public Wi-Fi. There are currently 300 Wi-Fi Ruckus access points in the council network, provided by Purdicom along with Siklu links, which deliver fiber-like connectivity on the E-band spectrum, which leaves more sub-6GHz spectrum for the access points and doesn’t suffer from interference from the Wi-Fi.
Results
Future-ready, robust wireless network, with each layer operating over a different frequency band, thus both reliability and throughput are maximized.