As some of the world’s most advanced and secure facilities, airports rely heavily on the latest IT systems. A great deal of pioneering work in this field is being carried out by Istanbul Grand Airport (IGA), which became operational this year. It is said to be the largest airport in the world and also the first airport in the world to be fully digitised with its key security, communication and IT functions based on a network provided by R&M.
“R&M has extensive experience in the aviation sector,” commented the Istanbul Grand Airport Construction project enterprise when providing its reason for selecting the network provider. For Ersin Inankul, CIO and Deputy General Manager at Istanbul New Airport, one of the key factors for selecting R&M was that the cables would guarantee outstanding signal transmission and eliminate interference for decades. Inankul said, “The quality of the R&M cabling system ensures that we can run 9,000 surveillance cameras and 3,000 card readers in real-time with confidence that they will be protected against any transmission interference or loss. We are also connecting 5,000 Wi-Fi access points, giving the airport a full-coverage WLAN. These access points will be trouble-free and fail-safe. The cabling also connects the ICT infrastructures for customs, the security staff and the police force.”
Several aspects of the cabling had to be specifically designed for this mega-project. “R&M’s specialists understand our needs and can customize their solutions. This is the biggest advantage for us as it separates R&M from other vendors,” said Ersin Inankul. The other key criteria were the delivery reliability, security and cost-effectiveness of the R&M products. Owing to their modular design, the cabling systems can keep pace with the expansion of the airport and can be expanded modularly in just a few simple steps.
R&M CEO, Michel Riva, said, “R&M has proven once again its ability to support major projects with tailored cabling solutions.”
In the first phase of construction, R&M supplied 5,400 km of copper cablings and 3,270 km of fiber-optic cabling. Installation also required fiber-optic distribution cabinets, patch panels as well as 115,000 connector ports. Special requirements also needed to be fulfilled in each area, such as a color-coding system.
R&M outfitted the airport’s data centre with the Netscale solutions, which is the fiber-optic management platform with the world’s highest connection density of up to 120 ports per rack unit in a 19’’ rack. The R&MinteliPhy digital management and monitoring system was also installed. This system automates the monitoring and operation of the data network from a central location and can detect any unsolicited changes to the infrastructure or attempts to tamper with the connectors in real time.
The cabling is designed for a lifetime of 25 years and unconditional reliability, and R&M has provided a guarantee for this. The airport wants to provide travelers, logistics companies and airlines with a guarantee of 99.982% reliability (TIER III class). Up to 200 million passengers are expected to use the airport every year in the long term. The recently opened first section of the airport processes 90 million passengers every year. Three additional construction phases will be completed over the next 15 years.
“When it comes to airports, it is particularly important to be able to accurately coordinate complex installations over a very long project duration and to always deliver the same level of quality. This requires professional and highly organised project management teams to be put in place on site,” explained Michel Riva.
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