Good Bones: The ROI of Great Comms Infrastructure

By John Foley, SBC Managing Director

Posted on September 12, 2019

Every garden scheme should have a backbone, a central idea beautifully phrased. Every wall, path, stone and flower should have its relationship to the central idea.

EDWIN LUTYENS –BRITISH ARCHITECT

At the heart of almost every current and future PropTech and CRE Communications system are common physical assets:

• Pathway (Conduit, Chases, cores, raceways, etc.)
• Connectivity (Fiber, fiber, fiber, copper, patch panels)
• Power (Centralized, sustainable, resilient, reliable, distributed, digital)
• Environmental (Space, Cooling)
• Access (Closets, Demarcs)
• Current, Accurate Records

These are your bones, and bones are everything. You can think of the in-building systems that ride on these bones as over the top applications:

• What you Must Have:
• Public Safety Wireless Coverage
• What you Also Need:
• Cellular Wireless Coverage
• Business Telephone Systems
• Fire Alarm Systems
• WiFi
• Private LTE (CBRS)
• 5G
• Building Management Systems (BMS)
• Access Control
• Surveillance and Security
• Digital Lighting
• The Applications and Services of Tomorrow

THE EVOLVING ROLE OF PUBLIC SAFETY COMMUNICATIONS INFRASTRUCTURE

Public Safety infrastructure such as the requirements in the International Fire Code (IFC) section 510, or NFPA 1, 72 and 1221 that require Public Safety / First Responder Radio signals to have adequate coverage inside buildings are being rapidly adopted and enforced nationwide, especially in heavy growth markets like Florida, California, Texas, Georgia, Colorado and others.

The relative lack of awareness of these requirements creates an “unfunded mandate” that property owners and developers must address. This is where smart, advance planning can take advantage of this mandated investment to ensure that the capital required to deploy the public safety systems is versatile and capable of supporting multiple platforms.

COMMON COMMS INFRASTRUCTURE CHALLENGES

New building designs and budget reductions are usually “value engineered” to reduce items like:

• Work outlets per room reduced
• Smaller IDF, MDF, TR facilities — occupancy space versus IT space
• Doors that swing in, rather than swing out — accommodate hall walking requirements
• Cables passing through EMI sources — like transformers, power supplies with harmonics

Budget designs are based on new installations for low voltage. Often not captured are the requirements to bring the old cabling and infrastructure up to NEC code. Existing cabling/work outlets are less than adequate to support a higher-speed network. Among the challenges:

• Removal of old cabling in the ceiling per NEC code violations
• Constraints of room size/ wall space/3-foot requirement for working space accommodating growth forcing a secondary room to be built or installing product in a “non”-standard room
• Conduit filled to code — installation of new conduit, larger pathway, transitions points, weight for cable trays exceeding installed recommended values
• Power is not adequate to support additional amperage loads for new equipment
• Power to the building is not adequate to support additional amperage loads for new equipment
• Cooling the same issue for the additional equipment loads
• Downtime to relocate services to accommodate new services

THE COMMUNICATIONS MASTER PLAN – IT’S ALL ABOUT COMMUNICATING

“An enterprise’s most vital ability to support technologies is to establish standards and use those standards throughout the process of pre-design, design and implementation to assure sustainability and functionality,” says Mark Reynolds, Associate Director for IT at the University of New Mexico.

The University established Master Planning requirements early in the 2000s that considers future-readiness, design and construction. Stakeholders include Facilities, Planning Design, Architectural, Safety and Risk Services, and Information Technology (IT standards and Design Guidelines and Specifications).

The University makes its Plan sharable online here: https://pdc.unm.edu/assets/documents/ConsolidateMP_Part1and2.pdf.

The Plan guides stakeholders in the early phases of new construction and remodeling and establishes budgets for buildings and appropriations for these funds.

Specifically for IT, these guidelines (http://cio.unm.edu/standards/index.html) are important to create the “Good Bones” and enhance the efficiencies, reduce spending and create a foundation for every project while ensuring future readiness and future cost efficiencies.

NEXT STEPS

For more news and guidance on Public Safety Communications Requirements, visit www.saferbuildings.org.

As always, check with your local code official, who may put limits or conditions on sharing infrastructure between Public Safety and other building systems.

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