The Docklands ,

Description: Implementation of Additional Cellular Coverage at Major Melbourne Venue Requirement: Additional Coverage to Include the Latest LTE and HSPA+ Requirements Solution: Coverage Incorporating LTE and HSPA+ for Vodafone Hutchinson Australia

O Overview The (also known as the Etihad Stadium after the main sponsor) is a multi-purpose venue with a capacity of over 53 thousand spectators located in Melbourne, . It is the home of the Australia League and has hosted the Rugby World Cup, the World Cup and Commonwealth Games events. already had an In Building system to cover the stadium but it only covered five sectors for all the seating and car park areas and was not compliant with LTE at 1800MHz. We were commissioned by Vodafone Hutchinson Australia (VHA) to upgrade the system to 15 sectors with ten allocated to the seating areas.

O What did the Project Involve? O Why was the Project so Successful? The design was commissioned and went through various iterations as additional frequency bands and The system was built and implemented at a busy technologies were added to the requirements. time for the stadium, with concerts and sporting events taking place throughout the year. This created Ten new active remote units were required in the a complex schedule which needed to take into stadium gantry above the seating to provide ten account availability of equipment and deadlines for sectors, while the existing DAS was upgraded for the various events. other areas. Design requirements from both Optus and Vodafone had to be taken into account. As the system had a large number of sectors within the seating bowl, the power levels for each operator’s A total of 20 antennae were installed on the gantry system required careful balancing. The radio from 10 remote units and new BTS equipment was engineers were able to optimise the system to installed in the Vodafone equipment room. Vodafone minimise interference between these sectors. added additional capacity and LTE 1800 after the system had gone live. The project delivered the capacity and throughput speeds required for such a large site delivering LTE Close collaboration was needed with Vodafone, Optus and HSPA+. The result was a system providing and the equipment suppliers. excellent coverage in the seating areas with minimal interference, meeting the needs of a high profile, high capacity venue where visitors expect the very best.

www. nextwavecellular.com