Designing Cabling and Wireless Infrastructure for Discovery Communications

Vision Technologies and Discovery Communications have a strong relationship that has a global footprint and spans many years.  This type of world class customer satisfaction is one characteristic that set Vision apart.  

For Discovery Communications, Vision designed and delivered a world-class cabling infrastructure for their 1 million square foot world headquarters building. The solution is based on a Category-6 cabling infrastructure for the horizontal cabling system for voice and data with an excess of 12,000 station cables, 3,500 strands of multimode fiber to the desktop, plus a like amount of broadband coax horizontal runs. In addition to the horizontal subsystem, Vision provided a voice-and-data riser system that consists of copper cables ranging from 300 to 600 pairs to each of the Telecommunications Rooms (TR), a Category-5e riser to each TR for video teleconferencing, plus a single- and multimode fiber optic cable riser system.

We also provided a trunk cable for the broadband CATV and MATV systems from each of the TR’s to the head-end location, as well as a complete wireless infrastructure using an optical fiber backbone and semi-rigid coax horizontal cabling, along with MobileAccess (formerly, Foxcom) electronics to provide converged wireless indoor networking for wireless voice and data connectivity throughout the entire building. This system enables pervasive 802.11x access as well as access to all major cellular carriers (including Verizon, Cingular, Nextel, among others).

Vision performed acceptance testing of the entire cable plant, from the backbone to the desktop.  Power meter testing was performed on all installed and terminated backbone fiber strands. Continuity/loss testing was performed on all coaxial and voice backbone cabling.  Continuity/loss testing was also performed on all horizontal voice connections.  Category-6 testing was performed on each terminated category-6 data cable.  Power meter testing was performed on each terminated backbone and horizontal fiber strand.  All test results were downloaded, organized and stored in a central location.  All test results were then compiled into a single Adobe Acrobat documentation submittal — allowing for search and analysis on individual locations — totaling over 10,600 pages.

A major element of this project was the fast-track time line. From contract award/pulling the first cable, to the on-time completion, the project was delivered in approximately 5 months. Vision’s efficiency and rapid delivery helped enable Discovery Communications to maximize its operational capabilities in the fastest possible timeframe.