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phones, laptop computers, printers, cameras and access
controls. By using ceiling boxes to bring fiber as close
to the end users as possible, the project minimized the
amount of copper required. Installers put in slightly more
than 10 miles (approximately 6 kilometers) of Cat 6A
cable in the hospital. A traditional active Ethernet LAN
would have required more than 60 miles (approximately
97 kilometers) of Cat 6A cable.
Deploying POL using zone ceiling boxes also
addressed two major hospital issues: sanitation and
patient privacy. Concealing the ONTs in the ceiling
zone boxes eliminated the need for sanitizing the
ONTs deployed in patient areas.
Hospital managers did not want ONTs in patient
room and examination room walls in case technicians
had to troubleshoot any network problems. By installing
some of the ONTs in ceiling boxes, the team was able to
troubleshoot the network from a hallway rather than
intruding into those patient-centered areas.
Flexibility for Future Expansion: Depending on the port
count needs for the area served, the team installed five
or six ONTs in each ceiling box, ran 12 strands of fiber
to them and from about 40 of the ceiling boxes fed one
of those 12 fibers to the hospital’s wireless distributed
antenna system (DAS). The installation also coiled the
remaining fibers into a service loop to accommodate
future expansion. Thus, POL gave the hospital a good
deal of room to expand services easily and cost effectively.
Currently, the hospital is using 33 of 56 potential PON
ports on the chassis. Although those 33 PON ports can
support up to 1,100 ONTs, the hospital thus far is using
only 830.
The ONTs offer the hospital even more flexibility
to grow. With 10 to 15 percent port capacity still unused,
Guthrie Corning Hospital can still add many more Ethernet
connections without adding a single widget.
If hospital managers want to add another ONT to
some of the ceiling boxes, they would not have to do
anything to the switch. If they want to use that optical
fiber, they can put in another ceiling box to hold another
five or six ONTs and then add some PON cards. The
passive optical LAN can give the hospital a very phased
and flexible growth strategy. This growth strategy also
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