When it comes to carriers providing wireless service to customers across the country in secure facilities like airports, service providers all face a common problem – access control. The MSP airport in Saint Paul Minnesota can be seen as a case study for an innovative solution from Optical Zonu that solves this problem.
The ZonuConnect platform is a product family that provides solutions to remote locate a BTS system in a different location from a DAS headend. The new DAS at MSP airport is a modern state of the art installation with two headends that are both located inside of TSA secured perimeters. Access to these locations is extremely controlled. If the BTS systems were to be installed inside this perimeter, representatives for each carrier would be required to obtain and maintain TSA certifications just to access the BTS locations.
The ZonuConnect system from Optical Zonu allowed each of the three primary carriers to install all of their BTS systems in non-TSA secured shelters outside of the security perimeter. These shelters are secured by access control systems maintained by the carriers themselves. This allows engineers and technicians to simply drive to a location and maintain their own access control. This reduces the cost and complexity required for carrier employees to maintain TSA badges.
ZonuConnect architecture allows BTS systems to interface with DAS headends as far away as 5 miles over fiber optic cable. This allows the carriers to install all of their BTS systems in one location, even in the event of multiple DAS headends. In the case of MSP airport it would require at least 2 primary locations. The ZonuConnect system further reduces access control complexity by collocating all of the BTS equipment for multiple headends in a single location.
The ZonuConnect installation at MSP covers a massive amount of sectors for all three primary carriers. The system can be seen as a use case and success case for the flexibility of the architecture in general. It allows all three carriers to maintain their own origination point, and to collocate all of their BTS equipment in a single shelter outside of the TSA security perimeter. It also allows those signals to be routed to multiple DAS headend locations via singlemode fiber.