The new Hong Kong landmark, now the highest building in the metropolis, towers 484 metres above the city. The International Commerce Centre (ICC) will be completed this year after three years of construction. This not only makes the glass, aluminium and steel giant Hong Kong’s highest building, but after the skyscrapers Burj Khalifa in Dubai (828 metres), Taipei 101 in Taiwan (508 metres) and the Shanghai World Financial Center in China (492 metres) one of the highest buildings worldwide. Originally a height of 574 metres was planned, but due to government regulations the surrounding mountains are not to be topped.

The space, distributed over 118 floors, can hold a complete town and elevators quite obviously take an important role in this so called "vertical city". It is self-evident that they are not only to be fast but also safe and secure. The FTD100Micro series fibre optics converters from OT Systems are making a particular contribution.

Already in October 2007, the city saw the opening of the shopping mall “Elements”. The “ground section” houses 123 boutiques as well as a 1,600-seat cinema, the largest movie house in Hong Kong. While visitors are strolling through the shopping mile construction towards heaven was continued during the following years. This autumn the 387 metres high 360° observation deck will open for visitors. From March 2011, the Ritz Carlton was to move into the upper floors and will be the world-highest hotel: the hotel lobby is at 425 metres and the 860-square metre spa on the 116th floor allows visitors a spectacular view, thanks to its panorama window.

With a total of 118 floors and approximately 20,000 daily visitors the fast and safe vertical transport is bound to be of special importance as a link between the floors. For passenger and goods transportation 83 elevators and 43 escalators are available, including 59 high-performance elevators by the Swiss manufacturer Schindler. The 118th floor can be reached in a record-breaking 54 seconds. Integrated in the elevators is a video monitoring system, which takes care of the visitors’ safety. Part of this CCTV solution is the FT-D100Micro transmitters from OT Systems. The task: deliver interference-free video signals from each elevator to the main control centre.

To comply with the high security requirements each elevator has two monitoring cameras, which are individually connected to an FTD100Micro transmitter. The FTD100Micro series is currently one of the smallest fibre optic converters with digital signal processing on the market and fits easily in most camera casings. The analogue camera video signals are digitised and transmitted via fibre optics along the elevator shafts to the respective local control rooms. These are distributed over several floors and only offer limited space. Due to the limitation in space no 19“ rack can be used. For this reason the 3-channel version of the FTD100 series as stand-alone module is deployed, which convert the signals for monitoring back into analogue video. The link-up with the main control room is again via individual fibre optics with FT400 series transmitter/receiver combinations. All fibre optics products by OT Systems are surge-protected and guarantee superior connectivity thanks to gold-plated BNC connectors. Consequently, the small transmitters contribute to the safety of the visitors of the International Commerce Centre.