The installation upgrade forms another link between Zenitel, joint venture company BNSC (Beijing Nera Stentofon Communication Equipment Co.) and the quickly developing Far East, with this particular integration ensuring the smooth reception of millions of passengers to and from the airport in the run up to 2008.
As the BCIA prepares itself for the Olympics tourism trade, upgrading becomes necessary as annual passenger throughput increases. This is a regular occurrence at BCIA as airport expansion is a key strategy and it is recognised, activity such as the Olympic Games, gives greater opportunity for further development. Indeed, in 2004 the Reform Commission approved the enlargement plan of the airport to enable it to upgrade from handling 35 million passengers a year to 60 million.
Over the last eight years, the STENTOFON® AlphaCom communication system has successfully assisted in protecting life and property at BCIA and helped facilitate safe and secure movement of staff and visitors, with simplified operation. Chiefly used for operational communications, the system connects the: check-in desk to gate, gate and check-in desk to Airline offices and gate to PA announcements with boarding messages. More than 55 foreign airlines have booking offices and use STENTOFON at the airport.
To ensure that internal communication will meet the airport's future anticipated capacity needs, including the expected spike in traffic associated with the Olympic Games, BNSC and Zenitel upgraded the AlphaCom exchange to the new AlphaCom E VoIP solution at Terminal 2 and are working towards the same solutions for Terminal 3. It was BNSC, assisted by Zenitel, who undertook the installation of the exchanges and cabling, and will initially offer maintenance support to the airport.
By implementing the new AlphaCom E system, Zenitel's new generation of IP intercom solutions, not only can important processing power or extra capacity be harnessed, but this integrated platform offers additional benefits. AlphaCom E provides the complete set of existing services, quality, reliability and security characteristics for which AlphaCom has always been recognised, but not only are the reliability issues of IP solved, but something extra is created - it has open standards, interoperability between systems and the possibility of sharing resources.
AlphaCom E can interconnect with a company's data and telecommunications infrastructure and provide voice, image and data links and interfaces using standard Ethernet architecture to bring all streams into one cohesive, top quality solution.
The BCIA have particularly benefited from a number of AlphaCom E features. We speak with Mr Zhengkai, electronic maintenance department assistant manager at BCIA to find out more. "At BCIA we choose to work with companies which can match our needs as a large and growing international air hub. The airport had reached a stage of development where it needed to upgrade its existing systems to meet future anticipated demand. We are already accustomed to the STENTOFON AlphaCom system and pleased with its performance, but now look forward to enjoying extra functionality, such as, easy logging of exchange activity, fast data communication between exchanges (via IP) meaning fast setup of conversations, alternative routing and easy integration to third party equipment. In order to safeguard the airports investment, we now always insist on backwards compatibility to existing equipment, which has benefited the airport this time 'round and will do so again in the future". A benefit of the AlphaCom E system is that by utilising and mixing existing infrastructures and stations with new stations and services, it reduces the cost of upgrading all systems.
BCIA is already seeing about 1200 conversation setups each hour in a quiet period. When it is busy, in time of fog or at the start of a holiday period, this figure can be several times as much. Zenitel therefore performed stringent in-house testing with a four-module exchange as a preliminary step. The installed system can now easily setup 60,000 conversations in one hour.
Many of the world's most secure airports specify STENTOFON products time and time again - from Sea-Tac Airport in Seattle to Incheon International Airport in Korea, to Copenhagen International Airport to Sydney Airport, Australia, to Charles de Gaulle in Paris and across the world.
Zenitel and BNSC look forward to developing a stronger relationship with BCIA and supporting it in its successful attempt to build up the largest airport network and consolidate its leading standing.