IT Networkss incorporating Medical Devices in Hospitals and Medical Facilities.

The 3rd International Symposium will be held March 17-18th, 2011 at the Husa President Park Hotel, Brussels, Belgium. Forum is for responsible organizations and medical device manufactures for an interdisciplinary dialogue of partners within the healthcare community. Please find attached the program for this event.

Download 3rd_symposium_2011_freigabe

No doubt there will be discussions concerning the use model of WLAN with medical devices and discussions about the correct model. One area I have been talking about for over five years is the convergence of WLAN on a Distributed Antenna system and why this just does not make sense. This was recently posted by Seth Buechley, CEO and President of SOLiD North America.

“WiFi on a DAS”. First ask yourself why?”
For years there has been debate about whether it is good or bad or practical to place WiFi on a DAS.

There are still those that promise 3G/4G cellular and WLAN services can run on one systems and work flawlessly everywhere. The truth often proves that customers end up married to the company that deployed a very expensive passive coaxial DAS which really does not meet the needs fo the cellular carriers very well at all. However, once converged with a WiFi network divorcing from the company that installed and manages that sort of DAS scenario proves difficult and costly.

In recent years, hybrid fiber based coaxial DAS solutions have proven their superiority in every way measurable – venue adoption, RF performance, carrier certification, etc.

At SOLiD, we almost always recommend that our venue owners avoid running WiFi on the DAS regardless of what flavor (A/B/G/N).

Here’s why.
1. With a fiber DAS, the WiFi network is discrete (unattached) all the way to the telco closet anyhow. After you’ve run parallel networks to the telco closet, how much do you gain by combining WiFi on a DAS for the last 300 ft. of coax?
2. You will take a RF power hit when combining services with couplers and injectors.
3. WiFi over a DAS makes life misearable for the integrator who installs or manages the DAS. If a DAS breaks, it’s relatively easy to determine if the problem is the signal source, cabling, or DAS electronics. If WiFi doesn’t work properly the troubleshooting spans a wide range including unlicensed spectrum, unmanaged devices, and unknown applications that the integrator and manufacture cannot control.

In some cases where a customer really cannot go back into a ceiling location (casino grand foyer, or an operating room), it can make sense. However, we’re finding that more and more customers are choosing DAS systems that provide public safety communications, 2-way radio, and commercial wireless services without WiFi.

If you’re worried aobut making sure you get the msot of your DAS investment, we recommend pulling a few extra CAT6 cables to every DAS antenna location. As network architecture pushes the radios closer to devices, we think we’ll all be glad you did.

Entry posted on Monday, January 3rd, 2011 at 11:53 pm and is filed under 700 MHz, DAS, In-building, LTE, Public Safety, SOLiD, Uncatergorized.