Infrastructure Upgrades

San Diego

Infrastructure Upgrades

Picture: Witold Myslinksi (Technician II) testing new floor box data and phone jacks

LIKE many convention centers in the country, the San Diego Convention Center has evolved through the years. When it was built in the late 80’s the original footprint consisted of three halls, A B & C. The halls had evenly spaced “column trees” that contained switches allowing network connections to be extended from the ceiling to locations on the show floor. When a show exhibitor needed network connectivity, technicians would begin on the catwalks that tie column trees together and extend network cables across the ceiling with the use of a boom lift. Once above the correct space of the exhibit hall, the cables were suspended and dropped down to the show floor for final installation. A good amount of labor and equipment was needed for every network drop in these halls.

Picture LEFT to RIGHT: James Lagomitzis (Technician II) and Jason Bussie (Data Operations Professional) testing new floor box data and phone jacks

In 2001 the center went through a significant upgrade, doubling its show floor space by building halls D, E, F, G, & H. The architects of the new side of the convention center did not follow the column tree design of the existing halls. Instead of evenly spaced column trees, these halls were open floor space from wall to wall without any floor to ceiling obstructions. To accommodate electrical and network needs, the new area was installed with interconnected floor boxes spaced every 30 feet. Each floor box provides several data and phone jacks that are connected to IDF’s around the perimeter of the new halls. The checkerboard pattern of the floor boxes means a connection to the network is never more than 15-20 feet away, anywhere on the show floor. The need for a boom lift, the need for multiple technicians, the risk involved with working high above the show floor, all these factors are all removed. With the new design, one technician can easily install a drop to a floor box in much less time.

This year a project was approved to upgrade halls A, B, & C with the installation of interconnected floor boxes, matching the design in halls D through H. It was a challenging task to interlace the busy, high occupancy convention center schedule with installers that needed access to the show floors, as well as spaces above and below the show floors. Work continued through the busiest months of the center’s event schedule, while seamlessly providing uninterrupted service to high profile shows like ESRI, Comic-Con, and Cisco LIVE. An early September deadline was met so that the new floor boxes would be ready for the TwitchCon 2019.

The finished project includes six new underground IDFs that host wiring to 233 floor boxes, each with four Cat 6 data ports and two analog phone ports. Thirteen of the floor boxes also have four pair of single-mode fiber, delivering the highest speed network connections throughout the building. San Diego Convention Center has an ever-increasing demand from show managers and exhibitors for high-speed fiber connectivity. In the last couple of years, orders for interconnecting booths with high-speed fiber networks have become much more common. Customers are asking for end to end speeds of 400 – 800 Gbs, soon to go beyond to terabit speeds.

With this new upgrade, Smart City at San Diego Convention Center is ready to deliver the highest quality network services well into the future.

Picture LEFT to RIGHT: Alisal Alisal (Technician), Ryan Holdren (Technician), and James Lagomitzis (Technician II) applying finishing touches on new IDFs