At the Martini Hospital in Groningen, the Netherlands, an in-building radio coverage system forms an important part of a recent improvement project.

The complex consists of a renovated six-storey building of some 38?000?m² floor area and a newly constructed building of 58?000?m² which houses 580 beds. In assessing its in-building wireless coverage needs, flexibility was a major consideration. While Martini Hospital was legally obliged to offer TETRA coverage on the national C2000 network within the buildings, managers decided to take the opportunity to include provision for a range of other services, both now and in the future.

A Distributed Antenna System (DAS) from Zinwave was chosen for the scheme, and the Zinwave 3000 system was installed and commissioned by the Dutch system integrator Radio Access.

Zinwave explains that its 3000 system is the only wideband active DAS that can carry any mixture of services between 150?MHz and 2700?MHz on a single hardware layer. This, the company says, is easier and more cost-effective for a multi-service project for which future service additions are planned.

The installation comprises 16 hubs and 121 remote units which currently carry C2000 TETRA and a private GSM1800 mobile phone network. In the future, the Martini Hospital plans to extend to a further two floors in the old building and will consider adding GSM 900 and GSM1800 coverage for three other network operators, and 3G services too. 

“More and more of our customers are asking us for a wideband solution without installing thick coaxial cables in their building, and so we have deployed the Zinwave solution for numerous projects”, commented Daniel Seesink, of RadioAccess. “We feel that by providing our customers with this cutting edge technology, we are providing the very best solution for in-building wireless coverage.”