Why the advantages of Fibre to the Office (FTTO) are especially beneficial to hospitals

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Advantages of  fibre for hospitals

Space saving

Square metres in the medical environment are relatively far more expensive than in offices, for example. Space savings translate to cost savings. That’s why installations for air conditioning, fire protection, heating and cooling have to be as small as possible. This should also apply to technical rooms and network components and cabling. Normally, you’d need a floor distribution room every 90 metres. Over a large area, that adds up significantly. FTTO does away with the need for this type of technical room.

Also, fibre cabling requires significantly less space compared to copper. The needed space for a bundle of copper cable that can accommodate 576 user ports can be reduced by 99% by using fibre cabling. One fibre cable bundle with a diameter of 9,3mm can connect 144 FTTO switches with four user ports that can accommodate also 576 user ports.

Installation

Aginode Zero-Touch Configuration enables easy and fast rollout of an FTTO network based on Aginode FTTO GigaSwitches. As controller version, the centralized LANactive Manager handels all connected GigaSwitches with an automated firmware and configuration update process, similar to a Software Defined Networking (SDN). Simply connect the GigaSwitch to the network, and it automatically connects to a controller. This saves considerably on installation time and costs. Work can also be done during regular working hours with no, or minimal, disruption. In addition, the scalability of the system allows you to expand as you grow, making sure expenditure is always perfectly in line with current requirements. Using fibre cabling also decreases fire load in buildings.

Installation is 60% faster than traditional network designs. Pre-term solutions and high-density optical fibre cables with extractable bundle technology decrease the effort required for installation whilst providing redundancy. Furthermore, Moves, Adds and Changes are easily implemented without interruption. 

Reduced energy consumption 

In a hospital environment, in which equipment and installations are in operation 24/7, every opportunity to reduce energy cost is welcome. With FTTO, no floor distributors and cooling elements are needed. The GigaSwitch comes with Energy Efficient Ethernet (EEE), which means ports consume power only when data is transferred. Switches feature PoE/PoE+ and Aginode Eco Mode dynamically accommodates the user´s actual needs. Short copper cable runs over mean minimize PoE power loss on the cable. As a result, energy costs can be cut by up to 70%.

Savings compared to ‘traditional’ LAN

FTTO infrastructures may last for 25 years and offer great bandwidth reserves, lower energy and maintenance costs, less patches and significantly improved flexibility in the area of Moves, Adds and Changes. Long-lasting effects and amortisation make the cost of acquisition and installation particularly attractive. Fibre offers more bandwidth over greater distance – ideal for telemedicine and hospitals that need to process vast data volumes such as images and videos from X-ray, MRI and other devices. 

Easy maintenance and monitoring

The centralised structure with no floor distributors means less costly and easier servicing of the network. There are no extra service costs for air conditioning, fire protection and UPS. Lower requirements for service, repair and network management lead to further savings. Downtime is further reduced by standard network security features.

Regardless of their size and complexity, FTTO networks can be easily and cost-effectively managed from a single location with the configuration and management tool “LANactive Manager” from Aginode. Precise mapping of current infrastructure status makes it possible to track and repair faults or configuration errors quickly, saving considerable time.