Blogs

Griffith University first commenced lectures in 1975 with 451 students, and a focus on social justice and the environment. Griffith merged with several other Queensland tertiary institutions and now has 5 campuses across Southeast Queensland with circa 50,000 enrolled students and 2 residential colleges.

Griffiths was founded on their Mount Nathan campus which is situated 10kms from Brisbane CBD on 174 Hectares of natural bushland. The site is designed to fit with the natural environment and uses architectural cooling, following the slope of the land instead of air conditioning. All facilities are connected by integrated walking paths through the natural bushland.

The Issue:

Griffith University was familiar with Nextivity products having installed QUATRA in their campuses to provide mobile signal. Griffith needed to expand Mt Nathan facilities to cater for the closure of their nearby My Gravatt campus so a 22,000M2 Green Star V1 state of the art multi story building was commissioned on the site. N82 or the “Arrivals Building” will be complete in 2027, it will be one of the most iconic education facilities in Australia and will have exceptional mobile coverage for all carriers to assist students to be connected, communicate and for their safety.

Challenges:

N82 was a cold shell so installation was straightforward, however, we had to delay parts of the install to work within the builder’s schedule. There were also plans for a future structure which were in the immediate line of site to the telecom tower which we were intending to draw signal so donor antennas were located in a position where they would not be blocked by future planned construction.

Product Solution 

An In-Building Coverage (IBC) solution was implemented, installing a Nextivity QUATRA 4000 Hybrid DAS to readvertise multi-carrier cellular signal throughout the building. The solution included a Fibre Hub with two Network Units and 4 Coverage Units which then provided connection to 26 indoor and a single outdoor server antenna. The solution covered Telstra, Optus and Vodafone mobile networks to ensure Students, Lecturers and residents will stay connected throughout the facility.

• Off Air Repeater System – Nextivity QUATRA  

• Donor antennas - Powertec Wideband Grid Antenna

• Internal domes - Powertec Ceiling Dome Antenna

• Wall and outdoor antennas - Powertec 4G-5G Outdoor Wall Mount

• RF Components – CommScope, Powertec

• Roof Masts – APAC Infrastructure Galvanised Collared Roof Mast

Outcome

Cabling and equipment have been installed, commissioned and tested as per the handover reports, now we are waiting for the building to be occupied to see the results of connected students and lecturers.