Harris Communications has conducted site surveys throughout the United States.  The purpose of a site survey is to determine what type of solution and design will work best for a specific facility.  In most cases it is not feasible to provide an accurate estimate based on square footage of a facility alone.  There are quite a few variables that structures can contribute to each project.  The best way to get an accurate and efficient solution is to schedule a site survey prior to commissioning a design.

In a telecommunications network the backhaul portion of the network comprises the intermediate links between the backbone, of the network and the small subnetworks at the “edge” of the entire hierarchical network.  An example would be: cell phones communicating with a single cell tower constitute a local subnetwork, the connection between the cell tower and the rest of the world begins with a backhaul link to the core of the telecommunications network.

Visualizing the entire hierarchical network as a human skeleton, the core network would be the spine, the backhaul links would be the limbs, the edge networks would be the hands and feet, and the individual links within those edge networks would be the fingers and toes.

The objective in this type of solutions is to transmit data from several distribution/access points to one centralized point of presences.  This technology offers great benefit to enterprise, particularly campus style environments such as hospitals and universities.  Harris Communications offers both licensed and unlicensed point to point and multi point solutions.

In many commercial buildings there are areas of poor wireless coverage that compromise a first responders ability to communicate.  Many municipalities have passed public safety ordinances to address the problem.

Harris Communications’ DAS solutions are custom designed to improve emergency responder communication in isolated areas or in the entire building if necessary.

There are three primary approaches to achieving in-building coverage:

1) Increasing the signal level through deployment of additional antenna sites within the jurisdiction

2) Supplementing coverage in a specific building with a permanent system that boosts the signal level received from and transmitted to the outside

3) Using deployable systems which can boost coverage in a building for a specific incident scene on a temporary basis.

There are trade offs across each of these approaches and it is likely that a combination of all three will be used in any given jurisdiction.  As a company Harris Communications is able to accommodate all three primary approaches.