Adelaide Oval puts Simoco Xd DMR to work

The people of Adelaide have a brand new stadium at which to enjoy sporting and concert events, protected and managed using a state-of-the-art Simoco communications network.

In 2009, the Government of South Australia committed $535 million to transform the old Adelaide Oval into a new, world-class venue for the 21st century, with a 2100-square-metre playing ground and seating capacity of around 50,000.

Baulderstone Pty Ltd (now Lend Lease), one of the largest building and engineering companies in Australia, was awarded the construction contract to redevelop the venue and began major works in the first quarter of 2012. The project was completed in March 2014 and the redeveloped Adelaide Oval now sits proudly within a revitalised precinct.

But as well as the obvious structural developments, behind the scenes the oval also needed a new, robust and resilient radio communications system to replace its simple analog repeater and ensure the safe and successful management of the venue.

That system would need to accommodate many groups of users, all with specific requirements, and all of whom would need to communicate with each other across thousands of square metres, including in confined spaces, tunnels and concrete structures which, together, presented a number of technical challenges, such as blind spots.

This complexity led the Adelaide Oval Stadium Management Authority (SMA) to seek a solution that would deliver an interoperable digital system that would meet the needs of all personnel.

Evaluation and deployment

Communications company Simoco made its pitch by adopting a consultative approach, evaluating the project and doing a full-scale site audit. Whatever system was devised would have to provide reliable communications to 13 different user groups: catering; corporate and retail; function and events; food and beverage administration; office and tours; event staff; stadium supervisors; maintenance; ground staff, car park; oval security and secondary security; cleaning; ticketing; and the South Australia Cricket Association (SACA).

The company pointed out the benefits of using a private communications infrastructure and how extra capabilities could be built in to ensure that emergency services had access to venue communications should a critical situation arise during an event, and that the venue could benefit from remote monitoring and alerts.

Following a comprehensive consultation, Simoco’s Xd DMR Tier III end-to-end trunked radio network was chosen as the solution.

Simoco Xd offered increased call capacity over the oval’s previous radio system, all built on an IP backbone, and provides more reliable coverage right to the edge of the signal range - an important factor for public safety and efficient operational management.

The contract covered system design, installation and a four-year maintenance agreement for five digital base stations, a robust distributed antenna system (DAS) and the use of more than 300 handheld radios.

The trunked radio solution offers a number of benefits for the venue including dynamic allocation of channels to allow simultaneous calls for multiple user groups thus eliminating queuing. The system effectively has extra capacity for all users during busy periods.

It took only six weeks for the system to be fully installed and for the oval’s staff to be trained on it.

Better coverage

The newly refurbished Adelaide Oval opened to the public on 29 March 2014 with a showdown between the Port Adelaide and Adelaide AFL clubs - a milestone event that attracted 50,397 spectators. Since then, the oval has hosted AFL football every weekend as well as a range of private functions.

The Xd DMR system has shown itself to be a highly effective and economical communication solution that delivers the latest in digital radio standards, enabling the SMA to manage and control its critical communications across the oval.

With thousands of people regularly flocking to the facility, staff have to deal with a large number of spectators arriving and leaving the venue within a short space of time and often in a noisy and crowded environment. Simoco helped the SMA address these challenges by providing better noise rejection over a greater range compared to analog, particularly at the farthest edges of the network.

Furthermore, Simoco addressed issues around the lack of radio coverage in the basement and car park areas by developing and successfully deploying a customised distributed antenna solution.

The company continues to undertake ongoing maintenance of the communications systems and has also been engaged to provide supplementary radios through its rental division to meet additional demand during high-profile events.

One of those events will be the Rolling Stones concert later this year. More than 50,000 fans are set to see the Stones perform, and Simoco’s equipment will be crucial for effective communication among staff on the night.

Simoco’s Australian division will continue to work closely with the Adelaide Oval SMA to provide a long-term solution that will grow along with the venue.