Macau casinos adopt wireless services

A recent investment boom in the Chinese city of Macau has seen a number of local and international casino chains open luxurious hotel and casino resorts. These developments incorporate high-rise hotels, gaming floors, shopping arcades, exhibition centres and even indoor sports stadiums.

A number of these resorts have been equipped with indoor wireless services, founded on the ClearFill suite of wireless indoor solutions (WINS) from wireless technology group, Radio Frequency Systems (RFS).

RFS's ClearFill solution set comprises a modular mix of passive and active technologies that include new options for harnessing and distributing RF signals inside buildings and tunnels.

"The ClearFill suite is scalable and modular, encompassing solutions from 'plug-and-play' to the fully engineered," RFS senior regional sales manager, Charles Chong said.

The task of providing Macau's newest casino resort - the Venetian Macau Resort - with wireless indoor communications was awarded to a select group of solutions providers, featuring RFS. In conjunction with Ericsson, RFS designed the first phase of the Venetian's new wireless communications infrastructure and provided a range of passive WINS equipment.

"RFS designed and supplied a distributed antenna network for the Venetian's hotel and the 50,000 square metres of gaming area," said Chong.

"The ClearFill Line solution we've applied here consists of some 3000 point-source antennas and 500 indoor panel antennas, linked together via RFS's Cellflex foam-dielectric coaxial transmission line."

The Venetian's broadband RF system supports four of Macau's commercial carriers, and has the capability to accommodate additional networks.

"The Venetian's multi-carrier/multi-band ClearFill solution is truly future-proofed, as its broadband design supports frequencies up to 2.2 GHz," said Chong.

"It supports both 2G services and 3G networks. This is particularly important as the Macau Government has only just recently awarded 3G licences."