To respond to the increasing needs of high bandwidth required for the deployment of new digital services at the top of its ski slopes, the ski resort les Deux Alpes wished to partially renovate its optical fiber links in order to support the transmitted bit rates. This renewal required an upgrade of the cable infrastructure located under some of the ski lifts.
Taking into account the specific constraints of the mountain environment, the company Deux Alpes Loisirs avoided a long and costly new fiber deployment by choosing the passive AROONA solution by Cailabs. AROONA allows the existing fiber infrastructure to be recycled and to transport high bit rates links without a hassle.
Digitization poses a major challenge to the development of ski resorts as well as to their position within an increasingly competitive tourist market. Because of this, the ski resort les Deux Alpes adopted a procedure to renovate its network infrastructure. The ski resort wishes to offer new digital services to its customers and workers, which includes: Wi-Fi, live webcams as well as an available and effective IT system at the top of the ski slopes.
Grappling with the increasing needs for higher bandwidth, the resort operates a network distributed over the entire ski area, mainly composed of radio links on the heights.
However, the company Deux Alpes Loisirs deals with a bandwidth limitation over some of its long optical links supporting all the traffic towards the resort. These OM1 (62.5/125 µm) multimode fibers were deployed in 1999 alongside some of the ski lifts and today constitute bottlenecks and prevent the deployment of new digital services.
“Despite the distance and connection between old generation OM1 fibers over 3.3 km [2 mi], we now have several links at 10 Gb/s at up to 3200 m [2 mi] of altitude thanks to AROONA. It’s allowed us to provide new digital services to our customers and colleagues. To sum up, it is a successful encounter between high mountains and high technology.”
Patrick Jullian, Network administrateur,
Deux Alpes Loisirs
Deploying new single-mode optical fibers offers a solution to the issue of bandwidth limitation. However, the mountain environment causes specific constraints: “Without this technology, a fiber deployment in the mountains would have been very long and costly,” explains M. Jullian.
The limited fibers connect two server rooms located at altitudes of 2600 m [1.6 mi] and at 3200 m [2 mi] respectively and, when connected, make up a total link of 3.3 km [2 mi]. An audit of the existing cable infrastructures would have been required to account for the potential crushing of existing ducts, thereby causing difficulties for a deployment. The complexity of the links and the distance between the buildings would have required civil engineering and
transporting equipment to high altitudes. These elements would entail an exorbitant investment in addition to a few days’ work, perhaps even a few weeks, if a new cable deployment had been chosen instead.
The ski resort les Deux Alpes would like to be at the leading edge of new technologies. That being said, its partner Alp’com (Access Group) proposed the innovative AROONA solution by Cailabs. This solution allows an existing multimode infrastructure to be recycled by increasing its capacities to transport very high bit rates.
Thanks to the passive AROONA solution, upgrading the limited fiber links took just one day. The investment costs were 6 times less than what a deployment of new generation optical fibers would have cost.
The AROONA solution has thus enabled the ski resort’s network infrastructure renovation project by drastically reducing the costs and by minimizing disruptions. The upgraded multimode fibers now allow several links to be transported at 10 Gb/s and deliver broadband connectivity at an altitude of 3200 m [2 mi].
Alp’com, the telecom engineering branch of Access Group, is an expert in network cable infrastructures and equipment in mountainous regions. Alp’com is present at every stage of network upgrade projects, from consulting to installation to maintenance. Thanks to the partnership between Cailabs and Alp’com, the renovation project of the network infrastructure of les Deux Alpes has been a success.
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