New network to Handel LSO traffic

The London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) has installed a new network in an 18th century Grade One listed church to link its community programme to the rest of the world.

St Luke's Church in east London, previously derelict for 40 years, now has a mixed fibre/cable network, voice over IP phone (VoIP) system and a 2Mbps symmetric digital subscriber line (SDSL) link to the outside world.

The Nicholas Hawksmoor-designed church is used by the orchestra's community and music education programme, LSO Discovery.

It serves as a rehearsal and public concert venue and recording facility for the LSO. BBC Four and Radio 3 have both recorded there, and on 3 December the site will be opened to the public.

BT installed the infrastructure as part of a four-year renovation project, with Unisys designing and installing cabling.

"We needed high bandwidth for operational purposes," said Helen Smith, head of technology at the LSO.

"We wanted to be as advanced as possible and have installed features like VoIP which we think will serve well in the future. We did look at a Cisco solution for power over IP for the phones but decided against it as it was too expensive."

The LSO said it has made savings as a result of the new system compared to using a traditional PBX system. The SDSL link allows three sites in the City of London to be linked via virtual private network.

The church operates two servers linked by a high-speed fibre link and uses copper Cat 5e cable to link in the 168 connection points on the site for all the phones and network access points.

"We advised a mixed fibre and copper cabling infrastructure that could be installed unobtrusively," said Graham Peacock, cabling product manager for BT Convergent Solutions.

"In order to give the facilities maximum flexibility we wanted cabling that would see them well into the future."