20 Jun Lebanon’s leading shopping mall upgrades infrastructure for improved network-based services
ABC Verdun has invested in a state-of-the-art cabling infrastructure from R&M which will serves as the platform on which critical mall services including internet, point-of-sales systems, CCTV, digital signage, and the Building Management System (BMS) now run.
ABC was the first retailer to introduce the mall concept to the Lebanese market, and has become the country’s favourite brand and preferred lifestyle and shopping destination. Located in the heart of Beirut, ABC Verdun is a prime urban retail and entertainment destination.
The Mall is spread across around 1.5 million square feet– with more than 140,000 square feet of gross leasable area (GLA) across six levels. The project hosts over 200 stores including a wide selection of international must-have brands, as well as movie theatres, and around 30 restaurants and coffee shops, and several new concept stores.
This prioritization of convenience for its customers prompted the IT team to shortlist R&M as the cabling vendor has an established reputation for quality and service. Moreover, R&M was capable of offering a 25-year system warranty on the cabling infrastructure- thereby ensuring it will be reliable and future-proof. As a result, key systems now efficiently run on the high-speed cable network enabling everything from in-store payments to mall security and even systems that optimize its 1,700 car parking spaces.
R&M’s long-standing presence in the Middle East proved an added benefit to ABC Verdun. The installation time was greatly reduced by use of the high-performance field-installable connector which made it possible to connect the FO Field connectors to a fibre cables at the site itself in under a minute. This innovation allowed the costly and time-consuming step of fusion splicing to be skipped, as pigtails, patch cables, and installation cables were directly connected.
For the connectivity of its retail stores, the Mall has utilized the very latest Cat. 7 S/FTP cables with Cat. 6A outlets, while the CCTV connectivity is built on high-grade Cat. 6 cabling. This copper cabling network connects to a high-speed FO backbone that utilizes OM3 fibre cabling. “R&M’s strengths in copper and fibre presented ABC Verdun with the opportunity to fulfil all its cabling requirements – thus simplifying the implementation. Parts of the network is built on R&M’s cabling systems, providing a 25-year system warranty which safeguards the Group’s investment and ensures its successful operation for years to come,” said Mohammad Sweidan, Regional sales director, Levant, Kuwait & North Africa at R&M.
Antoine Abi Nassif, general manager of Qbrands, R&M’s implementation partner in Lebanon said, “After several years of hard work, we have achieved great success with R&M in Lebanon. It was crucial for us to win this project as ABC Verdun which is one of the most important projects executed in Lebanon in recent years. R&M has provided us with its full support in order to fulfil the requirements of the client and the consultant, Khatib & Alami. R&M’s products definitely meet the expectations of our client and live up to the well-known Swiss quality.”