Telecommunications

Mission Critical Protection

The mission of a telecommunications company - whether it is a traditional regional operating company, a long-distance provider, a wireless service, or a broadband company offering bundled TV, internet and phone—is to provide customers with round-the-clock, uninterrupted service. A fire in any critical telecom facility—whether a central office, a satellite transmission station, or a cable head-end—can knock out vital communication links for thousands of customers at once. And providing your customers with service they can depend on—whether it is TV sports programming, a business's phone service, or service for 911—uninterrupted service is critical to your business’s mission, and vital to the continued productivity and profitability of your company.

Despite the low occurrence of fires experienced by telecom providers, the risk continues to increase as switches, computers and transmission equipment become faster and denser, requiring more power and generating more heat. Uninterruptible power systems and their storage batteries pose an additional fire risk.

While many telecom companies rely on sprinklers as the only fire protection in their facilities, a risk assessment reveals:

Sprinklers are designed to (and are very effective at) protecting the building structure, but not your assets.
Sprinklers need significant heat to operate, requiring a full flaming fire, destroying assets (i.e. computers and other electronic equipment) at the source of the fire.
Assets surrounding the fire suffer collateral damage from water and smoke, with smoke contamination often destroying electronic equipment quite a distance away from the incident.
The cost of business interruption, including software recovery, loss of data, clean up, as well as the lost revenue when systems are down, is often significantly more than the cost of the asset destroyed in the fire.
Downtime costs can be enormous… revenue per hour has been estimated to be $2M in the telecommunication sector.

Fenwal Protection Systems and its worldwide network of factory-trained distributors can provide telecom companies with the best waterless fire protection systems, to minimize business interruption caused by fire. Our innovative products to protect mission critical facilities include:

Clean Agent Suppression Systems

can snuff out a fire in seconds. Fenwal clean agents are people-safe, environmentally responsible, and do not damage sensitive electronic equipment. They minimize fire-related downtime and clean-up costs, leaving no watery mess or powdery residue, making them perfectly suited for telecom facilities.

High Sensitivity Smoke Detection Systems

can provide the earliest possible warning in a potential fire situation. Fenwal HSSD® is able to detect plasticizers released by overheating electrical equipment, before any significant smoke is visible. As an air-sampling smoke detector, it provides superior performance in the highly air-conditioned environment found in telecom facilities.

Intelligent Detection and Control Systems

combine detection and suppression capabilities into a single integrated fire protection system. The FenwalNET™ control panel and SmartOne™ intelligent detectors provide worry-free automatic fire protection system for your telecom facility.