Mason Hayes+Curran leads the way with 10G networking in drive for growth and efficiency
Mason Hayes+Curran is among the largest corporate and litigation law firms in Ireland. It generates more than 97 percent of its fees from corporate, government and institutional clients both in Ireland and through overseas offices and associates. Among its international clients are Ericsson, Intel, Campbell Soup Company, Lidl, Orange plc, Bank of Ireland, Ulster Bank and Bank of Scotland.
In mid 2006, to house its expanding business, the firm moved more than 200 staff from three separate offices in Dublin into a new headquarters at South Bank House. This purpose built, nine-story building, with 6000 m2 of open plan offices, is a landmark in the fast growing Dublin Docklands area.
Alongside state-of-the-art architecture and design, Mason Hayes+Curran wanted its staff to have the best and most reliable network communications in their new offices. Fast information flow and effective collaboration are the keys to productivity and client service and they both depend on high performance network infrastructure.
Commenting, managing partner Declan Moylan said: “The move to South Bank house presents exciting opportunities to develop our proposition to clients. It is the culmination of three years’ planning and consultation to ensure every aspect of the building, including its communications network, is optimized to our needs.”
To provide the world class networking technology it wanted, the firm turned to SYSTIMAX® Solutions and Kedington, a Prestige SYSTIMAX BusinessPartner. Through offices in Dublin, Cork and Limerick, Kedington provides data networking consultancy and services to clients ranging from SME’s to global corporations, and was the country’s first Prestige SYSTIMAX BusinessPartner.
Kedington developed a proposal for Mason Hayes+Curran based on SYSTIMAX GigaSPEED® X10 Unshielded Twisted Pair (UTP) copper cabling technology. This conforms to the full specifications of the Category 6A/Class EA cabling standard and can support 10 Gb/s data transmission over a 100 meter, four-connector channel.
“We are committed to building the high performance networks Irish businesses need to succeed in a highly competitive environment,” said Matt Porter, Managing Director at Kedington. “The GigaSPEED X10D Solution provides a connectivity infrastructure that lets us achieve this.”
Mason Hayes+Curran saw the short and long term advantages offered by this high performance solution and chose it ahead of all the other cabling options they evaluated. In doing so, they became the first law firm in Europe with an end-to-end SYSTIMAX 10G network infrastructure.
Even when supporting transmission at speeds less than 10 Gb/s, the GigaSPEED 10XD cabling gives the firm advantages over Category 6 cabling. These include higher end-to-end data throughput and improved reliability, which are the bases for improved productivity and reduced downtime.
When the firm is ready to install 10G switches and PC network interface cards, it can move to 10 Gb/s networking with no need to upgrade its connectivity. So, applications that demand 10G connections can be introduced at anytime, without the cost and disruption of installing new cabling.
“Growth and improved efficiency demand the best available systems,” said Declan Moylan. “As new and better software technology becomes available, we are now in a position to adopt this immediately and put it to work providing better service to our clients.”
Working with consultants, Homan O’Brien, Kedington designed and planned an installation with 1,500 outlets. Most of these are located on employees desktops and connected to a central communications room via more than 150Kms of GigaSPEED X10D cabling running under the floors. In the communications room, Kedington installed the SYSTIMAX GigaSPEED X10D patch panels matched to the GigaSPEED X10D cable to give optimum end-to end performance.
Among the applications supported by the new cabling are voice, data, video conferencing and wireless access. However, a key reason for choosing the SYSTIMAX cabling solution was its ability to support new, bandwidth intensive applications.
The whole network cabling installation was completed in three months. To do this, Kedington had a team of up to 15 people working on the site backed by five support staff.
Commenting on the completed installation, Wally Blennerhassett, Sales Director, SYSTIMAX Solutions Ireland said: “Professional services businesses such as Mason Hayes+Curran depend on the ability of staff to work efficiently with each other and with clients. Its new 10 Gb/s cabling infrastructure not only gives the firm the best connectivity for its existing systems but also supports new generations of collaborative systems. High definition video and voice communications for conferencing and training applications, for example, will run comfortably on the cabling. Firms with lower performance solutions may struggle to make such bandwidth-hungry applications work.”