When was the last time you walked past a broadband cabinet outside and actually noticed it? The chances are, unless you walked past at the precise time a maintenance engineer was servicing it, it just blended into the background, since we have all become so used to seeing them. Here’s another question: when was the last time you walked past one of these cabinets and could actually hear noise coming from it?
It may sound like a daft question but when you consider all the fans and air cooling equipment that constantly operate inside roadside cabinets to keep them cool, it is easy to see why noise reduction is such an important part of the cabinet design process.
Staying within legislation
This is now becoming increasing relevant as many manufacturing companies are now starting to invest in their own on-site 5G telecommunication cabinets; adding yet another dimension to the street furniture gracing the streets. With noise pollution, especially industrial noise, being one of the main causes for complaint, particularly in urban areas and cities, serious consideration needs to be given to integrated designs.
With the advent of 5G communication, the number of components in cabinets is steadily increasing, along with fans and other noisy elements that help keep them functioning and operating at the right temperature.
When you consider that businesses have to comply with legislation when it comes to noise pollution, this can become a real issue when noisy cabinets contribute to breaches and particularly if residents in a neighbourhood complain. Noise pollution can lead to nuisance claims and can be costly for companies to deal with.
Background noise
Building electrical cabinets that emit as low a volume as possible is no easy feat. Take the design of datacentres and office cabinets as an example. In order for an installation to become unobtrusive in an office environment, the noise from the servers and other hardware in the installation must be reduced to the level of the general office background noise. At such reduced levels, the human brain perceives the noise from the servers as part of the overall background noise, and it therefore goes largely unnoticed.
The fridge in your house is another example. The appliance is always on and must make a noise to facilitate internal cooling, but the exterior is designed in such a way that the noise fades into the background and becomes unnoticeable.
CHH CoNeX designs its external cabinets in a similar way. Through the careful use of materials, design and construction, we ensure that internal parts are free to operate in the way they should, with the cabinet keeping excess noise to a minimum. Therefore, the design of every cabinet varies depending on its location and the volume of acceptable background noise that it will operate in.
Our engineers look at all customer cabinets holistically. They take into account the environment the cabinets will be placed in, who will be using them, the frequency of maintenance, the product and component life cycles, accessibility, as well as aesthetics and functionality. This ensures that whatever the use, our cabinets always do the job they are required to, while blended perfectly into the background so as not to be obtrusive.
If your business is looking for a quietly effective solution in which to store critical communications technology, get in touch with CHH CoNeX today.
