Melbourne Cricket Ground

The MCG is more than just a sports venue. It’s a place where memories are made and childhood dreams come alive. There are fleeting moments at the ‘G that stay with you forever

About the MCG

The MCG is one of the biggest stadiums in Australia with maximum capacity of more than 100,000. It has been home to AFL since 1859 and was the birthplace of Test cricket in 1877 and one-day international cricket in 1971. It was the main stadium for the 1956 Olympic Games and 2006 Commonwealth Games, attracts up to 100,000 fans to the annual AFL Grand Final and the ‘G comes to life each Christmas at the Boxing Day Test.

The MCG is Victoria's home of sport and regularly hosts events with huge attendance. Millions of spectators will visit the MCG each year and bring with them their mobile devices, putting a huge load on nearby cellular infrastructure.

The Project

In 2015, Comtex was engaged to install and upgrade an existing Distributed Antenna System for Vodafone at the MCG as part of a multi-million dollar stadium upgrade. In order to ensure the required outcome of an upgraded DAS to cater for the huge number of visitors to the MCG, the DAS must be installed with precision, accuracy and care. Having completed a recent DAS installation at the Sydney Cricket Ground, Comtex has the experience and understanding of the challenges a huge concrete and steel structure like a stadium poses.

The Detail

To cater for the varied surroundings of the MCG, the DAS design is divided into the Northern Stand and the Southern Stand. To the North West of the MCG are medium rise residential and commercial buildings. To the South West there are a large number of tennis courts as well as a 10 lane wide train track.

An active Commscope ION-M system with 6 remote units was installed into the northern stand, and the Southern stand had changes made to a number of the cable types and all the passive components replaced to cover a bandwidth of 700MHz – 2700MHz for future applications.

The distributed antenna system has been designed to have power into the antenna to not exceed +17dBm per Operator except Gantry antennas. The EME limits for total power into the antenna for all operators are within the required guidelines.