Illuminati Labs Brings Cell Service to Facebook Site

Construction of Facebook’s latest data center in New Albany, OH is underway and Illuminati Labs was honored to provide the cell phone repeater system for their first structure.

To give you an idea of the scope of this development, Turner Construction has already poured 35,000 cubic yards of concrete and placed 9,000 tons (18 million pounds!) of steel just for the first building. Initially designed as a 970,000 square foot development, Facebook is now adding an additional 500,000-square-foot building, which will grow the total project to 1.5 million square feet. The new data center will be LEED certified, on par with Facebook’s goal to fully power it with renewable energy.

Once complete, it’s projected by the US Chamber of Commerce to bring $32.5 million to the economy of New Albany and will have 100 full-time employees.

The first structure on site is a 44,000 square foot warehouse which is being used as a massive construction trailer for the general contractor, Turner Construction, and all of their trades, to set up camp during construction of the complex. Facebook itself has also settled into a portion of the warehouse and there is a 24/7 emergency first aid center in the building as well. The first-aid center has a round-the-clock medic on site who can tend to minor injuries and stabilize a more serious injury until an ambulance arrives.

Obviously, cell phones are absolutely vital to the emergency center and the offices using the building, so Illuminati Labs was enlisted to provide strong cell phone service inside.

Turner, Facebook and the the first wave of trades were already occupying the space when we were called in which meant we were immediately faced with two obstacles: desks and humans.

Because Turner is diligently committed to their OSHA rules and safety precautions, we were not allowed to have any ladders taller than 12’ near the desks/people. Instead, we were required to use a scissor lift which is safer but much more difficult to navigate in a crowded room bustling with workers. It’s also more invasive and can cause quite a disturbance to the deskfolk which is exactly what we wanted to avoid. Being inconspicuous and considerate within our client’s space is a big point of pride for us.

Our solution was to use one of our secret Chadam systems (that’s what we call all smart things created by our ownership duo, Chad and Adam) which enabled us to run 20’ of conduit at a time in the cable tray so that we could get in and out of their office space as quickly and with as little disruption as possible. But even with our special method, we still ended up being more bothersome than we were happy with. That’s why we decided to work nights as well. The building is open 24/7 and there were far fewer people around at night for us to bother.