Upgrading to QCOM 3 at your venue
The Office of Liquor and Gaming Regulation (OLGR) and Queensland's licensed monitoring operators (LMOs) continue to support all existing operating gaming machines in the field until the end of their operational life.
QCOM 3 and existing QCOM gaming machines can operate simultaneously. QCOM 1.6 products will still be accepted from manufacturers for OLGR's evaluation and approval in 2023.
QCOM 3 hardware requirements
To experience all the great features of a QCOM 3 electronic gaming machine, gaming venues will need to run an Ethernet network across the gaming floor.
Ethernet is the most widely used local area network (LAN) in the world. It is fast, readily available, competitively priced and currently used by almost all other gaming-related services like player loyalty systems.
Venues that still have QCOM 1.6 machines can continue to use the existing gaming machine fibre LAN.
QCOM 3 and QCOM 1.6 electronic gaming machines can be operated simultaneously. This means you can add 1 new QCOM 3 machine at a time. OLGR will continue to support QCOM 1.6 machines in the field until the end of their usefulness.
Gaming venue licensees must own their gaming machine LAN infrastructure, such as cabling, switches and router hardware. Their QCOM 3 Ethernet LAN infrastructure must be 'off-the-shelf', widely commercially available hardware.
Wide area network (WAN) modems (or similar hardware) can be proprietary devices (e.g. equipment supplied by an LMO) and not necessarily owned by the gaming venue.
Ethernet cabling options for QCOM 3
Category 5 (cat 5) Ethernet cabling can run QCOM 3 for the foreseeable future. Gaming venues can choose to install category 6 (cat 6) or better, if, for example, they want to run a gaming-related service that streams video over the gaming machine LAN.
The Ethernet LAN installer doesn't have to hold a gaming repairer licence. You can use a network installer of your choice.
Protecting copper-based networks
The old QCOM 1.6 LANs were fibre optic, which provided some protection from electrical surges and spikes.
Copper-based networks (such as Ethernet) could make gaming machines more vulnerable to localised lightning strikes. For this reason, when using QCOM 3 over Ethernet, gaming venues should take some extra precautions to protect gaming-related products from electrical disturbances.
Consult an electrician for advice. You may also wish to double check your venue's insurance policy.
Cost of upgrading to QCOM 3
The cost of a network upgrade depends on the existing infrastructure—some venues will already have the necessary cabling.
The equipment is 'off-the-shelf', widely used in most networking applications today, and readily available. Therefore, costs should be minimal and a variety of installation options are available.