Claimed to be the world's tallest residential apartment building, Q1 has more than 500 rooms on 80 floors, a retail and restaurant concourse, and a 30-end-point corporate LAN.

Q1 owners outsourced the design, implementation, and management of the network to local integrator Data FX.

Daniel Thompson, chief operating officer of Data FX, said previous success with Ethernet and fiber backbone throughout hotel rooms was extended to Q1, where the one, two, and three bedroom apartments can fluctuate between permanent residents and hotel guests.

"They get a better value proposition to DSL," Thompson said, adding the only complex part was getting the switching right.

The uplink is a 10MB microwave connection to the integrator's head office in Surfers Paradise which can scale to gigabit "if necessary". There is also a backup DSL service.