The UK based BT is putting mammoth effort in making the London Olympics 2012 more technology advanced than the previous games. It is providing 80,000 connections across 94 locations, 16,500 fixed telephone lines, 14,000 mobile SIM cards, 10,000 cable TV outlets, 5,500km of internal cabling and 1,550 wireless access points
MUMBAI/LONDON: For BT, being London 2012 games' official partner means taking up new challenges, responsibilities as well as showing casing its technological capabilities and knowledge to the world.
''We being a communication services provider, our role is to deliver voice, data, mobile and Internet services for the games. It's a significant responsibility on BT as well as opportunity to showcase our technological capabilities and knowledge to the world,'' Howard Dickel, BT's Programme director – London2012 Delivery Program told CyberMedia News over phone from London today.
The journey of BT began some four years back when London city bid for hosting Olympic games for 2012. Since then, the company has been working over time along with the UK Government and the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG).
According to Dickel, the last time when BT was involved with Olympics games was back in 1949; however, after that the BT team had worked at the last Beijing Olympics 2008 and Vancouver Winter Games 2010.
''Compared to Beijing Olympics, the London Games 2012 are far more challenging in delivering the technology and communication services. Our estimates suggest that it will be 7 times high Internet traffic compared to Beijing Games as there will be heavy use of social media, smartphones and other devices,” Dickel explained.
In terms of web traffic and data volume, the 2012 games will generate over 10 Gigabyte more than the the Beijing Olympic games. To meet such high demand of data traffic and bandwidth, for the first time BT is using high-density WiFi networks for the London Olympics.
It is providing 80,000 connections across 94 locations, 16,500 fixed telephone lines, 14,000 mobile SIM cards, 10,000 cable TV outlets, 5,500km of internal cabling and 1,550 wireless access points. Also this time, BT is delivering a single communications network across 94 locations (including 34 competition venues).
During the course of 79 days, BT's communications network is expected to deliver millions of photos, sports report, footage, mobile and phone calls, emails, texts and tweets. Given such huge data volumes, BT has increased network capacity by 4 times compared to Beijing event.
Keeping in view the environment sustainability factor, BT is using its cloud-based telephony services and converged communications network solution, which helps reduce environmental impact by lowering waste and avoiding the need for separate voice and data networks. Also, for the first time, carbon footprints will be counted during the entire event using a new methodology.
The entire network infrastructure was built and designed by mid 2011. Subsequently, its been tested at specially built test facility known as the Design Definition Environment at BT's global innovation and development centre in Adastral Park near Ipswich, Suffolk.
The facility provides an offline communication systems model that will be employed during the event enabling problems to be identified and solved. Besides, live tests and rehearsals have be conducted keeping in view over 1,000 different technology scenarios built up from previous events.
With high technology domination during London 2012, Dickel informed that BT has built a Technology Operation Centre (TOC) in Canary Wharf to monitor the entire communication networks and infrastructure and in addition a social media central has also been set up to keep live-watch on social media related activities.
''We have a dedicated team that will not only protect physical infrastructure but also will be proactive against any incidents related to cyber threats, malware and virus which can come internally as well as externally,” Dickel said.
About BT 850 staffs will provide service and support to communications and operations during the London 2012 on a 24x7 basis. BT along with several other technology partners, including Atos, Acer, Airwave, Cisco, Omega, Blue Coat, Panasonic and Samsung, has come together to provide their combined effort to make the London Olympics 2012 technologically successful.
