SEPTEMBER | FEATURE
Britain’s summer
spectaculars
This summer has been one of the UK’s most celebrated for
major events, but there’s more to come and much to learn
Max WiFi at the Netball World
Cup
July saw Liverpool host the spectacular
Netball World Cup 2019 (NWC2019),
and Max WiFi, suppliers of Internet
solutions to the events industry,
provided spectator WiFi to the capacity
crowd of 7,000 within the M&S Bank
Arena.
The collaboration between Max WiFi
and the NWC2019 Team was formed at
the MEI Summit held in Liverpool the
previous year.
Jane Brown, head of tournament
operations says: “the relationship
between Max WiFi and NWC2019 has
been superb and the brief has been
matched exactly”.
Max WiFi worked closely with both
the technical team at the M&S Bank
Arena and Bob Caple, the technical &
broadcast Manager for NWC2019. The
installation involved designing and
manufacturing bespoke mounting
brackets that were then installed in
the roof space allowing WiFi access
points to hang beneath the lights and
speakers to increase coverage and to
reduce interference.
“We developed such a close
relationship with the venue and
everybody knew how important it was
to make the WiFi network a success
that we were given permission to
install the equipment three months
ahead of the tournament,” commented
Barny Bidwell, Max WiFi senior
network architect. This allowed for
testing and tweaking to ensure the
best coverage possible.
“It’s critical when designing a
network to facilitate density and
coverage. So many devices and people
in such a small space creates many
technical issues for WiFi so each of
our access points carried a directional
antenna allowing us to focus each
antenna on to a group of 50 seats and
thereby ensuring that everyone had
a good experience. This meant that
during the event we dealt with 21,115
unique clients who downloaded 16Tb
and uploaded 17TB of data in just nine
days.”
Director, Richard Hughes, added:
“The NWC2019 presented significant
challenges as WiFi for 7,000 people and
their multiple devices is very difficult
to achieve. However, working alongside
the IT team at the M&S Bank Arena,
we were able to form a virtual IT Team
that created the essential time to plan,
test, develop and finally deploy a world
class WiFi network to support a world
class sporting event”.
Max WiFi provide Internet solutions
globally and have worked across
Europe, America and Asia providing
WiFi, CCTV, People Counting Cameras
and Voice Services.
Drone Seeker is Max WiFi’s latest
development offering an early warning
of drone intrusion to any event. The
solution identifies the pilot location
and tracks the flight path of the Drone.
Its airspace security team also work
in tandem with event security to
identify and analyse risk and to develop
solutions to mitigate that risk.
Access talks to Rugby’s finest
Chief executive Rugby League
World Cup 2012 Jon Dutton says there’s
much to learn
It’s a brilliant time to be leading a major
sporting event. The utterly compelling
finish to the Cricket World Cup Final at
Lord’s, the incredible viewing figures
for the FIFA Women’s World Cup and
the engaging Netball World Cup are
great examples of events that have
worked hard to go beyond their core
community with huge success. That’s
exactly what the Rugby League World
Cup are aiming to do in two years’ time.
Our planning continues at pace.
We have recently run procurement
workshops to start our supplier process
with over 300 attendees and we have
recently issued RFP’s for ticketing,
impact evaluation and eSports to start
the journey.
We have revealed our women’s and
wheelchair team line up and now have
27 teams confirmed with the final
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