When an Ashes Chairman’s first 11 cricket match between Australia and England was scheduled for Alice Springs in November 2013, wireless broadband was needed to allow members of the press and public to connect online.
National cricket body Cricket Australia also required a minimum standard of 16 megabits (Mbps) per second for downloads and 25 Mbps upload for its media coverage.
Easyweb Digital worked with fixed wireless services vendor Cambium Networks to implement a PTP 500 wireless backhaul link to Traeger Park stadium where the match was due to take place. They also implemented a PTP 230 link for backhaul to the stadium’s grandstand, PMP 450 wireless access network for stadium coverage and an ePMP wireless access network.
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Easyweb Digital managing director Darryl Clarke said he was able to place access network subscriber modules on top of the stadium's 55 metre lighting towers.
Once the Wi-Fi network was set up, 70 members of the press who were covering England’s tour of Australia were able to file stories using high speed broadband. Cricket Australia provided live video streaming of the match to its website. In addition, 388 fans used the public Wi-Fi service to share messages and images on social media.
According to Clarke, no problems were encountered with the system.
“We provided uninterrupted, high quality video streaming to the Cricket Australia website for two days. The only person to complain about low speeds was a user who unwittingly connected to a local 3G network and was rectified by switching to the correct network.”
He added that the public Wi-Fi network has been utilised for other events in Alice Springs such as local cricket matches and Australian Football League (AFL) games.
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