To ensure the thousands of exhibition attendees stay connected to the internet at all times, over 1,200 Wi-Fi access points have been installed at an exhibition site in Barcelona.
According to thefonecast.com, the access points were installed by Fira de Barcelona at the Fira Gran Via site, just in time for the Mobile World Congress 2014. The venue itself spans 240,000 square metres (around 60 acres) and it’s taken 52 kilometres of internet cable plus 14 kilometres of fibre optics to bring Wi-Fi access to the whole building. This makes its one of the world’s powerful Wi-Fi networks seen in an exhibition centre.
In fact, Fira de Barcelona’s network is so large, it’s bigger than most seen at international airports, sports stadiums and other large facilities, reports ciol.com.
More that 75,000 people are expected to attend the event, which takes place between February 24 and February 27. Although the event is about mobile phones, the attendees will no doubt be relying on Wi-Fi access – so the network will have a capacity of 10,000 Mbps. Around 5,000 Mbps will be allocated to download capacity and the other 5,000 will be for uploading data.
The organisers of the event, GSMA (Group Spécial Mobile Association), will also be providing an updated version of its app to give visitors information about transport to and from the venue. In addition, attendees will be able to order food in the exhibition centre in advance using the app.
