Farnborough International Airshow Case Study
Event organiser, Farnborough International Ltd, chose DB Systems to be its official contractor for internet and telecommunications services, as it needed a reliable company with the expertise and financial stability to ensure the successful delivery of such a major international project.
Overall requirements:
DB installed/provided:
- A network of 150 miles of cables
- 750 VoIP telephones
- The internet provision for 350 individual customers
The first part of DB’s work began with the establishment of a stable core fibre optic network, including the installation of 15 miles of permanent fibre optics underground to 10 core permanent street cabinets around the site.
One of the main challenges DB overcame was to ensure that the client’s requirement for redundancy, latency and robustness of the site-wide network design was achieved.
DB successfully rose to this challenge, as well as overcoming other client requirements, such as ensuring the network was able to run the VoIP telephones and faxes, as well as general internet connectivity of between 512k and 32Mb for individual exhibitors and companies.
Innovation and enhanced visitor experience:
The network was innovatively designed to ensure security as each of the three 100Mb internet pipes coming to the site came from different locations in the UK and from different backbone suppliers. DB’s network design also took into account the large upload capacities required, as well as the download speeds for the mainstream users.
Result:
FIA is built entirely from temporary structures so companies effectively move their global sales and marketing centres to the site for the week. Therefore, the impact of DB’s network and telecommunications infrastructure can be measured by the fact that companies maintained their ability to do business during that week and operate as normal. A massive $47bn of business was announced at the 2010 show.
In addition, the hundreds of journalists who attended FIA were able to file copy, have access to websites and social media, as well as stream media and static imagery across the globe, via large-scale internet connectivity
Client feedback:
“DB Systems was chosen not only for its technical ability but also its customer focused operation. The solution DB proposed allowed for maximum flexibility whilst keeping the order process simple.”
Grahame Jones, Operations Director, Farnborough International Ltd
