CASE STUDY
I
t is almost expected that all visitors
have some sort of Wi-Fi service in
public locations such as stadiums.
BoFiNet wanted to offer Botswanan fans a
full experience at the 50th independence
celebrations and connectivity is a key part
of this.
Ruckus, through its reseller IT-IQ Botswana,
was awarded the contract following
an extensive tender process due to the
quality of its solutions and its competitive
pricing. While it would be focused around
providing Wi-Fi access at the National
Stadium in Gaborone (capacity 24,000)
and the Francistown Stadium (capacity
27,000), for the jubilee celebrations, the
system needed to be robust enough to be
used at future events.
“We saw this as an opportunity to expand
our offering and provide stadium-wide
coverage at both stadia,” said Mabua Lesego
Mabua, CEO at BoFiNet.
“The solution provided was very effective
and exceeded the expectations of the
team from a performance, quality and
throughout perspective.
“It has been converted into a commercial
Wi-fi hotspot, allowing all visitors to benefit
from the investment made.
“The system is also being used for ad-hoc
events as needed.”
BoFiNet required a wireless solution that
could not only provide exceptional coverage,
but at high quality with a good throughput
and ability to stream the celebrations from
the stadia.
Access had to be supported across different
operating systems reflecting the diversity of
the devices used among attendees.
Vishvas Sethi, Managing Director for IT-IQ
Botswana, explained that, because there was
no incumbent, it provided the companies
with the perfect opportunity to provide a
green field solution that would give users the
coverage and access they were looking for.
“We worked closely with Ruckus and the
customer to ensure that all the relevant
hardware software and operational support
for the provision of Wi-Fi services were
IT IS A TESTAMENT TO THE
COMMITMENT OF BOTH TEAMS THAT
THE PROJECT WAS COMPLETED IN AN
INCREDIBLY SHORT TIME FRAME.
put in place and operated as smoothly as
possible during the three-day celebration
event,” said Sethi.
For the stadium in Gaborone, IT-IQ deployed
two centralised Ruckus ZoneDirector
controllers, five indoor Ruckus ZoneFlex
R500 access points and 50 ZoneFlex T301
www.intelligentcio.com
outdoor access points. Francistown had four
Zone Flex R500 indoor access points and 40
ZoneFlex T301 outdoor access points.
The combination of these Ruckus products
– boasting BeamFlex – was designed for
easy installation within an ultra-lightweight
and low profile enclosure, ideal for venue
owners and enterprises looking to deploy
Wi-Fi in high-capacity environments. The
solution also provided the robustness
required to deal with the demanding
nature of the capacity demands during the
celebration weekend and more importantly,
for future requirements.
Ruckus and IT-IQ adopted a segmented
approach to getting the coverage in place
for the two stadia ensuring they met the
requirements of 100% coverage across the
grand stands and VIP sections with high
concurrency and 30% capacity in general
standing areas.
“It is a testament to the commitment of
both teams that the project was completed
in an incredibly short time frame,” added
Sethi. “A contract of this scale would
normally take anything from three to five
months to complete. Our teams did it in
three weeks.”
Good project management skills were key
to the success of the implementation and a
team that was prepared to work around the
clock to get it done.
In addition to a few material shortages
due to the limited timeframe and power
concerns at the stadia, the project teams
had to contend with working around physical
stadium barriers such as scaffolding and
other hard to get to areas.
Stadiums and arenas are among the most
difficult locations imaginable to deploy Wi-Fi
networks because of the requirement for both
very high performance and very high density.
“The installation process was very
challenging in terms of terrain, access and
location where access points (Aps) were
needed to be installed for optimal Wi-Fi
coverage,” added Mabua.
“The site’s physical barriers were the biggest
challenge, requiring innovating thinking to
create workloads.
INTELLIGENTCIO
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