Richard Davies from the Granta Backbone Network (GBN) team and Craig Faux from the Networks team, worked together to help deliver network connectivity for the Cambridge Half Marathon that took place this past weekend.
The University has been assisting the Council with delivering network connectivity for the Cambridge Half for the last 6 years. UIS built a permanent connection on Jesus Green that the Council uses for various functions – mainly the beer festival, which is why the connection was originally established.
The Council had used SIM cards to get a connection on the Midsummer Common side in previous years. This year, they wanted a wifi access point on the common for the electronic point-of-sale machines to ensure sellers and vendors had connectivity. More than 15,000 people were expected to be participating – potentially all with mobile phones – so a more permanent and robust connection was needed to avoid network congestion.
“There was already a fibre connection in Midsummer Common, but it hasn't been used for several years and needed to be renovated because of water damage and corrosion,” explained Richard. “We went to Midsummer common last Thursday and then to Jesus Green on Friday to get the connection ready ahead of the race on Sunday. Then we conducted a speed test and found we could achieve an estimated 400Mbps upload and download speeds, whereas normally on a SIM card, it would be a maximum 20Mbps.”
Our team temporarily put this connection in place for the run and dismantled it on Monday morning. “In the future, we’d like to approach the Council to get a more permanent wifi solution for Midsummer Common,” said Richard.
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