The 2010 Fifa Soccer World Cup has come and gone successfully. The driving force behind this achievement was the implementation of world-class ICT and telecommunication infrastructure, say insiders.
“SA surprised the world and itself. It held out well,” says World Wide Worx MD Arthur Goldstuck of the telecommunications performance during the World Cup.
“At peak times there were some connectivity issues, like last night there was a lot of queuing of messaging, but that's expected. As long as the broadcast requirements were met at peak times at matches, that's what matters. Telecommunications - sterling job,” he opines.
Carrying the load
“The Soccer World Cup was a stress test, and the network and all other systems have performed well. We have seen a threefold increase in inbound roaming customers, and call volumes before and after the games have been very high,” notes Cell C CEO Lars Reichelt.
The technology demands required in excess of 15 000 man hours of operational support, and reached network traffic loads of 500% more than that prior to the World Cup, says Vodacom.
MTN reported a large-scale increase in data usage driven by 3G/HSPA. MTN subscriber-generated SMS volumes reached a total of 25 million over the first four days of the World Cup, with the first day seeing the most traffic, at 6.46 million. An average of 6.26 million SMSes were sent per day.
In addition, subscriber-generated MMS volumes reached a total of 1.2 million over the four days leading up to the World Cup, peaking at 344 253 on 11 June, at an average of 307 278 MMSes per day, claims the operator.
Despite the network traffic loads and excess man hours required, operators held up network quality by relying on real-time adjustments to cope with the high traffic volumes.
“We conducted detailed analysis post each match and, where needed, made adjustments or installed new equipment before the next match took place. The increase in GSM data traffic, for example, was so dramatic that immediate configuration changes had to be made,” explains Vodacom's Andries Delport, executive director for network and IT.
“This approach resulted in a high-quality and stable network during the complete period,” he adds.
Building success
The sporting event saw millions of rands invested in the upgrade of telecom networks.
Africa's first global sponsor of the World Cup, MTN, spent almost R500 million on its network capacity and development for the games, which it will redeploy into its regular network now that the tournament is over.
Johannesburg's Soccer City stadium alone now houses around 22 base stations, with 38 cells or point-of-radio contacts, and was fed by 6km of fibre. In addition, the stadium has 348 antennae that sent and received cellphone calls for the duration of the matches.
In total, dedicated World Cup investments for Vodacom included the installation of 112 2G and 81 3G base stations.
The investments allowed all three mobile operators - MTN, Vodacom and Cell C - to report a relatively glitch-free mobile network experience.
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