Philip Glenn, BT’s head of ICT delivery for the London Olympics, is frank about the huge challenge of getting the city technologically ready for the Games

WITH 78 DAYS to go until the London Olympics 2012, everything is far from quiet on the technology front.

BT, the official Olympics communications partner, has been getting ready for the big day for the past six years. Catering for 94 locations, more than 2,800 Olympic Village apartments with next gen broadband and an influx of 27,000 members of the media, BT will be dealing with four times the network capacity of the Beijing Games.

“Work began before London even won the bid for host city,” says Philip Glenn, BT’s head of ICT delivery for the Games. “We went to Beijing to see what was being done there. Even before that, we were looking at planning in earlier games like Athens and Sydney.”

Infrastructure for the London Olympics 2012 involves providing all the communications networks and the services that sit across this: mobile telephony, fixed telephony, LAN and WAN services that will run on an all-IP network.

“This is the first time all-IP of this scale has truly been done for the games,” adds Glenn.

This involves two main networks. The first is the admin network, which is similar to any large corporate version that carries email, file transfers, and all that comes with the day-to-day running of an organisation. The second, the Games network, differs in that is has to be extremely secure for specific reasons.

“This is used for all of the Games critical services: results, accreditation and even doping results will pass through this,” explains Glenn.

To deliver all of this the networks must be robust enough to carry the estimated 60 gigabytes of information or the equivalent of 3,000 photographs per second that is expected during peak times.

It needs to be resilient enough to weather all manner of scenarios that risk network failure from power outages to terrorist attacks.

“One of BT’s aims for the games is to deliver a flawless games and something on this scale is a huge challenge,” says Glenn.

The original BT Olympics team that was formed back in 2008 had eight to 10 people but this has grown to 250 and will ramp up exponentially as the final months approach.

Overall, there will be 800 BT people involved, counting those working with previous service providers. This will provide the estimated 642,000 BT man hours required to deliver the Olympics communications services.

In terms of ICT projects, Glenn says that is a huge challenge because it has to be worked out four year in advance, but the scale and length of time plays to BT’s strengths and prior experience delivering government and business services: “We do a lot of long-term programs that are five to 10 years, so we’ve had the practice.”

Another factor to weigh up is the huge ecosystem of various technology-related parties. BT is only one of many working to put on a tech savvy show. Samsung has been a devices sponsor since the 1990s and Cisco plays a large role as network equipment provider.

“When you look at the logistics . . . there are a lot of parallel activities. But we have a very strong relationship with Cisco so everything is integrating very well,” says Glenn.

“Everything from actual networks design to overall resilience testing – this has been fully thought through, both physically and logically, and involves a huge testing programme.”

This means that BT and other technology providers such as Samsung and Cisco have taken part in the government-led security testing programme as well as a full week of technical rehearsal that took place 100 days before the Games and will happen again with 50 days to go.

BT itself ran through its own testing schedule earlier this year and in December of last year: “You need to look at every scenario that you can imagine. When you realise that you’re part of the biggest show on earth that’s a real help when it comes to concentrating on every detail,” explains Glenn.

Part of this big show involves installing entire communications infrastructure in the various event locations, including the 34 competition locations. This means 5,500km of internal cabling and 80,000 network connections including 1,800 wireless access points, 16,500 fixed telephone lines and 14,000 mobile phone SIM cards.

When the Olympics are finally over and the crowd leaves, the different parts of this infrastructure will have differing fates. Some of the wireless installations will be taken down and packed up, leaving behind no trace of their existence much like at a music festival, explains Glenn.

“Entire venues can be packed down into a box and brought to Rio (venue for the 2016 Olympics). The mountain biking venue, for example, is a field in Essex. It’s desirable to leave it in the state it was found.”

Working on the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Glenn and his team have learned about what works and what doesn’t; what should be packed up and what is best to leave behind. “Objectively London has set a new benchmark in terms of genuinely planning for legacy and how things will best be used,” he says.

Some Olympic venue installations will remain to benefit the local communications infrastructure. Weymouth is a seaside town in Dorset and part of the Olympics sailing venue. Glenn is working directly on the Olympic Villages built around a housing development there and explains that the latest generation fibre networks, which were laid there, will stay.

“This will benefit, amongst others, a newly built school in Weymouth. We’re looking at every opportunity to leave good quality comms in place.

“As a true Celt, I don’t like to see any effort wasted!”

IN NUMBERS A NETWORK LIKE NO OTHER

BT has created a single communications network across 94 locations (including 34 competition venues). Every official photograph and sports report and millions of calls, emails, texts and tweets will be carried over the network.

The infrastructure comprises 80,000 connections across 94 locations, 16,500 fixed telephone lines, 14,000 mobile SIM cards, 10,000 cable TV outlets, 5,500km of internal cabling and 1,800 wireless access points - amounting to four times the network capacity of the Beijing Games.

At peak times during the Games, the network will be carrying 60 Gigabits of information - the equivalent of 3,000 photographs every second.

BT is also hosting the London 2012 website, which is planning for one billion visits during the Games.

A team of more than 800 BT people will be working during the Games - providing an estimated 642,000 man hours - to keep the communications infrastructure on track.

More than 27,000 media personnel will be relying on the broadcast and media network.

The fibre network for the 2,818 flats in the Athletes Village will provide free wireless broadband speeds of up to 100 mbps to approximately 19,000 athletes and officials.

More than 16 million people are expected to watch the Games on a big screen at one of 28 "Live Site" screens across the UK.