A temporary event network for an event company running an investor day at a major tyre manufacturer's Dundee site
The situation
A major tyre manufacturer's Dundee site was closing, and work was under way to find investors to take it on. An investor day was arranged to bring prospective buyers onto the site, run by an event company that brought Fuse in to provide the network.
An industrial site in that position does not have usable connectivity sitting waiting, and an investor day does not run again next week if the Wi-Fi does not work. Whatever went in had to carry the whole day, first time, in front of the people the day existed for.
What was at stake
The brief was a network capable of up to 300 concurrent users with enough bandwidth that the experience did not degrade when the room filled. The announced delegate list was 290.
A network that slows at the busiest moment of the day is worse than no network, because it fails publicly and in front of the audience that matters. And this was not a conference. It was a day intended to secure the future of a major industrial site and the work attached to it.
What Fuse did
- Built the connection on mobile, and built failure into the design. Four dual SIM routers with high gain external antennas provided the route to the internet, each running an unlimited O2 data SIM as its primary with a Vodafone SIM behind it on a different network. Each router was programmed to fail over to its second SIM automatically if the primary network dropped. Spare SIMs on a third network were held on site, along with a complete spare router and access point, so a hardware failure was as recoverable as a network one.
- Proved it on site a month before the event. On 21 January 2020 a test unit was sent to Dundee and speed tests were run at each of the four positions the routers would occupy on the day. Fuse then switched each router remotely from the Newcastle office onto its backup SIM and the tests were repeated, so both networks were measured in the actual locations. Nothing about the day was left to be discovered on the day.
- Covered the site as a single roaming network. Six Cambium access points were positioned at the entrance, both sides of the stage and the back of the room, broadcasting one network across the whole site so delegates moving around stayed connected without reconnecting. The network was managed and monitored centrally, and Fuse engineers were on site throughout, watching performance live rather than installing and leaving.
The result
On the day, the network carried a peak of 135 devices connected simultaneously and 156 unique users across 290 announced delegates, a little over half the room choosing to use it.
It moved 32GB of data in a single day. Twenty five users pulled more than 500MB each, and the heaviest single user took 1GB. Because the SIMs were unlimited, none of that mattered commercially, and nothing had to be rationed on the day to protect an allowance.
The busiest access point was the entrance, which is exactly where the load lands when a room fills at once.
The point
Some sites have no connectivity, and some days cannot be run again if it does not work. Those two facts together are where a supplier with one product and a lead time is no use at all.
What made this work was not the kit. It was assuming something would fail: two carriers in every router with automatic failover between them, a third network in reserve, spare hardware on site, a full test in the real positions a month ahead, and engineers watching it live on the day.
That is the same principle Fuse applies to a permanent building now. Do not depend on one connection. Put something behind it, so the business stays working when one part does not.
Check any UK commercial address free at connect.fusecore.co.uk.