The various devices used were all tested beforehand so that this technology had a few warm-up matches before the tournament began.

Testing Frankfurters

The technical heart of all these applications was put through its paces for four months at Avaya’s test laboratory in Frankfurt, an impressive and efficient facility which featured the core components and control panels that have actually been implemented in all twelve stadiums. The various devices used throughout the venues were all tested, with every conceivable (and inconceivable) situation simulated to make sure that this advanced technology had a few warm-up matches before the tournament began – after all, the FIFA World Cup network must be able to cope with the kind of demands imposed by multinational corporations with complex processes and high levels of time pressure.

Deutsche Telekom: Europe’s star player

Through its T-Com and T-Systems operating units, Deutsche Telekom provided the telecommunications and systems integration services and products needed to drive event operations. T-Com formed the backbone of the FIFA IT Solution wide-area network, supplying all of the telecommunications services to support the data and telephony needs of the FIFA World Cup as well as the networking experts to work together with Avaya to design, plan and build the event network.

Deutsche Telekom’s task was to ensure that each location was connected using an expandable infrastructure to meet FIFA’s changing needs. This was accomplished using the IntraSelect Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) platform, with full redundancy to achieve near 100% availability during the event. The platform provided FIFA with the flexibility to choose the technology most suitable for connecting each location and enabled the appropriate prioritisation of data and voice transmissions, so that information was always transmitted within the allotted timeframe.