DENVER—The Pepsi Center has hosted Stanley Cup finals and the NBA All-Star game.
But handling communications for more than 15,000 news media members using wireless devices and sending video, photos, text and instant messages at the Democratic National Convention takes enough equipment and coordination to run a Super Bowl.
And then some.
“There is no comparison,” said Louis Libin, chairman of the committee that makes sure that equipment belonging to television broadcasters, DNC organizers, public-safety officials and the community at large can work without interfering with each others’ radio signals.
Qwest Communications International Inc. committed up to $6 million to provide phone and Internet services for convention organizers, who plan to offer live streaming video of the convention, as well as attendees.
Denver-based Qwest added 3,344 miles of fiber-optic cable plus 140 miles of copper and coaxial cable. Some of that infrastructure, buried under the Pepsi Center parking lot, will remain afterward, perhaps never to be used again. Removal costs are too high.
“The challenge was deploying infrastructure for a couple of weeks’ use—and then no use,” said Charles Ward, Qwest president for Colorado.
Qwest looked to the 2004 convention in Boston for an estimate of how much bandwidth it needed to provide.
“That was a good data point, but that was four years ago,” Ward said.
The Denver convention expects to host 120 bloggers and others sending information online.
“Trying to predict the bandwidth was a challenge for us,” Ward said. “So we just put in a lot.”
Qwest says the aggregate data capacity of its network would be enough to transmit an HD movie in two seconds. Qwest also will be able to handle 130 simultaneous video feeds.
This is the first time Qwest has handled the Democratic convention and Republican National Convention, due to begin Sept. 1 in St. Paul, Minn.
Democrats’ late announcement that the last night of the DNC would be held at Invesco Field at Mile High will have Qwest working nearly around the clock to set up the stadium.
Barack Obama’s campaign officials have said they plan to ask the thousands of people attending his acceptance speech Aug. 28 to call and text message people to get them to register to vote. So Sprint Nextel Corp. is stationing a “cell on wheels” outside the stadium to handle the burst in wireless traffic.
Sprint has also boosted its network at Denver International Airport, the Pepsi Center and downtown.
Libin, meanwhile, is working with the Federal Communications Commission to organize radio frequency users who will be using wireless transmitters and microphones at both party conventions to make sure signals stay clean and that emergency responders’ radios work without interruption.
When DNC events at the Pepsi Center wrap up late Aug. 27, broadcasters will dismantle their equipment and move to Invesco Field, with just hours to go before ticket holders start arriving to hear Obama speak that night.
Radio frequency tests at Invesco Field will be conducted around noon Aug. 28.
“If things don’t work, there’s not much we can do,” said Libin, chairman of the Political Conventions Communications Committee and chief executive officer of the communications company PhoneFusion.
If there’s too much interference, broadcasters would have to use wired equipment.
