2014 World Cup is the most connected in history

The 2014 World Cup has created a record-breaking 32 terabytes of data and surpassing the 2010 South African event in just 10 days, reveals Brazil’s leading telecom company Oi.

Oi, Brazil’s leading telecom company and an event sponsor, was chosen by FIFA to provide internet connections in the 12 stadiums and broadcasting locations, supporting 20,000 international journalists providing press coverage and news about the competition to the world, in addition to meeting FIFA’s own telecommunication requirements. Alongside this, Oi provides Brazil’s largest Wi-Fi network, with more than 700,000 access points now available.

“This record at the most-connected World Cup consolidates Oi’s global experience as a supplier of telecom at major events, whether sports, entertainment or international conferences,” says José Claudio Moreira Gonçalves, Centralized Operations Officer of Oi.

The growth in traffic has far exceeded last year’s FIFA Confederations Cup, an event for which Oi also provided services. During the entire 15 days of the competition held in Brazil, the volume of data transmitted on the company’s network for the press was seven terabytes.

José Claudio Moreira Gonçalves, continued: “The major events at which Oi was the telecommunications provider include the Annual Meeting of the Inter-American Development Bank (IBD) held this year in Bahia, the 2013 Rock in Rio, the FIFA Confederations Cup Brazil 2013, the draws for the FIFA World Cup and the Confederations Cup, the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) in 2012, the World Military Games in 2011 and the XV Pan-American Games in Rio de Janeiro in 2007.”

The 2014 FIFA World Cup also far surpasses in data traffic other major international sports events this year, according to available records. During the 17 days of the Sochi Winter Olympics, total traffic was around 34 terabytes, while Superbowl XLVIII used 1,9 terabytes of data. The first 10 days of the World Cup saw an amount of data equivalent to 171 Superbowls per day transmitted on the Oi networks for FIFA.

Speaking at a recent press conference, FIFA director of TV, Niclas Ericson, commented: “We are seeing good results. Our partners – the government, with the Ministry of Communications, Oi and Telebras, which were involved in the infrastructure – have done their job and we are pleased with the results and grateful for what they have done. The press is also seeing that everything is working perfectly, which will be a legacy for the country.”

Also at the conference, Dick Wiles, CEO of Match IT, the manager of IT&T for FIFA for the 2014 FIFA World Cup, said: “It is impressive to see how the FIFA World Cup has progressed as a whole and primarily in IT. We are grateful to the Ministry of Communications, responsible for this country’s basic infrastructure.. The other fundamental partner was Oi, supporting the activities being carried out. The company’s [Oi] knowledge of the country was important for delivering this event.”

The huge level of dataflow is partly down to multiconnection, where users are connected to two or three computers, tablets and smartphones at the same time. Oi estimates that during the first ten days, 152,000 devices connected to the exclusive media Wi-Fi network in the 12 stadiums.

Oi calculated the increase in the demand for services during the World Cup and expanded the coverage and capacity of its 2G, 3G and 4G mobile telephony networks at different key points in the event’s host cities. The company mobilised more than 4,000 direct and indirect employees to complete the work across its different service areas in time for the event.

Oi has also provided many other services to support the World Cup, including:

• Telecoms services for the training centres of national teams including Germany, Ghana and Greece, using COWs (Cells on Wheels) to provide connections in remote locations

• High speed and low latency links, used for transmission of reports and video programs, and voice and data services, to TVs, radios and international news agencies including ESPN, Bandeirantes TV and news agencies AFP and Xinhua

• Telecommunications services to some of the event sponsors including Itaú and McDonald’s

• Interconnecting office facilities, accreditation and volunteer centers in the World Cup stadiums