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2010 Winter Olympic Games

Leading-edge technology, lasting legacy

For the months of February and March 2010, Vancouver will host the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, bringing together the world’s best athletes from more than 80 countries along with 10,000 media representatives and three billion television viewers worldwide. With a focus on sustainability and unprecedented telecommunications and technological advancements, the 2010 Games is set to unveil leadingedge technologies which will shape future business in British Columbia and across the country.

The Vancouver Organizing Committee (VANOC) will rely on technology to manage accreditation, communication, security and transportation functions for all of the Games’ participants. Timing, scoring and broadcasting as well as unified communications are other key areas of focus for the 2010 Winter Games.

According to VANOC, a team of about 3,000 technology and telecommunications staff will work with volunteers and sponsors including Bell, the exclusive Telecommunications Partner to the 2010 Winter Games, and Nortel, the Official Converged Network Equipment Supplier. As the Telecommunications Partner, Bell will present what it is calling the IP-Olympics: the first Internet Protocol converged network at any Olympic and Paralympic Games.

These unique telecommunications solutions will ensure the Games run impeccably from the moment the Opening Ceremonies begin, offering athletes, media representatives, VANOC employees, volunteers and viewers seamless telephone, wireless, radio and Internet communications services.

With an implicit commitment to sustainability, VANOC says it will manage the social, economic and environmental impacts and opportunities of the Games in order to produce lasting benefits both locally and globally. Organizations such as Ricoh Canada, exclusive provider of document solutions for the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, will work with VANOC to drive sustainability in the management of the 2010 Olympic Games and will also work to set a precedent for Olympic sustainability well into the future.

For businesses, working withVANOC is not only an excellent opportunity to showcase talents and innovations in the areas of technology and telecommunications but also a way to create a lasting legacy. An excellent resource for businesses thinking of getting involved is the 2010 Commerce Centre, the B.C. Ministry of Economic Development’s Web site which connects businesses to the opportunities of the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. It is at www.2010commercecentre.gov.bc.ca.

The IP Olympic Games

Bell is building an unprecedented infrastructure for the 2010 games

With just under two years until the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, Bell, a 2010 Premier National Partner and the exclusive telecommunications provider, is working closely with the Vancouver Organizing Committee (VANOC) to prepare for what they are calling the IP Olympic Games. By 2010, an unprecedented telecommunications infrastructure will have been built and hundreds of Canada’s leading technicians, engineers and managers will have been brought together by Bell, in order to deliver this immense global sporting event watched by more than three billion viewers worldwide.

With VANOC’s staff currently at 500 and growing at the rate of one person per day, a major telecommunications challenge for Bell is to keep all of these employees connected with portable and easy-to-use unified communications services. “With the vast majority of content flowing over one IP cable the user simply has to log on with his or her laptop using an ID and password in order to access phone, Internet and wireless services instantaneously,” said Justin Webb, Vice President of Olympic Services for Bell.

At the 2010 Games Bell will deliver voice, data, Internet, wireless, cable TV, broadcast and the Vancouver2010. com portal via an IP infrastructure—the backbone of delivering the games to the world. “IP infrastructure simplifies the logistics of delivering these services and provides the end users with more flexibility, service capability and bandwidth,” Webb said.

While Bell regularly deploys large infrastructure projects to customers across Canada, the unique challenge of the Olympic Games is timing and scalability. During the last couple of weeks leading up to the games it will be required to enter all of the competition and non-competition venues and set up services which will then be turned over to the world, live and fully loaded for the first event.

It all comes down to the Opening Ceremonies. “With massive cellphone call volumes, three billion people watching online and on TV, press filing stories and photos in rapid succession, fans snapping pictures on their cellphones and calling home to share the experience, more wireless microphones than ever in history connecting broadcasters to living rooms across the world, and two-way radios buzzing every second, you can prepare for years but we can’t really test for that moment,” Webb said. “It is like opening 100 banks at the same time with the requirement that everything be flawless at the exact instant we say go.”

Bell employees continue to work around the clock building wireless coverage and fiber connectivity unlike anything Vancouver has ever seen. Spaces such as the bottom level of General Motors Place, where many of the stand-up interviews will be conducted, which previously had no wireless coverage, are now fully accessible. Two-way radio infrastructure dedicated to the games has been built across the Lower Mainland and up to Whistler. “If you’re a bus driver taking visitors to the events or an employee standing on the side of a ski run, you’ll be accessible by radio to ensure a flawless delivery of services,” Webb said.

Extending Bell’s existing network, redundant fiber rings now connect all event venues, ensuring that not one millisecond of television broadcasting will be lost during the 2010 Winter Games. Also, the Sea to Sky corridor from Vancouver to Whistler is now equipped with wireless capabilities which will ensure travelers along the 123-Kilometer corridor will have no gaps in cellphone coverage for the first time. This will leave a lasting legacy for British Columbia’s business and recreational cellphone users.

“Our overall focus is not only on providing leading-edge telecommunications for the Olympic Games but also on our ability to leave something behind that will improve the quality of life and business for the local community,” Webb said.

Ricoh focuses on the ideal of a sustainable Games

For Ricoh, deploying leading edge technologies for the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games is as much about sustainability as it is about making the Games run smoothly.

Mike Fast, Vice President, Technical & Professional Services for Ricoh and one of the main architects behind the Olympic sponsorship, makes it clear that Ricoh’s role at the Games is anchored very firmly in environmental implications. “As sponsors of the Games, and as a leader in sustainability for the last 70 years, we are doubly aware of our responsibilities in driving significant progress into the 2010 experience—particularly where the environment is concerned. We have an opportunity to positively affect sustainability in the Olympic Games certainly in the Vancouver experience, but also in terms of impacting sustainability in Olympic Games management well into the future. This is the kind of long-term implication that fits so well with our own environmental thinking as a company.”

At first glance this might seem almost overstated, until you understand one of the key goals that Ricoh has set for itself at the Games. The cornerstone of the idea Fast is referring to, is baselining. “As the Olympic Games move from host city to host city, the job of delivering managed paper output throughout the planning and execution of the Games—document management, as it is known by those in the business—is one that has never had the advantage of technology that could accurately track and capture the requirements of such a massive athletic undertaking. Traditionally, the only information carried forward from Organizing Committee to Organizing Committee where document output was concerned, has been a raw count of how many sheets of paper were printed. According to Fast, the technology available today can do so much more in terms of capturing where that paper is being produced, and who is producing it. And ultimately, says Fast, the technology can provide opportunities to dramatically reduce that output. It’s a fairly simple equation: less printed paper means fewer trees felled.

“There are many sustainability actions we can take right now, in time for the Games in 2010, but one of the compelling benefits will be the information legacy that our technology provides; understanding what it really takes to handle document output at an Olympic Games. That baseline will provide—for the first time—a yardstick, and the ensuing drive to better that baseline will see benefits multiplied at every Olympic Games in the future,” says Fast. The output baselines will be collected using technologies such as @ Remote, WebSmart Device monitor and Print Director. Collectively, these applications can capture and report significant volumes of data, including the status of any device on the network. For example, an administrator can centrally view the entire fleet, and determine if any machine is running low on supplies, or is likely to malfunction in any way. The applications will also analyze workflow volumes and patterns, and provide visibility into evolving bottlenecks. Utilities are available that can tightly control printing—known as rules-based printing—meaning users can be restricted, for example, to printing only in black and white in certain environments, or forced to output in papersaving duplex mode.

As Mike Fast puts it, “successfor us at the Vancouver Games is measured in a number of ways, and the ability to provide a set of documents that allow future host cities to fully and completely understand and control the impact of document output is, well, right up there.”