Government: Connection systems run faultlessly during World Cup

By Yekaterina Yezhova

MOSCOW, Jul 16 (PRIME) -- The digital ministry has appreciated work of connection firms, who managed over 2.8 million calls and 262 terabytes (TB) of traffic carried from stadiums by the infrastructure created by the National Center of Informatization at the recent FIFA World Cup, Andrei Chernenko, head of the ministry’s strategic projects department, said on Monday.

“We did an excellent job, both from the technological and organizational points of view. Telecom infrastructure of almost half the country was engaged, up to (the Urals city of) Yekaterinburg, of 50 regions,” Chernenko said at a news conference.

Vasily Brovko, head of a special commissions at state corporation Rostec, said that the National Center of Informatization, a Rostec subsidiary, launched 44 services and ensured, for the first time on the event’s record, broadcasting from all stadiums in the Ultra HD format. The matches were broadcast to 220 countries.

“Organizers, fans, and mass media made 2.8 million calls on connection networks, comprising the information and communications technology infrastructure of the championship. Almost 5 million minutes of voice traffic were carried by mobile networks at stadiums during preparation and the matches,” Brovko said.

“Internet networks carried 262 TB of data. This figure can be compared to 175,000 movies in good quality. We deployed cable TV with more than 5,000 screens at each stadium. The total watching time for these networks amounted to 343,000 hours, more than 39 years.”

The national center’s General Director Konstantin Solodukhin said that complicated connection infrastructure was built with a throughput capacity of 200 Gbit/s.

MegaFon, one of the country’s biggest mobile operators, was an official supplier of telecom services for the FIFA Confederations Cup in 2017 and the World Cup. The company’s Chief Operating Director Anna Serebryanikova said, “The event has become a true challenge for the company, but also a chance to demonstrate its expertise.”

The operator engaged about 2,500 kilometers of fiber optic lines and over 1,300 basic stations. MegaFon’s clients spoke over 34 million minutes during the World Cup with total Internet traffic of over 500 TB.

Fans from 150 countries – mainly from the U.S, China, and Brazil – used their SIM cards in the MegaFon network, Serebryanikova said.

MegaFon also tested 5G and used the new standard to broadcast a match from Moscow in virtual reality, she said.

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