OVERVIEW
The famed Blue Angels flight demonstration squadron and other military and civilian aerial performances lighted up the skies of the Florida Keys on March 30 and 31, 2019, at the Naval Air Station Key West Southernmost Air Spectacular at Boca Chica Field. The Southernmost Air Spectacular is a two-day air show that Keys residents anticipate every year with excitement. Spectacular flying, static displays, kid's zone, live music and concession stands attract thousands of people every year. "About 50,000 people attended the two-day show in 2016, making it one of the largest family-friendly events in the Keys," local Navy officials pointed out.
THE CHALLENGE
Quality Wi-Fi performance is important for all kinds of events, but when operating in a military airfield, cell towers are generally far away, making calls and adequate data service difficult; therefore, making Wi-Fi services more critical. For Naval Air Station, providing wireless coverage to more than 2,500 concurrent users across the vast premise was not an easy task. The large attendance numbers and coverage area needed meant lots of Wi-Fi APs and therefore noise interference quickly became a crucial issue.
IgniteNet’s partner Broadwave has provided Wi-Fi to the Southernmost Airshow for the past 2 seasons. Based on the accumulated years of experience in providing reliable Wi-Fi to various events, Broadwave found that IgniteNet’s MetroLinq series products would be the perfect solution.
THE SOLUTION
MetroLinq 60GHz products utilize the noise-free 60GHz mmWave to offer unprecedented performance. The availability of 14GHz of license-free spectrum in the US makes 60GHz an ideal frequency for multi-gigabit data transmissions, which also provide extremely low latency on top of high capacity. Furthermore, the innovative tri-band radio design of the MetroLinq 60GHz products gives operators the ultimate tool for building multi-purpose networks which integrate backhaul, fixed access as well as Wi-Fi access using the same equipment. On top of that, with fall back to the integrated 5GHz radio, reliability is never an issue.
Last but not least, events like the Southernmost Air Spectacular require temporary setups that can be installed easily and rapidly. MetroLinq 60GHz devices are very easy to be deployed promptly with minimal network planning, allowing operators to rollout multi-gigabit networks on demand.
CONCLUSION
Southernmost Air Spectacular is a perfect example of how a large-scale event can successfully deploy quality Wi-Fi network using IgniteNet’s solution. "IgniteNet's MetroLinq platform allowed us to backhaul data on 60GHz saving critical spectrum for Wi-Fi. In order to deliver the bandwidth needed to each AP the only option we had was the MetroLinq line from IgniteNet. The products deliver the performance, stability and ease of use to quickly deploy our services," said Jordan Smith, owner of Broadwave.
