Wi-Fi 6 to boost speed by 40% for Mobile World Congress Barcelona
In preparation for Mobile World Congress Barcelona taking place at the end of February, the venue where the show will take place, Fira Barcelona, has begun working with Cisco to deploy Wi-Fi 6 technology, which will reportedly provide attendees with 40% faster connections and higher data transfer rates, as well as improved battery consumption of connected devices.
Fira Barcelona is one of Europe’s largest institutions, with nearly 400,000 m² of exhibition floor space, spread over two main venues: Montjuïc and Gran Via. Its size is impressive, but also makes delivering the advanced connectivity required by those you visit, quite the challenge.
Cisco, Fira Barcelona’s Wi-Fi connectivity partner, has already completed deployment of Wi-Fi 6 in three of the eight halls of the venue with the company’s 9100 series Access Points. Upon completion, the venue’s network will be able to simultaneously connect 128,000 users. In addition, Cisco will provider network switches and controllers to enable innovative network management and analytics.
According to Andreu Vilamitjana, Cisco Spain general manager, Cisco’s updates to the network will allow more devices to receive a higher quality connection.
“Users [will get] an optimized mobile experience and better performance for advanced applications such as 4K video, wireless office and IoT,” he stated. “It positions Fira at the forefront of public venues for major events such as MWC.”
Marc Serra Amau, director of venue services at Fira Barcelona, commented, “The new network will not only provide cutting edge connectivity for our visitors and exhibitors but will also make the Gran Via a state-of-the-art smart venue providing a superior connection capacity for Internet of Things (IoT) devices. This will enable new remote management of the venue services and capabilities throughout our premises.”
In addition to improved connection, the deployment of Wi-Fi 6 will result in the effective recovery of the 2.4 GHz frequency, which will allow a greater number of connections to be managed in a more efficient way than the previous Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac), because while Wi-Fi 5 only operates in the 5 GHz band, Wi-Fi 6 operates in both bands.
Fira Barcelona hosts approximately 150 trade shows and events a year with approximately 30,000 exhibitors and receives 2.5 million visitors from over 200 countries.
