This is only a preview of the September 2000 issue of Silicon Chip. You can view 36 of the 96 pages in the full issue, including the advertisments. For full access, purchase the issue for $10.00 or subscribe for access to the latest issues. Items relevant to "Build A Swimming Pool Alarm":
Items relevant to "8-Channel PC Relay Board":
Items relevant to "Fuel Mixture Display For Cars, Pt.1":
Articles in this series:
Purchase a printed copy of this issue for $10.00. |
How they’re bringing yo
The Ga
a
We probably don’t need to remind you about an event
happening in Sydney (and other cities) this month. After
almost a decade of bid preparation, winning the bid and
planning, the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games have received,
and will receive, more coverage than any event in history.
Here’s how Australia’s telecommunications company,
Telstra, along with international IT giant IBM have built
the infrastructure those games are going to require.
4 Silicon Chip
ou
by Ross Tester
Games
a
SEPTEMBER 2000 5
T
his month, more than 10,000
athletes and 5000 officials from
200 countries will converge on
Sydney to take part in 28 sports.
About 15,000 accredited media
personnel will provide TV, print and
radio coverage for an estimated worldwide audience of more than 3.5 billion
people. A further 8000 unaccred-ited
media personnel will send stories
about Australia to this massive global
audience.
The most comprehensive communications network in Games’ history has
been set up for the Olympic Family,
athletes, officials, broadcast and print
media, other sponsors, security, head
of state and all visitors to the Games
and the Paralympic Games which
follow.
Working in closely with this is one
of the largest, most complex information technology (IT) infrastructures
ever built, to manage and distribute
Games information to the world.
The Millenium Network
The Millennium Network is the
communications network designed
and developed by Telsta specifically for the Games. It combines the
resour-ces and infrastructure of the
existing Telstra network and several
new Games-dedicated networks .
Services include voice, data, video,
mobile and trunk mobile radio. About
1100 technicians from around Australia will be involved in maintaining and
operating the Millennium Network
during the Sydney Olympic Games.
In 1988 and 1992, Telstra worked
with the Korean and Spanish telecommunications authorities on the
Seoul and Barcelona Olympic Games
respectively. More recently, they
assisted with telecommunications
at the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games
and the 1998 Nagano Winter Olympic
Games, gaining invaluable experience
for Sydney.
The Millennium Network will
service some 35 competition venues
(12 at Sydney Olympic Park), three
Olympic Villages (for athletes, media
and technical officials), the Main
Press Centre (MPC) and International
Broadcast Centre (IBC), together with
more than 100 non-competition venues (covering areas such as transport,
ticketing and accreditation) and official training venues.
The backbone of the Millennium
Network is a series of fibre-optic rings
linking all the venues with the International Broadcast Centre, key telephone exchanges and international
gateways carrying data, telephony,
audio and mobile services from the
venues.
Much of the supporting infrastructure that will serve the Games is
already in use as part of the existing
network.
This includes optic fibre submarine cable connections to Asia, North
America and Europe, satellite earth
stations in Western Australia and
Sydney, a national network of more
than 1.2 million kilometres of optic
fibre cable, digital switching and transmission facilities, and a digital mobile
network that covers more than 94% of
the Australian population.
On top of this, several new dedicated networks around the main site,
Sydney Olympic Park at Homebush
Bay, have been specially built and
installed. These include:
• Transmission Network
• Switched Networks
• Mobile & Wireless Network
• Broadcast Transmission Network
• Video & Audio Networks
• Cable TV Network
• Data Network for IBM
• World Network
The Olympic Transmission Networks will deliver thousands of high
quality circuits for broadcast video,
audio, voice, high speed data, telephony, fax, ISDN and digital mobile phone
base stations (GSM and CDMA).
As well, there is a 60-channel Olympic cable television service plus other
related communications services for
Sydney and interstate venues, various
road events, the International Broadcast Centre (IBC), Main Press Centre
(MPC), Commercial TV and Telstra
networks.
The Millennium Network will provide up to 30,000 telephone and fax
lines to the Olympic Villages, media
centres and competition venues, in
addition to capacity for 15,000 mobile communications services for the
Olympic family.
A close-up view of the huge screen in Telstra’s Global Operations Centre in Melbourne (seen also on the previous page).
This centre controls and monitors all international traffic in and out of Australia and (including that from the Olympic
Games control centre in Sydney. During September, this centre takes on an even more significant role than normal.
6 Silicon Chip
Various types of media – voice,
video and data – can be carried by
the same fibre-optic network using the
international SDH standard.
Self-healing ring architecture
protects against cable outages and
node failures by providing duplicate,
geographically diverse paths for each
service. If a fibre is cut, the services
affected are sent via an alternative path
through the ring without interruption.
Telephone services from all venues will rely on Centrex, a telephone
system which delivers PABX-type services but unlike a PABX, all switching
occurs at a local telephone exchange.
Because the service is provided
from a telephone exchange, it greatly
improves reliability and peak traffic
handling ability, as the much larger
Sydney network is used to carry the
Olympic traffic. The Centrex system
also greatly reduces the need for
cabling to venues, which would otherwise be redundant after the Games.
A megametre of cable...
Speaking of cabling, more than
1000km of building cabling and about
25,000 telecommunication outlets
have been installed through all competition venues as well as selected
non-competition venues such as the
IBC, MPC and Olympic family hotels.
The cable is PVC-free, to meet environmental standards.
Copper cable is used for telephone,
data, wideband services (at 2 Mbps),
video cable, fax and audio commentary
circuits (up to 15kHz). Fibre (much of
it 155 Mbps) has also been run for IBM,
the Sydney Olympics IT partner and
major international sponsor.
When the games begin, all systems will have had a thorough work-out at “test
events” such as this basketball match held under Olympic conditions in Sydney.
The mobile telephony network technology at Sydney Olympic Park for
GSM mobile telephony includes micro
cells and macro cells installed to cater
to the large number of users expected
in a comparatively small area.
More than 60 indoor cells (customised systems) cover all venues requiring in-building telephony coverage.
Some 140 outdoor micro cells cover
outdoor areas within the common
domain areas of Sydney Olympic
Park and other venues. The micro
cells function like standard mobile
telephony cells but cater to a smaller
coverage area.
Six macro cells are used within
the Sydney Olympic Park area, while
one umbrella macro cell covers the
entire park.
The CDMA network for the Sydney
Olympics operate from six macro cell
stations and in-building micro cells,
with each venue having at least one
CDMA cell. A total of approximately
70 CDMA micro cells are used, with
each cell fed with fibre back into the
Telstra network.
To maintain the aesthetic value
of various buildings, the micro cells
and antennas were camouflaged –
disguising them in the same colour
And a million mobile phones
The mobile and wireless network
has been designed to not only meet
the requirements of Games organisers
but to deliver additional capacity to
meet the massive demand for mobile
services expected from spectators.
Both GSM and CDMA networks are
involved. In Sydney Olympic park,
Darling Harbour and other Games
venues, the existing networks’ capacity has been expanded to provide the
densest mobile coverage ever seen
(or heard).
Capacity has been planned to cope
with the mobile phone needs of up to
500,000 spectators at Sydney Olympic
Park and an additional 500,000 people
in the Sydney area.
About 1100 Telstra technicians from around Australia will be involved in
maintaining and operating the Millennium Network during the Sydney Olympic Games. In some instances, particularly at major venues and broadcast and
media facilities, staff will rostered to provide 24 hour service.
SEPTEMBER 2000 7
as the building and installing them
in unobtrusive locations within
buildings.
“Leaky Coax” technology
“Leaky Coax” – radiating coaxial
cable – is a signal-boosting technique
commonly used in locations where RF
signals are too weak to provide reliable
communications. It uses pre-cut holes
that emit a controlled amount of RF
energy. This leakage along the cable’s
length provides continuous coverage
along the chosen route.
Leaky coax cable will be used as the
antenna system in confined areas such
as train tunnels and railway platforms
so mobile phones may be used on
trains and on the platform at Olympic
Park railway station.
Digital trunk radio
The Olympic Radio Network, a digital trunk radio system, will be used
during the Games for a range of operations, transport, emergency services
and security functions.
The system comprises 12 base
stations, employing 224 transmitters
across the Sydney metropolitan area.
Three of the base stations are in the
vicinity of Sydney Olympic Park
and two of these provide in-building
coverage for Stadium Australia and
the Sydney International Aquatic
Centre.
Every site has one control channel
to manage traffic across the network,
plus talk channels, which range from
seven for small sites up to 27 for the
largest site.
The digital system supports as many
as 9,000 radio handsets for SOCOG,
organised into as many as 100 user
groups, or ‘Talk Groups’ of customers
each with their own handset. The Olympic Security Command Centre will
use another 3000 handsets.
Video and audio
The Telstra Video and Audio (VandA) network provides high quality
video and associated audio services.
The network is based mainly on pointto-point fibre, with some venues using
SDH.
VandA will also be available to
other locations such as beauty spots
and road events and any other location connected to the existing fibre
network.
The video and audio interface
being offered to the broadcasters are
standard broadcast formats: PAL with
associated audio or SDI 270 Mb with
embedded audio.
Games cable TV
A special purpose 60-channel
analog cable TV (CATV) point-tomulti-point video service has been installed for the Olympics. This network
enables the Olympic family to follow
Games progress and is required to
provide media and broadcasters with
monitoring facilities at all events in
all venues. It also allows athletes to
follow progress of events from their
Village.
The cable TV content will be sourced from Sydney Olympic Broadcasting
Organisation (SOBO) at the IBC and
distributed via the network to all competition and non-competition venues
in Sydney, including the Olympic
villages.
The two forward fibre transmitters
working at 1550 nanometres will enable service within a 40km radius of
the IBC, including the furthest Sydney
venue, Penrith Lakes.
Information technology
The IBM Global Services Olympic
technology team has developed three
core information systems: the Games
Management Systems; the Results
System; and INFO, an intranet-based
information resource for the 260,000
members of the Olympic Family.
Olympics Communications and Information Technology In Brief:
The Millenium Network, the communications system created by Telstra especially for the Games, has been in
planning and development for nine years;
It services more than 35 competition venues, three Olympic Villages, the International Broadcast Centre, the Main
Press Centre, a Technology Command Centre and dozens of training venues;
It services more than 50 non-competition venues;
It has more than 4,800 kilometres of optical fibre connecting the Olympic venues and the International Broadcast
Centre – more than five times the distance between Sydney and Melbourne;
It has 280 video links from sporting venues to the International Broadcasting Centre and 3,200 audio links – 90% for
use by broadcasters, the remainder for organisers and emergency services;
It has 250 data links for timing and scorekeeping;
It has 60 private cable TV channels to provide live action to the IBC and the Olympic venues and villages;
It links into Telstra’s national network of 1.2 million kilometres of optic fibre;
It provides international access via 11 satellites and submarine cables.
And it will offer facilities for HDTV transmission from Australia.
Three Information Technology systems have been developed by IBM – the Games Management System mainly used
by SOCOG to run the Games, the Results System(including commentator information) and the INFO general
information resource which goes out to 2000 workstations and Olympic information kiosks.
Want more information? Visit the games website, www.olympics.com or Telstra's website, www.telstra.com
8 Silicon Chip
In addition, IBM is working jointly
with SOCOG, developing and managing the Official Sydney 2000 Olympic
Games Web site, www.olympics.com
Games management systems
The Games Management Systems
is a set of applications which SOCOG
uses to run the Games.
Applications include accreditation,
medical, arrivals and departures and
incident tracking. In addition, SOCOG is providing a set of additional
applications including Olympic entries, qualification, accommodations,
staffing, ticketing and transportation.
Games result system
The Games Results System is made
up of two major components, the
Venue Results applications and the
Central Results System.
The Venue Results applications collect competition data including timing, scoring and statistical information
from each event, process the results
based on international sport federation
rules and feed them to scoreboards and
a variety of other output devices in the
Olympic Games venues.
Results are fed to the Commentator Information System (CIS), used
by more than 1,000 broadcast media
personnel at the Games and to the TV
graphics for display on TV screens
around the world.
The Central Results System is a
massive data warehouse managed by
a DB2 database, hosted by an S/390
Parallel Sysplex server and stored in
RAMAC Virtual Array storage devices.
INFO is the “electronic encyclopedia of the Games” and distributes comprehensive information about virtually every aspect of the Olympic Games — past and
present — to more than 2,000 workstations and kiosks to athletes, officials, the
media and the general public.
The Central Results System is at the
heart of the Olympic Games, accessible 24 hours a day.
The system receives competition
information from the Venue Results
applications and distributes it to
15,000 media personnel via more than
700 printers.
At the competition venues, printed
results are also distributed to international sport federation officials,
athletes, coaches and media.
The Central Results System also
transmits the competition results
to the World News Press Agencies
(WNPA) and feeds this information
to INFO for viewing by the Olympic
Family and to the Official Games Web
site for the public.
An IBM S/390 computer is at the
central site with IBM Netfinity servers
located in the venues via both local
area networks (LAN) and a wide area
network (WAN).
In all, approximately 9,000 IBM Personal Computers and ThinkPads are
or will be connected to this Olympic
Games network to provide access to
critical data within the venues and to
communicate with the Central Results
System.
CIS: the broadcaster’s information resource
The Commentator Information System (CIS) is available for 10 Olympic
Readers outside the Sydney area
may not realise how large it
is – and the distances involved.
This map shows the venue
distances from Sydney Olympic
Park at Homebush Bay (No. 1).
The Olympic Rowing Course at
Penrith Lakes (No. 13) is almost
40km away. Even so, all Olympic
venues are no more than a 45
minute drive from Sydney Olympic park or Newington,
the new suburb alongside
which houses all athletes
and team officials. All
venues on this map
are networked with
fibre-optic cable.
SEPTEMBER 2000 9
sports. CIS provides international
broadcasters with real-time competition information directly from the
venue databases, enabling them to
bring their audiences timely coverage
right from the field of play.
Broadcasters access CIS through
touch-screen workstations located
in commentator booths in the Games
venues. At any time commentators can
call up results, statistics, medals data
and current Olympic Games information to enhance their broadcasts and
event coverage.
CIS workstations receive unofficial
competition results through a dedicated local area network (LAN) in each
venue the moment the information
becomes available.
Once competition results are made
official by the sport’s governing body,
CIS is immediately updated to reflect
the final results.
INFO System: streamlining
information access
INFO is an intranet-based system
that is the primary resource for sharing information among the Olympic
Family.
This “electronic encyclopedia of the
Games” distributes comprehensive
information about virtually every aspect of the Olympic Games — past and
present — to more than 2,000 workstations and kiosks located throughout
the Olympic venues.
INFO users can access the following
information categories: results and
statistics; biographies and profiles;
historical results; medal information;
records; schedules; news; transport;
weather and facts & figures.
In addition, accredited Olympic
Family members including media,
athletes, coaches, volunteers, broadcasters, international sport federation
members and International Olympic
Committee (IOC) and Sydney Organising Committee (SOCOG) staff are
provided with an email address within
INFO, allowing them to send mail
and post messages for one another via
electronic bulletin boards.
INFO workstations located in media
centres and Games venues are IBM PCs
running a Netscape Communicator
browser on a Windows NT platform.
The Olympic Games website:
www.olympics.com
Together SOCOG and IBM are creat10 Silicon Chip
ing the Official Sydney 2000 Olympic
Games Web site. One of the largest
event Web sites in the world, it makes
the Sydney Games more accessible
to sports fans worldwide. Containing
about 30,000 pages of information, this
site is expected to receive in excess of
two billion hits during 2000.
Anyone with a Web browser and
Internet access can browse the official
Web site for a wide range of information about Sydney and the Games,
including: sports and venues, news,
arts festivals, tickets and merchandise.
The site has been updated regularly
as preparations for the Games are
finalised.
During the Games, additional information and services will be available,
including real-time results, photos,
athlete biographies and interactive
features.
And Olympic information on
to the world…
Sydney Olympic Park venues are
redundantly linked to IBM’s two data
network hub centres at Homebush via
a dedicated fibre network. These break
out into IBM computer systems in the
hubs. The Homebush dedicated fibre
network will deliver 155Mb connectivity per link.
There is a dedicated transmission
network linking the IBC, International gateway exchanges in Sydney at
Oxford Falls and Paddington and a
national transmission hub exchange,
also in Sydney.
Video traffic will leave Australia via
earth stations Sydney and Perth, Western Australia, under the overall control of the Global Operations Centre in
Melbourne. It will use a combination
of SDH transmission technology with
self-healing ring structures and some
direct optic fibre from venues on diverse paths.
Most broadcasters are expected to
use digital compressed video due to
its cost effectiveness and its ability to
put out more than one channel simultaneously. Four digital video channels
can be accommodated per transponder
bandwidth compared to one using
analog technology. The compression
technology is based on MPEG-2.
To provide a remote area and multipoint distribution network, the national terrestrial network is complemented
by a satellite network incorporating
PanAmSat’s PAS-2 Australia/New
Zealand beam.
Internationally, Telstra has transmit
and receive access to a wide range of
INTELSAT satellites in the Pacific
area, Asia Pacific and Indian Ocean
regions, as well as access to PanAmSat
and AsiaSat systems.
These satellites are accessed via
satellite earth stations in Sydney (Pacific area and Asia Pacific regions) and
SC
Perth (all three regions).
Acknowledgement:
Information and photographs courtesy
Olympic media departments of Telstra
and IBM.
Games images to the world’s TV audience will leave Australia via earth stations
in Sydney and Perth in Western Australia.
|