Olympics organisers test BT unified comms

Organisers of the 2012 London Olympics are testing BT's cloud-based voice network for the event, the telco said on Wednesday.

BT said it has delivered the network, based on Cisco hosted unified communications technology, to connect 25 Olympic venues. The company is the official communications services partner for the Games, and is scheduled to set up a converged voice, video and data network for the event.

Gerry Pennell, chief information officer for the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games (Locog), said in BT's statement that the company was "focusing on delivering a service that is mission-critical for the Organising Committee from now up to and including the Games in 2012".

"Preparing for the London 2012 Games requires enormous flexibility and scalability to deliver to the Organising Committee's demanding operational requirements," Pennell said.

The testing of the network will continue until May next year — the Games themselves will take place in July and August. According to BT, tests already carried out this summer have confirmed successful voice connectivity for the beach volleyball, sailing, swimming, road cycling, basketball, BMX and badminton venues.

The overall unified communications network will involve more than 16,500 handsets deployed across 94 Locog and London 2012 sites. Using the system, Locog will be able to manage contacts and mailboxes, access conferencing facilities and hook up to all the national Olympic committees attending the Games.