The NBN network has now been installed to over 12 million premises around Australia that cover private homes, apartment complexes, retail shops, offices and factories. Whilst getting a new internet connection via the Launtel user portal is now a routine process of entering your address and picking a daily spend based on the NBN speed tier you are after, getting a connection for an outdoor event such as a music festival, boat show or arts & craft fair can still require a bit of extra work due to the remote nature of these events and that there may not be a NBN connection point in the immediate vicinity to connect to.
In these occasions, the event organisers need to look to adjacent properties and work with the property owners to get an NBN connection active. They then need to access the property so that the required cabling, switches and routers can be installed to get the NBN connection from the NBN connection point back to the event location where it can then be connected to a WiFi system for use by the patrons and stall holders.
Organising these fast broadband connections to remote or difficult locations has been a challenge that Launtel has willingly accepted on a number of occasions. One event that stands above the rest was providing fast broadband Internet and Wi-Fi infrastructure for Party in the Paddock’s farewell event in February 2020.
Launtel partnered with our strategic network infrastructure providers Jettech to organise delivery and routing for a high speed (TC4 1,000/400 Mbps) Connection from a NBN FTTP NTD in Launceston city (LST POI) to a paddock in the middle of nowhere (Watery Plains Rd, White Hills TAS 7258) that even lacked a reliable 4G signal.
Route – Launtel NBN Service -> NBN FTTP NTD -> Jettech P2P Link Invermay – Mt Barrow – Watery Plains Mobile Van receiver -> Launtel 4011 MikroTik Router -> field Ubiquity WiFi Access Points -> Festival Stalls & Patrons
Since the Party in the Paddock festival incorporated a campsite for the thousands of festival attendees, along with ticket booths, vehicle inspection station and a sound level monitoring station, we also had to deploy several long life battery packs to provide power to the equipment for the entire four days of the event.
During the four day event operations, we had a peak of over 1,700 simultaneous clients. Launtel also had seven staff members providing around the clock support for the 10,000 festival goers and the hundreds of festival staff and stall holders who relied on the network for their computer and POS systems.
Planning and deployment of a bespoke infrastructure build such as this requires weeks of planning prior to the start of the event, installation over the preceding days in conjunction with the other festival infrastructure and then a tear down in the following days after the festival.
The Launtel/Jettech links provided a 150mbs symmetrical internet connection via microwave infrastructure from Launceston to the event site at White Hills, Tasmania.
Onsite infrastructure included 30 high capacity Ubiquity access points to provide sufficient Wi-Fi coverage for the event via a dozen POE Switches and over 2km of Cat6 Ethernet Cable. We also have a battery pack deployed at every nerve centre where equipment would converge. Due to the remoteness of the festival, primary power relied on generators so the battery packs were a must.
A total of 815 Gb of data used by vendors and festival attendees over the 3-day event.
NBN networks are generally on hand for festivals and large events within city and metropolitan areas. The difficulty with utilising this NBN connection was the 25 kms of wireless backhaul that was required to link the festival to the NBN.
