Top-level sport and digital technology: World Cup location Oberhof operates high-availability Wi-Fi from LANCOM

Oberhof/Germany, 13 December 2023—The countdown has begun: From January 04 – 07, 2024, Germany’s Oberhof will once again be the epicenter of the international biathlon scene. The Thuringian winter-sports stronghold is hosting a round of the Biathlon World Cup. With up to 20,000 fans a day and widespread media interest, the traditional annual kick-off meet is one of the top winter-sport events in Germany. The competitions held by Oberhofer Sport und Event GmbH represent not only the summit of performance in sport. They also require high-performance IT with high-bandwidth Wi-Fi, which is now an indispensable location factor for major sporting events. The Oberhof Winter Sports Center achieved this with the help of the German network infrastructure supplier LANCOM Systems and partner Deutsche Telekom. Athletes, support teams, media, and fans benefit from high-performance Wi-Fi across the whole site, with self-optimizing smart technology.

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The demands on Wi-Fi at the annual Biathlon World Cup in Oberhof are extreme. Not only do thousands of fans want to share their experiences online; the athletes and their teams, hundreds of media representatives and photo reporters in the press center also have heavy-duty bandwidth requirements.

These challenges were increasingly pushing the old wireless network at the Winter Sports Center to its limits. Configurations of transmission power and channel schemes occasionally had to be adjusted manually in order to react to load peaks. This was proving to be particularly difficult when things were busy, such as during the Biathlon World Cup. Manually optimizing the Wi-Fi was simply no longer viable.

Also, some of the network components were aging, meaning they could no longer be reliably supplied with software and security updates, which is anything but a solid basis for trouble-free and efficient operation. It was therefore high time to modernize.

As a first step, a new fiber-optic network ensured that all of the sports facilities were provided with sufficient Internet bandwidth. The entire network infrastructure was then renewed and harmonized in order to meet the growing performance requirements and to simplify the administration.

 

Self-learning Wi-Fi

This was achieved primarily thanks to sophisticated software that optimizes wireless networks almost by itself: The “LANCOM Active Radio Control 2.0” solution (patent-pending) uses real-time data usage to calculate the best possible Wi-Fi configuration and automatically adjusts it if desired.

The result: Manual configuration is a thing of the past, and network capacity is significantly increased for high-performance Wi-Fi across the whole site. This is to be benefit of all active participants and sports enthusiasts at the annual Biathlon World Cup and numerous other winter sports highlights in Oberhof.

If you are interested in further information, please contact us at the address below.

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About LANCOM Systems:

LANCOM Systems GmbH is a leading European manufacturer of network and security solutions for business and the public sector. The portfolio includes hardware (WAN, LAN, WLAN, firewalls), virtual network components, cloud-based software-defined networking (SDN), and solutions for remote & mobile access.

Software and hardware development as well as manufacturing take place mainly in Germany, as does the hosting of the network management. There is a strong focus on trustworthiness and security. The company is committed to products that are free from backdoors and is a holder of the trust mark “IT Security Made in Germany” as initiated by the German Ministry of Economics.

LANCOM was founded in 2002 and has its headquarters in Würselen near Aachen, Germany. Customers include SMEs, government agencies, institutions, and major corporations from all over the world. Since summer 2018, the company has been a wholly owned subsidiary of the Munich-based technology group Rohde & Schwarz.

 

Media contact:

Caroline Rixen

LANCOM Systems GmbH

+49 2405 49936-398

caroline.rixen@lancom.de

www.lancom-systems.com

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