Dubai World Trade Centre (DWTC), has partnered with Aruba, to provide ‘always-on’, secure and high speed wireless internet access across the venue at the recently concluded GITEX Technology Week 2016.
An impressive 49,404 unique client devices, including phones, laptops, tablets and other mobile devices were successfully connected to the Wi-Fi network that comprised of 400 Access Points (APs) and 12 different SSIDs for different services, during the five-day event in addition to 1,000 corporate clients.
Some interesting wireless internet usage statistics from the event are below:
•Day 2 (17thOctober) witnessed the maximum number of concurrent clients at peak time connecting to the network – nearly 7,300 clients.
•Day 2 also witnessed highest data usage of 2.9 TB
•Over 12,000 clients were authenticated over the 5 days.
•Aruba transferred more than 5 TB of data during the whole event, excluding corporate traffic and maintained an average data of 336 MB per authenticated client.
•Data usage grew over 70% over last year (Last year’s total data usage was 2.9 TB)
•77% of data usage was for downloads and 23% for uploads
Gamal Emara, Country Manager, UAE at Aruba said, “In this digital age, world class events like GITEX require world-class wireless connectivity – a network that is secure, reliable, capable of handling client diversity and density, can support spikes in connections at peak hours and have the backing of world class support. We have had a long association with Dubai World Trade Centre and we are proud to say that Aruba has once again this year risen to the challenge of providing uninterrupted, high performance connectivity at GITEX to the exhibitors, trade visitors and organizers. With the help of Aruba ClearPass Policy Manager, we could provide seamless guest services and manage to authenticate all corporate clients and public visitors easily. And with the Aruba AirWave network management tool, we could provide DWTC with detailed and insightful reports and statistics about Wi-fi usage at the event which would help in next year’s planning.”
“Despite there being an over 70% increase in data usage over last year, Aruba managed to maintain very good ‘client health’ during the whole event including at peak times, which goes to prove the company’s technological capabilities in projects of a high density nature,” he added.
Farid Farouq, Vice President of Information Technology at DWTC, said, “As has been the case in previous years, Aruba has once again reinforced its leadership in the wireless networking domain by delivering a successful project at GITEX 2016. Aruba brought together industry-leading technology, design best practices, and expert professional services needed to ensure the successful deployment of high-performance Wi-Fi access at our event. We received positive feedback about Aruba’s technology performance from both, exhibitors as well as trade visitors. No doubt GITEX will be even bigger next year and we will look to build on our relationship with Aruba.”
The work with DWTC and GITEX adds to Aruba’s growing portfolio of customers in the Middle East and further demonstrates the company’s strength in providing solutions to support global trends towards flexible and mobile internet connectivity.
Since its inauguration in 1979, DWTC has played a critical role in the growth of international trade for the Middle East region. From the landmark 39-storey Sheikh Rashid Tower to the region’s largest purpose-built complex for events and exhibitions, DWTC has become the epicentre for business tourism in the region.
With over 37 years of expertise in the events and exhibitions industry, DWTC expertly organises and hosts global events, as well as develops dynamic commercial environments and provides world-class hospitality. Most of all, DWTC delivers unique and unparalleled customer experiences to its exhibitors.
