The Project:
The EA Games #FCPRO Open Global Qualifier took place across three days at the Troubadour Brent Cross Studios in London. It saw competitors from all over the world take part, with 52 players securing their places through the regional qualifiers to join the 12 already invited to London.
Noba were delighted to work with the amazing Whisper TV team, providing connectivity for the event, watched worldwide, with a combined Twitch and YouTube views of 5M+ over the weekend. The network traffic peaked at 5Gbps at one point!
Our Solution:
This was a demanding and complex network supporting 70+ live streams alone. The security and monitoring were critical to the network as a lot of money was at stake for the competition winners.
The network consisted of a fully redundant 10Gb core with multiple 10Gbps and 1Gbps lines and a further 1Gbps radio link from a nearby hotel just for further measures!
Challenges:
Getting a high-speed, reliable internet connection into the space within such a limited timeframe was a huge challenge. In central London, we have the benefit of accessing our city-wide wireless internet network; however, this venue was too low and too far out from central London for us to connect it.
We did not have the time to install a fibre-based service, so we had to think outside of the box! The team identified the highest building in the area – the Brent Cross Holiday Inn, so we approached the owners to see if we could arrange roof access. We negotiated a lease for the roof space, which enabled us to beam in the connection from an existing site on Edgeware Road, and then onto the roof of The Troubadour.
The Noba ingenuity ensured the successful installation of a stable high-speed connection in less than 10 days!
It was an intense time for the live support team working around the clock over the weekend, but the network was solid and didn’t miss a beat.
