The Technology Behind the Democratic National Convention

Denver’s Pepsi Centre and Invesco Field are just fine for their concerts and professional sporting events. But when the Democrats come into town for their National Convention this week, the two buildings are getting technologically gutted. In fact, Qwest, Microsoft, Cisco, Google, AT&T, Level3, Comcast, EchoStar, Hewlett-Packard, and Symantec all teamed up to give the old venues a new digital backbone. Here’s the snazzy list of upgrades:

Improvements include:

• 3,344 miles (5381km) of optic fibre
• 140 miles (225km) of copper and coaxial cable
• 2,600 additional data lines
• 3,400 voice grade circuits
• New “video equipment” in both venues capable of handling 130 simultaneous feeds
• AT&T and Verizon both “upgrading coverage” in area
• And network security from Qwest, Microsoft, Cisco and Symantec

In many cases, workers simply laid the new data lines beside the old ones. The Democratic National Convention’s new data network will drive 50 billion bits per second, or pass around an entire HD movie in just moments. We’ll have to wait and see if the Democrats get as technologically pwned on stage as they did by the Republicans in 2004 who used a massive rear display to look about a century ahead in gadgeteering. [CNET][image]