{"id":9256,"date":"2013-03-15T19:04:47","date_gmt":"2013-03-15T10:04:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.exhibitionindustrynews.co.uk\/?p=2265"},"modified":"2013-03-15T19:04:47","modified_gmt":"2013-03-15T10:04:47","slug":"exclusive-interview-with-murray-dickson-business-solutions-analyst-nec-group","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eventbiz.net\/english\/?p=9256","title":{"rendered":"Exclusive Interview with Murray Dickson, Business Solutions Analyst, NEC Group"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.exhibitionindustrynews.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/NEC-Free-WiFi-2_39464905541363183085.jpg\" rel=\"lightbox[2265]\" title=\"Exclusive Interview with Murray Dickson, Business Solutions Analyst, NEC Group\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-2267\" alt=\"NEC Free WiFi 2 39464905541363183085 Exclusive Interview with Murray Dickson, Business Solutions Analyst, NEC Group Exhibition News\" src=\"http:\/\/www.exhibitionindustrynews.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/NEC-Free-WiFi-2_39464905541363183085.jpg\" width=\"386\" height=\"225\" title=\"Exclusive Interview with Murray Dickson, Business Solutions Analyst, NEC GroupExhibition News\" \/><\/a>The NEC has recently launched a \u00a31m upgrade to its Wi-Fi facilities that provides visitors with free access to the internet in all areas of the venue.\u00a0 The upgrade has taken place following consultation with several trade bodies representing various sectors of the events industry, and will no doubt have a huge impact on the experience of organisers, exhibitors and visitors to the venue.<\/p>\n<p>Wi-Fi access in event venues has been criticised in recent months, but the investment made by the NEC is a significant step in addressing the need for people to stay connected.<\/p>\n<p>Having first made Wi-Fi available nearly seven years ago, the technology and infrastructure that replaced their initial pay-as-you-go hotspot access had become outdated, so in 2011 the venue operators launched a consultation process to identify the best ways forward.<\/p>\n<p>Murray Dickson, Business Solutions Analyst at the NEC, spoke to Exhibition Industry News to firstly tell us why they made the decision<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThree years ago we expanded the Wi-Fi access from hot spots to all of the public areas.\u00a0 However, things have moved on quickly and when people can get free Wi-Fi in a local coffee shop, they expect to be able to come to a venue like the NEC and do the same.\u00a0 There was a need to address the access within the halls and to re-address the access in the public areas.<\/p>\n<p>The consultation process also saw 7,500 visitors surveyed along with all of the exhibitor contacts held on their database.\u00a0 Following this, a set of business requirements were drawn up using the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU) standards by which all public tenders must be written.\u00a0 Over 60 companies came forward with expressions of interest, before the list was gradually reduced down via a tender process.\u00a0 The preferred bidder, Galliford Try, was announced late last year.<\/p>\n<p><b><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Recovering Costs<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n<p>To invest over \u00a31m on a free to use service does raise questions relating to cost recovery through other channels, such as parking or hall fees for organisers.\u00a0 However, despite the huge cost of the upgrade, plus the ongoing maintenance, Murray says that they are not looking for a specific return of investment.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s about making sure that our venue is fit for purpose and stays at the forefront of the event and exhibition industry\u201d, said Murray.\u00a0 \u201cOrganisers were telling us that it was becoming more and more difficult to entice people out of their offices and in to shows.\u00a0 By giving them Wi-Fi that is free and accessible everywhere within the venue, we are giving them the means to continue going about their daily business whilst also being able to visit an event.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The NEC views the investment as having reciprocal benefits through the shows and events that are held there.\u00a0 If customers can continue accessing the web freely and easily, their experience of visiting an event is heightened, making the event more productive.\u00a0 This has a positive effect on factors like exhibitor re-bookings, in turn helping the events themselves to develop and potentially expand within the venue.<\/p>\n<p><b><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Designing the System<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n<p>It was decided at an early stage that each individual space within the venue would be looked at on its own in order to determine the requirements.\u00a0 Using the maximum capacity of each area, a connection ratio was applied to calculate how many people in any given space at any one time would be sending and receiving data.\u00a0\u00a0 A design was then factored for each area, be it a hall, conference room or office.\u00a0 The finished upgrade allows for 22,000 concurrent users to be accessing the web at any one time.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe system allows for many more than that to be connected to the Wi-Fi.\u00a0 However, in practice if you have 5,000 people in a hall, even if they are all connected to the system they won\u2019t all be sending and receiving data at the same time.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The system was designed to have no single point of failure, meaning that should an element go down, it is instantly transferred to a separate element.\u00a0 The radios transmitting the Wi-Fi signal were also crucial to the winning design, as Murray explained.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe actual boxes were supplied and installed by Xirrus.\u00a0 One of the main reasons they were selected is that their system deploys several access points within a single array.\u00a0 This means that only a single hard-wired line is needed to connect it.\u00a0 Some of these arrays have eight radios within them, so it greatly reduced the amount of infrastructure that needed to be installed in order to hit the required specifications for the system.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Each radio unit within an array can also be switched from 2.4ghz to 5ghz.\u00a0 For those non-technophobes, most smart phones up until recently use the 2.4ghz frequency.\u00a0 Brand new devices like the iPhone 5 and the most recent iPads now use the 5ghz frequency.\u00a0 The venue can monitor the amount of devices using each of these frequencies and over time will be able to switch more of the radios to the 5ghz range as visitors gradually upgrade their devices.<\/p>\n<p><a  rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http:\/\/www.pitmanspeople.com\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-2266\" alt=\"Pitmans 600 x 100 call us now Exclusive Interview with Murray Dickson, Business Solutions Analyst, NEC Group Exhibition News\" src=\"http:\/\/www.exhibitionindustrynews.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/Pitmans-600-x-100-call-us-now.gif\" width=\"600\" height=\"100\" title=\"Exclusive Interview with Murray Dickson, Business Solutions Analyst, NEC GroupExhibition News\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The post <a href=\"http:\/\/www.exhibitionindustrynews.co.uk\/2013\/03\/exclusive-interview-with-murray-dickson-business-solutions-analyst-nec-group\/\">Exclusive Interview with Murray Dickson, Business Solutions Analyst, NEC Group<\/a> appeared first on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.exhibitionindustrynews.co.uk\">Exhibition Industry News<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The NEC has recently launched a \u00a31m upgrade to its Wi-Fi facilities that provides visitors with free access to the internet in all areas of the venue.\u00a0 The upgrade has taken place following consultation with several trade bodies representing various sectors of the events industry, and will no doubt have a huge impact on the [&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>The post <a href=\"http:\/\/www.exhibitionindustrynews.co.uk\/2013\/03\/exclusive-interview-with-murray-dickson-business-solutions-analyst-nec-group\/\">Exclusive Interview with Murray Dickson, Business Solutions Analyst, NEC Group<\/a> appeared first on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.exhibitionindustrynews.co.uk\">Exhibition Industry News<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2267,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-9256","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world-news"},"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Exclusive Interview with Murray Dickson, Business Solutions 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