THE WI-FI WARZONES

FROM MUSIC FESTIVALS AND SPORTS STADIUMS TO 100MPH TRAINS, BARRY COLLINS DISCOVERS HOW WI-FI IS INSTALLED IN CHALLENGING ENVIRONMENTS

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It's hard enough getting WiFi to work reliably in a two-bedroom flat, let alone a field containing thousands of smartphone-wielding festival-goers or a train belting through the British countryside. But there are networking professionals who are used to working in these WiFi warzones.

We've talked to networking experts who have installed WiFi in brutally challenging environments to find out how they do it. Whether it's preventing visitors dragging down the network at Brighton Pride, installing under-seat access points in football stadiums or making sure overgrown shrubs don't knock out the WiFi on the 5.15 to Basingstoke, we've got the inside story on how some of the most extreme WiFi networks are put together. You might not give much thought to it when you're standing in the middle of a field listening to a band, but it’s someone’s job to make sure that field is humming with WiFi so that the ticket gates, security, the bar, production and others on site can operate. That someone is often Dominic Hampton, the managing director of attend2IT.

Hampton’s company provides the network at massive public events such as Brighton Pride, the Great Escape Festival and the Secret Garden Party, where you’re dealing with tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of attendees in locations such as public parks, that obviously aren’t built with WiFi infrastructure in mind.