Monthly Archives: May 2007

Azalea blooms in Xinjiang as off-road rally proceeds in Taklamakan Desert

Every year, 1 st May is celebrated as Labour Day. But in 2007, it also marks another important event: the first day free WiFi Internet services are provided for the Taklamakan Rally in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.

The race started in provincial capital Urumqi , headed into the desert, moved through seven stages encompassing the Silk Road, Lop Nur, the Tianshan Mountains , the Turpan Basin and ended in Aksu. A total distance of 4,500 kilometres, within which 2,000 kilometres were timed, covering complex geographical areas of deserts, Gobi-deserts, grassland, mountains and dried riverbed. Taklamakan, also known as the ‘ Sea of Death ‘, the remoteness and topography of the track, volatile climate, demands for real-time news transfer, key region monitoring, and communication placed strict requirements and difficulties on deploying networks.

Map of Taklamakan

Figure 1 Road map of the Taklamakan Rally

Nevertheless, the WiFi Internet services have been successfully provided with high stability, reliability and performance, and enabled wireless video monitoring and recording in key areas at crucial moments. This is made possible by infrastructure consisting of satellite antennae, indoor wireless Access Points, outdoor wireless Access Points and Azalea’s mesh routers. The following paragraph is translated from a blog of an engineer who have participated in the deployment. MORE