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.
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.
Figure 2 Capturing the motion
Figure 3 One of the crucial moments: finishing at the stop
Figure 4 Another crucial moment
Figure 5 Locations of Free WiFi in Taklamakan Desert
“At the Qiemo camp, several engineers from China Mobile have, very professionally, brought over ten big boxes of equipments. I, without any other colleagues, brought only one box of equipment, but I feel very proud.” (Source: http://blog.sina.com.cn/u/53d29d93010008c1)
This comment fully demonstrates the low cost of deployment and retraction, as well as the ease of set-up, configuration, maintenance and re-use, of the infrastructure based on the combination of satellite communication and Azalea Wireless Mesh technologies.
Figure 6 Free outdoor WiFi for competitors
Figure 7 Prize winners and event finishes