The Rugby World Cup has kicked off around the country, a great sporting spectacle that is across all the media outlets and social media sites. Journalists, teams, fans all adding to and consuming the latest facts, images, scores and information….the need for access an essential requirement.
The streets around Twickenham has become the fans front room, pedestrianised for the rugby fixtures as you walk through them discussing the latest team selection with friends not only walking with you but remotely at clubs, home, work places. The roads, streets that funnel the thousands of fans around Twickenham between stations and watering holes, stadium and car parks are now covered by a new Street Wifi coverage.
Provided ahead of the World Cup start date the Street Wifi provides connectivity to the home and visiting fans to get online, share their experiences and connect to the world. The window to the Rugby World Cup is through your Smart device.
Ahead of one recent fixture I took the opportunity to explore the new Street Wifi on my journey from Twickenham station along to the river, down London Road and King Street and back over the railway bridge along Whitton Road, with busying crowds I sampled various news feeds, video streams and commentaries and found a few of the camouflaged Access Points covering the passers-by from their lofty perches on lampposts.
The Cisco Meraki MR66 Access Points provide the RF coverage and are situated along the main roads around Twickenham – below is the one mounted along London Road near to the William Webb Ellis pub in Twickenham – you will see these at various points along your route … but they are well hidden!!!
What they offer in coverage and throughput is excellent, video feeds were played out without any glitches or delays, news outlets and web browsing instantaneous and accessing social media feeds from smart devices amongst the bustling crowds allowed me to stay connected with friends near and far.
Viewing BBC The Hit whilst standing in London Road Twickenham Station area.
The provided solution offers 30 minute free access per 24hours plus full access to whitelisted sites (www.richmond.gov.uk, www.visitrichmond.co.uk, and www.tfl.gov.uk)– on an unlimited basis for free.
The full solution covers the areas of Twickenham, Richmond and Teddington and is provided by Cisco SP-Wifi partner Arqiva (Please see the press release http://www.arqiva.com/news/press-releases/council-to-provide-free-on-street-wi-fi-in-twickenham-and-richmond/)
Enjoy the connectivity offered when in the area – you will be delighted in the experience you find.
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So you are the guy taking photographs of lamp-posts around Twickenham!! We thought you had some kind of weird plane spotting habit 🙂
Although all the excitement of the RWC is now over, it’s great to hear that Cisco, along with our Partner Arqiva, provided such a positive fan-experience and conributed to the smooth running of the events.
The All-Blacks were the winners in the end – both the Kiwi team and the camoflaged black APs!