Motorola keeps Gold Coast 2018 connected

Over 12 days from the opening ceremony to the final race, the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games is expected to attract around 1.5 million spectators, volunteers, athletes and team officials.

Keeping them safe will be more than 3500 Queensland state police officers and other first responders, 2000 Australian Defence Force personnel and 4200 private security staff, as well as numerous volunteers.

And helping to keep all those people connected is Motorola Solutions, which late last year was selected as official radio communications supplier for the Games.

The company has provided 56 accredited staff members and additional dedicated support staff located at competition venues (with extra ‘roaming support’).

There are also dedicated Motorola command, control and management staff located at the Games Headquarters Technology Operations Centre, further supported by the Motorola Network Operations Control Centre (NOCC). The centre is staffed 6.00 am to midnight with additional 24x7 support from the NOCC.

All up, 6000 mobile radios with more than 9000 accessories such as earpieces and microphones have been distributed across all venues to cater for more than 450 separate talk groups.

An extra 800 radios with more than 2000 accessories are being used by organisations connected to the Games, such as Festival 2018, Queensland Department of Transport & Main Roads and the City of Gold Coast.

“Although we are happy to help deliver a safe and successful Commonwealth Games by working behind the scenes, we are very pleased with the performance of our communications technology and people,” said Motorola Solutions Australia and New Zealand Vice President Steve Crutchfield.

“Succeeding at a major event like this isn’t just about having the right technology — it requires considerable planning, management, design work, liaison with our customers and the backing of a great team to deliver a gold medal performance.

“For us, the best measure of success will be having a smooth and safe Games where all the focus is on the athletes and not the supporting technology.”

Gold Coast 2018 communications facts and figures:

• So far there have been many as 167,000-plus PTT radio calls made each day by organising staff supporting the Games.
• This represents 9% usage of the total available network capacity, with no busy tones or calls failing to get through.
• On day one of the Games, around 20,352 PTT calls per hour were made by event officials.
• More than 150 dedicated spectrum frequencies have been added to operate wide-area and local-area communications.
• The network covers 18 competition and 17 non-competition venues across the Gold Coast, Brisbane, Cairns and Townsville.

Image courtesy GC2018.

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