The FIFA World Cup 2018 in Russia, involving 32 national teams playing 64 games at 12 venues in 11 cities, was watched by almost half of the world’s population. It was also the most connected World Cup ever, with broadcasters, organisers and visitors racking up a total of 7,5-billion interactions with official FIFA digital platforms.
Russian telecom operators invested around 1,3-billion rubles (about $20-million) into Moscow ICT infrastructure at the stadiums, training bases, transport stations, airports, fan zones, hotels, media centers and management headquarters.
FIFA World Cup 2018 visitors transferred 144 petabytes of data over the mobile network, equivalent to 72-trillion photos on Facebook, 11 000 films in 4K format or 3 000 copies of the digitised version of the largest library in Moscow.
Moscow was a test bed for new technologies at the four FIFA venues: Luzhniki stadium, Spartak stadium, FIFA Fan Fest Sparrow Hills, and FIFA Fan Fest Spartak stadium.
* Luzhniki stadium – simultaneous connection for 150 000 users, average in/out speed 20-100/10-30 Mbps, maximum speed 260 Mbps.
* Spartak stadium – simultaneous connection for 60 000 users, average in/out speed 20-100/10-30 Mbps, maximum speed 260 Mbps.
* FIFA Fan Fest Sparrow Hills – simultaneous connection for 120 000 users.
* FIFA Fan Fest Spartak stadium – simultaneous connection for 50 000 users
In total 1 300 cell towers, 55 mobile cell sites and 25 000km of fibre were deployed to achieve a reliable result
With a speed reaching 260 Mbps, HD video with full game could be downloaded in four minutes. The peak load was reached during Russia-Croatia game which exceeded the traditional New Year peak load by more than 1,5-times.
Interestingly, 50% of European FIFA guests and 85% of Latin Americans bought prepaid SIM card from Moscow mobile operators, and used them.
Moscow will also begin permanently testing the 5G pilot zone in early 2019. The pilot zone will be launched by the Moscow government in cooperation with Russian operator Megafon, which plans to conduct commercial launch of 5G networks until 2022.
Ahead of FIFA Moscow authorities spent 830-million rubles (about $13,3-million) on free public WiFi hotspots. In total there were 2 000 new WiFi hotspots added to its existing infrastructure of over 30 000 hotspots.
A WiFi network was also installed at the FIFA venues in Moscow with the average speed 7Mbps, 3,5-times faster than required by FIFA.
* Luzhniki stadium – 420 wireless access points, simultaneous connection for 84 000 visitors.
* Spartak stadium – 200 wireless access points, simultaneous connection for 45 000 visitors.
* FIFA Fan Fest located at Sparrow Hills – 100 wireless access points, simultaneous connection for 25 000 visitors.
Andrey Belozerov, strategy and innovations advisor to the CIO of Moscow, comments: “In cooperation with mobile operators we have developed sophisticated digital ecosystem providing solid mobile network and extensive Wi-Fi coverage for our visitors. At first we have expected 30-35k visitors at FIFA Fan Fest Sparrow Hills, but during the first day 70k visitors arrived and it exceeded our expectations.
“We had to scale up our networks to withstand a peaking load. We believe that we have managed to provide an infrastructure for everyone to share this moment with their friends abroad.”
As a result, 70 000 people enjoyed WiFi coverage and transferred a total of 9,5Tb of data. The top services accessed through WiFi are Instagram, WhatsApp, VK, YouTube and Facebook.
Statistics outline which countries were represented by users connected to WiFi at the FIFA Fan Fest:
* Russia – 71,3%.
* Canada/US – 3,2%.
* UK – 2,8%.
* Germany – 2,3%.
* France – 1,8%.
Moscow authorities also deployed a CCTV system connected 4 288 cameras situated at FIFA facilities and nine metro stations.
Luzhniki stadium and its adjacent areas accommodated 3 150 cameras in total, while 521 cameras were installed at Spartak and its surroundings. At FIFA Fan Fest Sparrow Hills, 393 cameras were installed.
Authorities also piloted three video analytics zones with face recognition systems. In all, 321 cameras with face recognition were installed at FIFA facilities: 321 at Luzhniki, 58 at FIFA Fan Fest Sparrow Hills and 39 at Spartak stadium.
The face recognition system identified football hooligans and prevented them from entering FIFA facilities. In total, 98 visitors were banned from entering FIFA facilities as their photos were matched with the database provided by city authorities.