Meraki, Inc. | 99 Rhode Island St.

2
nd
Floor, San Francisco, CA 94103 | 415.632. 5800 | www.meraki.com Meraki, Inc. | 660 Alabama St., San Francisco, CA 94110 | 415.632.5800 | www.meraki.com
CASE STUDY
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EVENTS & VENUE
Challenge
Provide high-speed wireless coverage for over 1,000 attendees in
one giant 12,000 square foot room as well as many other areas
Get the network working in under 3 days
Succeed in a high-stakes, high-publicity environment
Results
No downtime during the entire 2-day conference
470GB of data served to over 2,500 clients at aggregate speeds
faster than 300 mbit/s
Zero customer complaints since launch
Extremely positive reviews by conference organizers and attendees
People told us that the WiFi network was one of the best theyd seen.
Loic LeMeur, LeWeb Organizer
LeWeb 2009
by British Telecom
Meraki, Inc. | 99 Rhode Island St. 2
nd
Floor, San Francisco, CA 94103 | 415.632. 5800 | www.meraki.com Meraki, Inc. | 660 Alabama St., San Francisco, CA 94110 | 415.632.5800 | www.meraki.com
The team was able to get the access points deployed in less than
24 hours. One of the nice things about Meraki is that it deploys so
easily, said Robert Shanks, one of the network engineers on-site.
The team then used the Meraki Cloud Controller to overcome the
many challenges of the deployment: extreme user density, channel
interference, and the requirement for high performance.
The next step was to test the network before the guests arrived.
While it would be very difcult to simulate the huge number of
clients, the team was able to conduct saturation bandwidth tests to
ensure adequate signal strength and coverage.
The early preparation and careful planning paid off: as LeWeb
attendees began to arrive, the network worked as expected. Given
the high-prole nature of the event, the team continued to monitor
the network carefully during the event. Merakis real-time Dashboard
was the key to knowing that the network was always working. If an
attendee complained, the problem usually turned out to be their PC.
Having condence in the network management tools meant that the
team did not overreact.
The theme for LeWeb 2009 was The Real-Time Web and in order
to deliver that, we needed to make sure everyone could get online,
said Loic LeMeur, LeWeb organizer. People told us that the Wi-Fi
network was one of the best theyd seen.
By the end of the day BTs Meraki network had provided connectivity
to over 2,500 clients, who transferred about 470 GB of data at
speeds of over 300 mbit/s. Most importantly, the network received
glowing reports. Wrote @chrisheuer on Twitter: All other public
wi is a letdown after LeWeb.
LeWeb is one of Europes largest Internet conferences, with over
2,500 attendees from 50 countries. The two day event is sponsored
by prominent web companies including Google, Facebook, and Twitter.
High-quality Internet access is critical to the conference. However,
LeWeb had historically suffered from severe connectivity problems.
From 2006-2008, Le Web did not have the fast, reliable Wi-Fi that
its high prole attendees demanded. For 2009, the conference
organizers brought in BT to make absolutely certain that they had
the connectivity they needed, said Gary Shainberg, VP of BT. I
decided to use Meraki based on my prior experience of using it for
big events, which made me very comfortable it would be able to
deliver, said Gary.
BT had overall responsibility for the network and infrastructure,
while Meraki provided MR14 dual-radio 802.11n access points
and the Meraki Enterprise Cloud Controller. BT also brought in a
1 gbit/s backhaul circuit for the event.
The BT and Meraki teams arrived on-site 3 days before the event
a limited time considering the signicant challenge of planning,
deploying, wiring, installing, and testing a thousand-user network.
The physical layout alone was intimidating. The main 12,000
square-foot hall of Centquatre, a former mortuary in Paris, would
hold over 1,000 attendees with multiple devices each. Another
39,000 square feet of meeting space also needed to be covered.
I decided to use Meraki based on my prior experience of using it for big events, which made me very
comfortable it would be able to deliver,