Sun
GLENN BAGLO/VANCOUVER SUN It’s a leisurely if noisy way to tour the sites of the 2010 Winter Olympics and Vancouver obliges with a warm, clear spring day that affords an unobstructed view.
From the gondola of the Bell Lightship, Norm Silins looks down Tuesday on what will be his domain for the next five years.
Silins directs the pilot to take the blimp first to the University of B.C., then over to Cypress Bowl, then back to the city core.
As it does so, he points out each of the 2010 Olympic venues for which he will oversee the build-out of the telecommunications infrastructure that will not only wire that athletic world together for two weeks, but aid in bringing it to Vancouver and the globe.
The entire solution offered by Bell will be one based on Internet protocol, a first for the Olympics, said Silins, who is the general manager in charge of the overall telecom solution for 2010.
“All the finished services for 2010 will be IP,” said Silins. “So it’s going to be voice and data, all the Internet services, all the broadcast and the audio services.”
What that does is it parallels the evolution of Bell Canada, said Silins in an interview.
“We’re turning our company into an all-IP company in parallel to the delivery of services to the Games,” said Silins.
Silins said that recently Bell has been working with broadcasters to provide solutions for them and has been building its infrastructure.
“And our infrastructure is centred on building our fibre-optic connectivity to all the venues, building our fibre-optic connectivity from Vancouver to Whistler and building out our wireless services.”
Silins added that Bell is working with the architects and the Vancouver Olympics Organizing Committee to plan the access and services at all the venues.
“Where we have the opportunity to build new we’re particularly interested because we can really enhance the service offering by building conduit and access paths that are tailored specifically to the events of the Olympics, as well as left for legacy,” said Silins. “We’re very focussed not only for delivering for 2010, but also for what legacy we’re going to leave in communities.”
Silins said that predicting the technology that will be available for use in 2010 is difficult.
“We do know one thing and that is that the services we deploy for the Games will be reliable, tested and true,” said Silins. “Two years prior to the Games all services have to be fully beta tested, so reliability is of paramount importance.
© The Vancouver Sun 2005