Inside the Belmont Debate

My alma mater is a pretty popular place these days. The second 2008 Presidential debate is being held next week at Belmont University, which is just blocks from our offices at Sitening. There was word on the street that an amazing feat of temporary technology infrastructure was being built just around the corner, so I had to take a peek.  Jason and I got a fantastic tour of everything being brought in and built for the event. Let’s just say the Belmont debate is as good as telecommunications gets. Fiber everywhere. Over 500 dedicated land lines. Generators to run the entire event off the grid. Temporary mobile phone towers. 47 flatscreens in the media tent alone. Enough to make tech geeks like us snicker with glee.

There are over 30 media corrals in the media tent, each one supplying enough room for a cameraman, reporter, and each individually powered and also has a dedicated internet connection. Each work station also has it’s own power supply and internet connection, as well as 29 wireless hubs in the media tent alone. There are war rooms for each party that are exactly the same size, down to the square foot, each also heavily wired with fiber for internet and television. Permanent cell towers were installed in the Curb Event Center so that cell phone traffic can be handled, no matter how deep in the building you go. Is there any way to roll this out to my house once Belmont is done with it?!

A question or two of mine was met with an “I can’t tell you that,” which was kinda fun, but I want to thank our tour guide Paul who gave us a fantastic tour of all things geek for the debate. When you watch the Belmont debate on Tuesday, just remember how much telecom these guys are sitting on. It is geek heaven.

UPDATE: For some awesome behind the scenes photos of the event as it is taking place today, check out Paul’s Flickr stream.

Filed under: Tech Industry