Smart City Wires Pittsburgh for G-20

On most days, events coming in and out of the SMG-managed David L. Lawrence Convention Center in Pittsburgh range from the Pittsburgh Auto Show to the Society for the Study of Reproduction Annual Meeting to even a dog show.

But, come Sept. 24-25, the center will be hosting a much more high-profile event – the G-20 (Group of Twenty) Global Economic Summit.

Thousands of delegates from all across the world, including 20 finance ministers, central bank governors, their staff and more than 3,000 media are expected to fill the center for the two-day event.

However, with the higher profile and the weighty economic topics at hand, it's also a necessity for everyone to stay connected at all times, whether by Internet or phone. For that, the center turned to Smart City Networks, its in-house telecommunications provider.

“Obviously, we're pleased and honored to be working with the city of Pittsburgh and SMG on this event,” said Mark Haley, Smart City Networks president. “Smart City Networks has extensive experience in providing superior telecommunications services for high-profile events across the county.”

Even so, he added, there would be extra pressure with this event. “On the one hand, it's what we do, and, on the other hand, we will have to work a little harder once the spotlight is on us,” Haley said.

The Allegheny County Sports & Exhibition Authority, which owns the center, recently renewed Smart City's contract and David Langford, Smart City's vice president of technology, said he and his team are hard at work on the technical design of what needs to be done and “getting all of their ducks in a row.”

He added, “(The technical design) is based on the expected capacity required, so we have to build the church for Christmas.”

That capacity includes an estimated 3,000 to 4,000 delegates, plus the 3,000-plus media, which translates to a lot of phone lines and wireless-connection capabilities.

“The press are very demanding users,” Langford said. “They want to be the first to report a news item.”

To meet that demand, Cisco equipment will be brought in that will increase the connection speed to the Internet tenfold, from 100MB per second to 1GB per second, he added.

In addition, the wireless network will be expanded from only being available in public spaces to being available everywhere in the center, Langford said.

According to Mark Leahy, SMG's general manager of the center, AT&T also will put an antennae on the building to make sure its customers get adequate cell phone coverage. And, there will be between 1,000 and 1,500 hard phone lines for people to use.

In other words, there will be a lot of ways to stay in touch.

Now, the biggest challenge is time.

Smart City is no slouch, having provided telecommunications services for various large-scale national and international events, including the G-8 Summit, as well as Republican and Democratic Natl. Conventions.

Still, Haley said, “It's just going to be making sure we have all the information we need as far in advance as possible. We don't want to leave anything until the last minute.”

Leahy added, “We have our work cut out for us, not only preparing for a 4,000-person conference, but also for 20 heads of state and the security that goes with that.”

In most cases, Haley said, Smart City employees are used to moving around the center wherever they need to without any special clearances. “Now, they will have to go through checkpoints,” he added. “We will have to plan it out. It's not like the (Pittsburgh) Auto Show where you can just go across the building.”

Also, Haley said, Smart City is working closely with the Secret Service to ensure they have dedicated phone lines.

It's not just Smart City that's hard at work either. VisitPittsburgh, the city's convention and visitors bureau, is charged with finding 6,000-plus hotel rooms for all the G-20 attendees.

“It's really going to be daunting,” said Craig Davis, VisitPittsburgh's vice president of sales. “There are new and different requests every day, but we have the wherewithal to get it done.”

Even with all the hard work, everyone recognizes that the summit will raise the profile of several entities involved, including the city itself, the convention center and Smart City.

“Pittsburgh's ability to draw the G-20 gives the city credibility,” Davis said. “It shows we can handle these types of important groups.”

Leahy said Pittsburgh was chosen by President Obama for the summit because of its ability to rise out of the ashes of a dying steel and manufacturing industry and reinvent its economy.

He pointed out the city has branched into the medical and educational sectors, as well as being the third-largest location for green jobs.

Besides the economic renaissance the city has experienced, Leahy said, the fact that the David L. Lawrence CC is Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design gold-certified by the U.S. Green Building Council also caught the White House's eye.

“Finally, all this green stuff has paid off,” he added. “We can showcase to the rest of the world what we are doing.”

Davis said hosting the G-20 also will prove to other events that “if our city is good enough for the G-20, it's good enough for you.”

Haley, too, said he sees the benefits to being able to show the meetings and tradeshow industry that Smart City can pull off such a technological feat.

“It certainly gives us another bullet in our gun,” he added.