Photos: Millennium Dome gets a makeover

Japanese technology firm NEC has provided the network infrastructure for the whole building. Pictured here is one of the four communications rooms that keep everything running smoothly. The equipment is based on NEC Philips telephony systems and Cisco switches. The complex contains 15,000km of category-5 cable for the LAN alone, as well as about 100km of fibre.

All the venues and shops within the complex rely on a total of 72 servers, located in three server rooms. NEC claims there is a one-minute failover between each server room. Two of these rooms are located on the premises and the third is based externally. Each room contains a storage unit of about 24TB, which can be upgraded to 75TB.

Because the complex contains a lot of concrete and steel, there are around 400 wireless access points (based on 802.11b/g technology) dotted around the building for VoIP and general connectivity, with 100 in the arena alone.