The Dakar Rally is widely considered to be the most gruelling competition in motorsports. This is because the competition requires participants to travel thousands of kilometers across rough, off-road terrain. The Dakar Rally 2020 is the 42nd edition of the Dakar Rally and it took place in the deserts of Saudi Arabia for the very first time. The race started in Jeddah on January 5th, 2020 and finished 12 stages and nearly 8,000km later in Qiddiyah. This year’s Dakar Rally included 351 vehicles and 557 participants from 53 different countries.
Challenge
The Dakar Rally 2020 is the first edition of it in the largest country in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia. Therefore, the route explores the vast expanses of Saudi Arabia’s deserts. Due to this, drivers and crews will face 5,000km of stages, of which 5 are longer than 450km. All of which is in a country where the desert is king. This means that over 75% of the race will be on sand.
It is in this context that the journalist Franco Iannone turned to Know IT for a connectivity solution. He needed a solution that would guarantee him a fast and reliable internet connection even while in the desert. That way he can always be online to give live testimonials to viewers during the race.
Solution
Know IT’s solution for Iannone consists of a Peplink dual modem router, MAX Transit Duo LTE-A, and two antennas. The MAX Transit Duo LTE-A is a versatile and powerful router with two category 6 modems and redundant SIM slots. For example, each modem can have 1 active SIM and 1 back up SIM for a total of 4 SIMs. Due to this, Iannone can use up to 4 different operators to ensure the best network coverage. In addition, SpeedFusion is able to aggregate bandwidth and provide reliability. This allows Iannone to easily share content such as photos and videos directly to social media like Instagram, Youtube, and Facebook.
Result
As a result, Franco Iannone was able to share every step of his Dakar Rally journey with his viewers. Sharing photos, videos, updates, news, and interviews were all quick and jitter-free thanks to the solution that Iannone had. In addition, accurate GPS tracking and SpeedFusion allowed Know IT to remotely manage devices. so that Iannone can focus on what he loves.
Deployment
- MAX Transit Duo LTE-A with 4 SIM cards for unbreakable connectivity.
- 2 antennas for improved coverage range for cellular connections.
- Two 5V (2A) micro-USB ports for power; making it completely portable.
- SpeedFusion technology such as Bandwidth Bonding and WAN Smoothing for jitter-free live streams.
