By akademiotoelektronik, 13/03/2023

Tour de France: fiber, 4G, 5G, technical resources Immersion behind the scenes of a unique race

Alexandre Boero July 12, 2021 at 11:056 am

Present in the Tour de France, Orange has opened its doors to Clubic for an immersion within the technical teams of the operator, who carry out numerous missions that are decisive for the smooth running of the Great Loop. A report intended to highlight the work of these women and men who remain in the shadows of the peloton.

When it comes to summarizing the work carried out by his technical teams on the Tour de France, Henri Terreaux, the major event project manager at Orange, evokes a “spider’s web”, which perfectly describes the thing. Over a little over three weeks, including the two rest days, it is a real itinerant city that moves from region to region, to offer spectators, listeners and television viewers from all over the world a smooth event. But how does this huge machine work?

For more than 24 hours, Clubic had the opportunity to follow the Orange technical teams on stage 11 of the Tour de France 2021, which ran between Sorgues and Malaucène, in Vaucluse. This stage presented a very special aspect since the riders climbed, not once, but twice the mythical slopes of Mont Ventoux, nicknamed Mont Chauve, where the technical teams of Orange, who defy both time and the elements , have often had to perform feats to preserve the good retransmission of the Great Loop. Assembly of the finish line in record time, visit of the technical area, connection to the optical fiber, mobile antennas, management of hazards... We can say that we were served.

Our report at the heart of the Tour de France, behind the scenes of the Grande Boucle with the technical teams from Orange, starts here.

1. The installation of the finish line, the connection to the fiber

At 7:30 am, the finish line and the chronometric point are not yet completely set up (© Alexandre Boero for Clubic)

Tuesday , 6:30 p.m. After taking the train from Marseille, our taxi dropped us off at Malaucène, in the Vaucluse, the arrival town of the 11^th stage of the Tour de France. During a meal, we get to know one of the two technical teams of Orange on the race (while one takes care of the city of arrival, the other takes care of the city of departure of the step).

At 8:30 p.m., some barriers are already installed to filter the public in the arrival area, located directly opposite our hotel (which will not help us sleep well). A little later, around 9:30 p.m., the storm hit Malaucène; it will continue, intermittently, for a good part of the night. But regardless of the weather, the coaches still arrive at the end of the evening and during the night.

After a short night's sleep, at 6:30 a.m., the Orange technicians, led by Henri Terreaux, were busy "connecting the starting line". One of the first operations consists in installing, in the operator's truck, an optical server through which the cameras of France Télévisions and all the other broadcasters will pass. "There are two ways to put the fiber", explains Henri. “We can interconnect it to the network, with a second drawer that will connect us to the Internet. And there will be a fiber referral to the second technical area. The drawer allows a return of 36 optical fibers to our trucks. Around 9 a.m., all the media should tune in here.”

The famous box of 36 fibers (© Alexandre Boero for Clubic)

Malaucène is a very special place for the Orange teams, since it is one of the only ones on this Tour de France to have two zones techniques instead of one. “There are several feats to be achieved here,” Henri Terreaux tells us. “We have additional mobile relays in Malaucène and Mont Ventoux. If there are thousands of spectators, the network will have to hold. And there are the two technical areas, 900 meters apart from each other”.

In the technical area 1, located at the finish line, there are all the structures or elements related to the protocol (podium, videoconference-interview of the runners, timing point). All the images of the finish, those of the protocol in particular, will be sent to the final control rooms, which are located in technical area 2.

Once the two areas are connected and connected to the fiber, the technicians will carry out tests of the DSLAMs (network equipment), which are routed to Rennes and Clermont-Ferrand. “We are now going to get the DSLAM off the ground and see if the routings have been done overnight. Routings are like a marshalling yard, there are automatic scripts that happen at night, around 5 a.m. And if all goes well, we should have high-speed Internet in that area within a quarter of an hour.”

Orange and the Tour de France: the figures to remember

The interior of one of Orange's technical trucks in the Tour de France (© Alexandre Boero for Clubic)

Orange, on the Tour de France 2021 is:

2. Mont Ventoux, a tamed giant... or almost!

Le Ventoux dominates all of Provence (© Sommet du Mont Ventoux)

We were talking a little earlier about Mont Ventoux, the high point of the 11^th stage of the Tour de France, crossed twice consecutively. The Giant of Provence, which dominates the Vaucluse by its height, until you see a refinery of La Mède looking like the Eye of Sauron, tens of kilometers away, constitutes in itself a technological challenge. But it is also an opportunity in terms of connectivity. In the early morning, before the spectators took over, we went to meet Grégory, an Orange technician in charge of supervising the operator's equipment at the top of Ventoux.

On site, at around 1,900 meters above sea level, there is no shortage of antennas. Orange has equipped Mont Chauve with 2G, 3G and 4G antennas. As an infrastructure operator, the company also has its own radio tower, slightly below the summit. There too, there are four antennas (2G, 3G and 4G) which flood customers all around the top. “An antenna sends a signal over 5 to 6 kilometers and over 120°. With the four antennas, we are able to cover both sides,” says Grégory.

On the right is an Orange mobile relay (© Alexandre Boero for Clubic)

The Orange radio tower, which notably houses a brand new generator, is equipped with radio link cards. These cards, powered by the FH antennas, are connected by an optical fiber to a router itself connected by RJ45 to the Nokia mobile cards, which then convert all of this into a radio signal, which is sent up to the mobile antennas, which are located at the top of the Tower, and which play on a wide spectrum of frequencies (800 MHz, 900 MHz, 1,800 MHz, 2,100 MHz and 2,600 MHz).

The Orange teams also have their own weather station on site, equipped with sensors installed on the roof. “It allows us to receive real-time information different from that which we receive by application from Mont Serein, which is still 500 meters lower”.

Mont Ventoux, this "inhospitable place" for Henri Terreaux.

Henri Terreaux (©Alexandre Boero for Clubic)

Clubic: Since you are talking about the weather conditions, can you tell us about Mont Ventoux, famous with Orange and the organization of the Tour. There was, several years ago, an episode that was very difficult to manage...

Henri Terreaux: Mont Ventoux is known for being a summit where nothing grows. It looks like it's snow covered. It is a large all-white dome, with sometimes very intense winds. The last time we went to Ventoux, in 2016, Christian Prudhomme, the director of the Tour de France, called me at 1 a.m. saying “Henri, the riders will not be able to reach the top of Mont Ventoux. The gusts of wind, between 100 and 120 km/h, will not allow the runners to hold on to their bikes, so we decided to descend to Chalet Reynard, 6 kilometers below the summit”.

Between 1 a.m. and 6 a.m., on the slopes of Mont Ventoux in particular, it was necessary to pull optical fibers to ensure broadcasts for television and radio, and so that each viewer and listener could experience the stage and arrival. We finished at 7 am, and when the radio and sound engineers from France Télévisions arrived, everything was able to work, which was a performance, also knowing that below Mont Ventoux, you have the famous Col des Tempêtes , which is aptly named. It remains an inhospitable place, which we cover on the occasion of the arrival, on this mythical summit.

The radio tower of Orange, here at the top of Ventoux (© Alexandre Boero for Clubic)

During the first part of the Tour de France, the weather was not really the ally of the technical teams of Orange, who suffered many showers, and sometimes cold. This makes the task even more difficult, we imagine, and yet it only took a few hours to set up the two technical areas in Malaucène, for example...

In this edition of the Tour de France, the weather from Brest was not very favorable indeed. We suffered stage finishes with torrential rain, all without disturbing the quality of service, without there being a cut in the antenna or even a radio cut. It is also a performance to have this reliability in terms of transmissions.

Two teams are present. As we speak, one has already moved on to the next step, to wire the newsroom. We sometimes finish very late. We have the risk that trucks roll over and damage our cables. The difficulty is that we never know where the trucks and OB vans are going to position themselves at night. We pull between 20 and 25 kilometers of cable every day. We weave a spider's web every morning.

3. Business is good, but on the Tour de France, hazards are never far away

It only took a few hours to set up a real city in the city, here the finish line in Malaucène (© Alexandre Boero for Clubic)

When we come back down from Ventoux to Malaucène, it is just over 9:30 a.m. And the amazement is total. Everything has been set up and installed: finish line, VIP stands, barriers bearing the image of Tour partners, podium, interview area, etc. Even part of the public is already present, so only the runners are missing. But they are not expected on the finish line before 5:20 p.m....

While the first part of the Tour was marred by fairly catastrophic weather, this time the weather is fine. And the spectators, although filtered for several days, are numerous on the slopes of the Giant of Provence. A mass effect that caused connectivity problems, as Henri Terreaux details. “Last year we had finish lines that were empty of spectators, which was a bit sad. We find the fervor along the roads, and we find incredible peaks in traffic ”.

“Today, at the top of Ventoux, on the two climbs, we had more than 100,000 calls and connections in less than an hour. Our two mobile networks have almost reached peak saturation, so as we speak, we are reprogramming, resetting our cells to evacuate all the data and all the voice”.

“We are on a stage with two technical areas, hence a difficulty: we pulled 36 optical fibers for France Télévisions, Eurovision Sport, race data (ASO, the classification part) and the interconnection for our videoconference, which is strategic, since it is about the interviews of the yellow jersey and the winner of the stage. Then we also achieved the performance of putting two temporary mobile relays along the race to serve at least the village of Malaucène. It is the same device that we will put on the Champs-Elysées. Like what, the third sporting event in the world is able to establish itself everywhere, even in a remote village of the Drome”.

4. Fiber, 4G, 5G… the Tour de France, a golden opportunity to connect remote areas

The Mont Ventoux mobile relay (© Alexandre Boero for Clubic)

Clubic: The two mobile relays you were talking about, Henri, are temporary and make it possible to meet the needs of the Tour and its spectators, but Orange also takes advantage of the race to install permanent equipment, right?

Henri Terreaux: Indeed. We are coming to the era of 5G. We had seven cities equipped with 5G on this Tour and have produced and implemented fifth-generation mobile relays. We have also set up 36 permanent mobile relays, which we leave at the end of the Tour, in 4G, to desaturate so-called white areas or slightly remote villages.

As for fiber optics, does it work the same way?

Our wish is for a winning relationship with local authorities and with the organizing company of the Tour, ASO (Amaury Sport Organisation). Last year, at a ski resort like Orcières-Merlette, we put in 17 km of fibre. This year, we are repeating this performance with the Luz-Ardiden station. We dug the assembly over 11 km, laid civil engineering and a fiber to serve the station. It also allows us to “opticalize” our mobile relays. Before, these were on FH (hertzian beam, a very high speed wireless solution that can go up to 100 Mbit / s, editor's note.). This fiber makes it possible to offer speed to the station, while reducing the interventions on bad weather problems which affect the FH networks.

On fiber connections, we tend to gradually move from 1 Gbit/s fibers to 10 Gbit/s fibers, right?

The 1 Giga fiber is almost a thing of the past even if it is a pipe that has allowed us to size the Tour for the past five years. Now we are forced to move to a new dimension, namely much more speeds. Some transmit to 4K or 8K televisions, there are 360° immersions too. All this presages, in the future, a higher definition, more flows, more images and immersion inside the race. The 10 Giga fiber allows us to bring this network dimensioning to the race, and offers us an air bubble for at least three to four years.

In the space of three hours, the landscape has radically changed in Malaucène (© Alexandre Boero for Clubic)

Clubic's final word

This moment spent with the Orange teams will have allowed us to realize that nothing is left to chance and that no matter the place, the weather, the hazards or the dates, the error is not allowed, a trifle can stop this gigantic connected machine. We sincerely thank the operator for opening its doors to us, giving us total freedom (one thing that matters) for our report. Opening its doors in this way is becoming (too) rare, but this is what has allowed us to offer you, we hope, an authentic report.