Wi-Fi on the piste: Is it all downhill from here?

A Wi-Fi network carrying video has been used at the World Nordic Ski Championship in Italy to provide fans present at the event with PDA-based coverage of competitions.

An 11Mbps 802.11b WLAN network was employed at Val di Fiemme, linking to HP iPaqs carried by VIP attendants. The software to stream the events was supplied by mobile video specialists PacketVideo while the overall project was managed by HP.

Patrick Parodi, regional director PacketVideo Europe, said: "It gets exciting when you can tie video to an event where not everyone present can see the action."

The video application could be used at music and other sports events, as well as in business settings such as conferences. Parodi denied streaming video would drown a network that might also be used for vital data applications.

An editorial group in the Val di Fiemme example at a Telecom Italia facility selected clips which were then transmitted by satellite to Wi-Fi networks using PacketVideo's pvServer streaming software. Each PDA used pvPlayer software.