The Convention Centre Dublin

A diverse internet connection that consists of a dual connection.

Connectivity speeds of 100MB

Since it first opened its doors in 2010, The Convention Centre Dublin (The CCD) has stood at the epicentre of the international conference industry, hosting over 1,000 events in under five years.

Past clients include large global corporates such as SAP, Intel, Google, KMPG, Fujitsu and Investec, while Dublin Comic Con, the Linux Foundation Open Summit, the HP Enterprise Technology and Solutions Summit are just a few of the events that will take place at The CCD this year.

Apart from attracting some of the most prestigious events in the international business tourism market, The CCD also holds an important position in Irish society — having hosted 100 Citizenship Ceremonies on behalf of the Irish Naturalisation and Immigration Service.

“We are constantly looking to see where the market is going in the next three to five years, and what effects technological changes are having on the industry,” explains Robert.

“An area we are constantly seeing change in is wireless connectivity, and we have recently upgraded our systems to grow with this trend”.

The CCD is Wi-Fi enabled to the very latest connectivity standards (802.11ac), allowing visitors to connect and stay in touch with work or search for useful information while attending an event at The CCD.

The centre’s infrastructure can support up to 12,000 devices across the venue. In addition, The CCD can create custom wireless solutions to meet the particular needs of different clients, including custom SSIDs, passwords and landing pages, which clients often use as sponsorship opportunities.

When choosing a service provider, the keyword for The CCD is ‘flexible’.

“We can also provide micro-telecoms services to CCD clients, including voice and broadband access as well as other data services,” Robert elaborates.

“Everyone wants more bandwidth because they want to do bigger and greater things and sometimes clients bring in their own circuit from Virgin Media and we provide support. We want to be able to work with our clients’ infrastructure, and we want them to be able to work with our existing infrastructure. We need to be flexible.

Virgin Media provides The CCD with a diverse internet connection that consists of a dual connection: The fibres delivering the separate connections never cross each other thus ensuring continued internet service if one of the connections goes down. The CCD only uses one of these connections at a time.

According to Robert, this is something that delegates are starting to expect as a standard and not a luxury when choosing their venue. “Within our internet access we have what is called a diverse redundant path from Virgin Media. This service sees two different fibres come into the building from two different parts of the city. This gives us a great redundancy system. If our main connection went down, we would automatically roll onto our back up service. It’s something our lager scale clients look for when choosing a conference venue.”

The CCD has a reputation for best utilising its position in the Dublin skyline to project captivating, often event-specific, graphic displays on its outer structure for the whole city to see. Among these, the visual display for the Brian O’Driscoll testimonial dinner is one of the most talked about examples. Use of this service falls under the remit of The CCD’s highly professional AV team and has its own set of specific technical requirements.

To date The CCD has won 27 industry awards, including the Meeting & Incentive Travel (M&IT) Gold Award for Best Overseas Conference Centre, which is has won for four consecutive years. Widely recognised as one of Europe’s most popular conference venues, The CCD continues to position Ireland on the world stage by bringing an exciting range of international events to Dublin, and generating valuable business tourism revenue for the local economy.