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Wifi malfunction hits Asiad venues

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2006-11-30 10:01

An official walks down the stairs outside 'Aspire', a sports complex for the 15th Asian Games, in Doha November 27, 2006. [Reuters]

Wifi failure hit all venues of the Doha Asian Games here Wednesday morning when the competitions were ongoing in the capital city of Qatar.

The network problems were not solved until 11 o'clock (local time) and all reporters covering the quadrennial events failed to connect their laptop to any websites nor to send any reports out through the internet.

"I'm sorry to bother you with the wifi malfunction, but we're not the only stadium having this trouble," said Machal, who's in charge of the internet technical management office at the Al Arabi Sports Club, where the Asiad table tennis events started on Wednesday morning.

"The Qtel just informed that all the Asian Games halls covering this signal have met some problems in Doha, and they are trying to solve it as soon as possible," she said, referring to the IT supporting company of the Doha Asiad.

The wifi in hall was fixed to work in nearly an hour after the network incident occurred, though the organizers promised to solve it in 10 to 15 minutes.

It was not the first hardware hitch at the Doha Asiad, as the P2 building, where 2,000 journalists and photographers settled in, had run out of power for over two hours Tuesday morning.