Unsporting? No porn @ Games Village

A massive electronic network of computers will “protect” the 8,000 athletes and team officials staying at the Commonwealth Games Village from “inappropriate” content on the Internet whenever they log in.

A massive electronic network of computers will “protect” the 8,000 athletes and team officials staying at the Commonwealth Games Village from “inappropriate” content on the Internet whenever they log in.

HT Image

Those staying at the Village — near the Akshardham Temple — will not be allowed to access pornography, sundry downloads and gaming websites prone to contain malware and the like, not just at the internal cyber cafes but also on their own laptops if they use the Games WiFi network, sources at the Organising Committee (OC) said.

In fact to keep the network “clean”, firewalls will be programmed to filter a predetermined list of objectionable sites and other streaming content.

Accessories like headsets and microphones will not be provided in the cafes.

“While we cannot disturb the privacy of Internet users, we cannot also allow them to access content that is objectionable in the eyes of law,” said a senior Organising Committee (OC) official.

No resident will be allowed to be logged in for more than 30 minutes at a time, after which they will be automatically signed out.

The IT requirement at the Village is so huge that the organisers are considering establishing a bandwidth of 300-500 megabytes-per-second (Mbps) of data transfer. An average domestic Internet connection has the speed of only 1 Mbps, and that is considered fast.

“Around 300 kms of cables are being laid at all the competition venues and the Village. It’s a huge IT requirement,” Lalit Bhanot, secretary general of the OC told HT.

State-run telecom major Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL) has been assigned providing the complete cabling and Internet solutions.