If anyone can appreciate the proliferation of technology it's Moore, a former mathematics professor a Centre who helped create the college's computer science program and the campus network. It didn't take him long to recognize the degree to which the data and telecommunications demands of a major political event has changed in the last decade.
The internet was considered such a luxury in 2000 that the Commission on Presidential Debates didn't even make it a requirement. Back then, the IT¿department worked to patch the campaigns in to the college's own network at the last minute.
Cell phones were not yet appendages, meaning the major undertaking was setting up analog phones similar to the cordless devices most people had in their homes. Political staffers and media types were among the early cell phone adopters, though, and increased demand sent organizers scrambling to find a temporary tower.
That introduced people to large portable antennae on trailers known now as COWs (Cell on Wheels). The major provider at the time, Cingular, didn't quite go the way of the rotary phone, but the brand no longer exists since AT&T purchased the company's owner, BellSouth.
For this year's debate, the college must not simply provide internet access, but also set up two networks completely independent of Centre's own.
As with the electrical system in the debate hall, the debate commission requires redundant capabilities as a fail-safe in case one of the systems goes down.
Hosting the crowd of ravenous bandwidth consumers will require two separate one-gigabit systems, with one provided by AT&T, the other by Time Warner. To put this in perspective, Centre's network services coordinator Shane Wilson says the typical home internet hookup has 10 megabits of bandwidth, or about one-hundredth the capacity of one of those temporary systems.
This time around, the cell phones will be smarter and more plentiful, meaning more COWs with antennae topping 100 feet high will be more common and companies will also bring even larger COLTs (Cell on Light Truck).
"It is a drastically different telecommunications landscape than it was 12 years ago," Wilson said.
Despite the barnyard acronyms, the major cell phone providers — AT&T, T Mobile, Verizon and Sprint will all have a presence — provide a futuristic fix that creates pop-up data capacity that can be used at major events all over the world. Wilson said Danville is fortunate for a town its size to already have more than one cell phone provider with a large tower to help absorb some of the demand.
There is also no substituting one technology for the other, so Wilson said wireless and landline service must be available virtually everywhere someone could want to use a phone. The media center in Sutcliffe Hall alone will have nearly 1000 phone lines and internet hookups.
Moore's focus ahead of this year's debate is primarily working with vendors to get sponsorships and equipment that is too expensive to be purchased for a one-day event. It is often a give-and-take, but Moore said the companies the college deals with on a regular basis have come through big already.
"It's not just physically what you have to have here on hand," Moore said. "You also have to think about where you are going to find it."
Computers and printers must be installed in the dozens of work stations in the media center, as well as the nerve centers established by the campaigns and the multiple layers of post-Sept. 11 security necessary at an event with global implications. Moore notes it is not as simple as asking for a certain number of computers or other equipment, because many of the devices must be configured in specific ways to suit their users.
