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Xirrus, the peerless leader in high-performance wireless networks, announced today that it had deployed its wireless arrays across the course of the Tour de France 2012. The deployment was handled by a coalition of the French Operation Division of Orange (News - Alert) Events and NBC which holds exclusive coverage rights on the event.

Orange and NBC chose Xirrus because of its unmatched performance, scalability and reliability. No other network has a track record of delivering wired-like performance for thousands of consumer electronics devices like smartphones, tablets, laptops and cameras that will be used during the 21-stage race to access and share race standings, statistics and media. In addition to the race officials, the Xirrus network will be supporting 125 TV broadcasters, 2300 journalists, 70 radio stations, and 450 newspapers all of which need to transfer huge numbers of media-rich electronic communication throughout the Tour.

"Orange is focused on providing the Tour de France, NBC Sports, government dignitaries, and thousands of media professionals during the race with reliable, high-performance wireless connectivity. Xirrus makes it easy to support the thousands of devices, simultaneously transferring large amounts of video and photo files through a robust network that, due to the race, must be redeployed on a daily basis, across 21 cities, in extreme environments. The array-based platform is the most powerful and trusted solution we've tested, and very quick to set-up," said Henri Terreaux, Events Projects Manager at the French Operation Division of Orange.

The claim of "like-wired" performance is a tall order, but Xirrus does have a long list of satisfied customers to testify about their network's speed and density. The Tour de France is one of the most difficult technical challenges on its kind. Xirrus is expecting upwards of 100 million internet connected devices over the course of the three-week event. Just like the cyclists, at the end of the Tour de France, Xirrus will either be king of the wireless networking world, or not.

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