Over the past year, Philadelphia has twice played a leading role on the global stage. We said it after the World Meeting of Families and Pope Francis visit, and I’ll say it again now: we could not be more proud of our hometown. This time around, we want to acknowledge the tremendous efforts of the Democratic National Convention Committee, the City of Philadelphia and our Mayor Jim Kenney (especially our local police under the leadership of Commissioner Richard Ross), the Secret Service, the Department of Homeland Security, the Convention Host Committee under the leadership of former Mayor and Governor Ed Rendell, and countless others who worked together to pull off a seamless and safe week of events and celebrations for more than 50,000 guests who descended on the city.
I particularly want to thank our employees at Comcast for their hard work in helping to host the most technologically advanced national political convention ever. All politics aside, it was amazing to see our employees working in tandem with all the media and event teams to create an experience convention-goers will never forget. Thousands of employees worked around the clock and over multiple weekends to do their part to ensure things went as smoothly as possible.
Since Philadelphia is our headquarters city, we were in a unique position to help pitch in with our technology and knowhow. Comcast Business served as the official "Broadband and Telecommunications Provider" for the main event at the Wells Fargo Center, and also for the affiliated locations at the Pennsylvania Convention Center and Sheraton Hotel where media, delegates, and others convened.
We serviced hundreds of accounts and thousands of media outlets, set up tens of thousands of pieces of customer premises equipment, and installed more than 25 miles of network plant in the Wells Fargo Center and surrounding area (creating a total of more than 900 miles of individual strands of fiber). Through the network, we delivered a redundant 100 Gigabit-per-second connection that made certain there was more than enough broadband capacity for everyone.
To support the reliable delivery of services during the DNC, our technical teams employed a range of creative safeguards, including maintaining a 24x7 "war room" staffed with multiple operational disciplines to provide dedicated on-site support and intelligence. We also partnered with Ciena to build specialized engineering trailers to house equipment in crucial locations and we created physical and virtual Network Operations Centers to monitor the network around the clock and be prepared to respond quickly if something went wrong. In addition, we deployed roving technical teams throughout the event and staffed 10 help desk locations inside and outside the arena so we could troubleshoot issues in real time. Last but not least, our Comcast Spectacor team at the Wells Fargo Center did a stellar job hosting their second political convention. (The location was also the site of the 2000 Republican Convention.)
Around Philadelphia, we added around 300 new outdoor Wi-Fi hotspots throughout high-traffic areas like Center City, University City, Fishtown, and Northern Liberties. We made more than 10,000 Xfinity WiFi hotspots in outdoor and small business locations free for anyone to use from July 21 - 28. We also deployed two, first-of-their-kind, mobile Wi-Fi vans, called Xfinity WiFi on Wheels, that each provided fast Wi-Fi for upwards of 3,000 users. People took full advantage of these connections. In addition, for fans of politics around the country, our Video On Demand team was also hard at work loading our X1 platform with hundreds of hours of content from conventions ranging from 1948 all the way up to the current national conventions in Cleveland and Philadelphia.
The DNC presented our teams with unique challenges and they delivered. I want to take this opportunity to publicly congratulate all of our employees who did their part to bring home another major success for Philadelphia. As a proud corporate citizen of this great city, I also want to thank everyone – from Congressman Bob Brady for his initial passion for hosting this convention, to Mayor Nutter’s leadership through the bid phase, to Mayor Kenney’s continuous commitment to making this the best convention in the history of the Democratic Party, and to Governor Tom Wolf’s help and support. We put on a great show.