Speed Limit 100Gbps – Cisco CRS-3 and Altibox Powers World’s Fastest Computer Party

By Stephen Liu

What do you get when you combine 5000+ gamers, a 100GE uplink to the Internet, a lot of espresso machines, and no parents to tell them to shut down the noise or go to bed early? A whole lot of fun!

The Gathering (“TG”), is Norway’s largest computer party and kicked off today for its 20th time since 1992. It’s grown so large now that it is held at one of the venues used for the 1994 Winter Olympics. TG continues to attract growing interest to the gaming, computer, and entertainment event, both nationally and internationally and is organized by the non-profit organization KANDU (Kreativ Aktiv Norsk DataUngdom/Creative Active Norwegian Computer Youth). This year it’s powered at record speed by a Cisco CRS-3 router connected to The Gathering’s Internet provider, Altibox at 100 Gbps, along with technical support provided by several of Cisco Norway’s engineers, Merete Asak and Bjornar Forthun.

This isn’t the first time the CRS has played a key role in a Scandinavian gaming conference. The Swedes used our 40G technology in 2007 at their Dreamhack event as we discussed (and video here), but now this has raised the performance bar.

Although they probably won’t be playing Cisco’s award winning myPlanNet game, they’ll still enjoy others such as StarCraft, Quake, and Heroes of Newerth. Participants also participate in creative competitions in programming, graphics, and music.

As one would expect to befit a computer party, the engineers proudly posted their network implementation on the Internet and even gave us a great testimonial:


This year our sponsors really have stepped up to the plate by delivering a 100 Gigabit/s internet access with a kickass network to make sure we can enjoy the amazing capacity.

As part of our SP marketing team I’ve got to say I really like the phrase “Cisco - Builds Kickass Networks” but I don’t think it will get past our branding or legal departments, even if the CRS-3 is the only vendor currently to support a fully standards-compliant, single-flow 100GE link. If you are in Norway this week and you are really in the mood to play “Call of Duty” on a very low ping network stop by The Gathering for some CRS-3 enabled fast gaming action!