ComptelPLUS Fall15 Show Daily Day 1

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COMPTEL PLUS Fall 2015 Business Expo
Beka Publishing, COMPTELPlus | Monday, October 19, 2015 27
DAY 1
Wilcon to Provide Fiber for eSports Arena’s Live Event Space
As the video game industry’s live competi-
tion format continues to explode, West
Coast telecom provider Wilcon and live
event space eSports Arena have partnered on
connectivity for the space, kicking off with a live
video game tournament.
High-speed Internet streaming and fiber-optic
infrastructure was provided by Wilcon for the event.
“The gaming industry is thriving and
expanding in new ways every day,” said Jon
DeLuca, CEO of Wilcon. “We believe eSports
Arena is at the forefront of live event gaming,
and we know that an extremely high level of
ultra-broadband access is needed for its busi-
ness to run at optimum speed. This partnership
with Wilcon is sure to help both eSports Arena
and, subsequently, the local economic vitality of
Santa Ana.”
Competitive video game events are the focal
point of eSports Arena’s 15,000 square-foot
space, with 64 gaming consoles, 120 gaming PC
stations and occupancy for nearly 1,000 people.
The community space offers opportunities for
amateur and professional gamers to create teams
and join leagues, or for programming developers
to test new products. An in-house production
facility is also onsite.
“Nowhere else will you be able to get the type
of Internet we have, thanks to Wilcon,” said Tyler
Endres, co-founder and COO of eSports Arena. “We
are set up as a turn-key operation, an entertain-
ment complex for any style of event. So if there’s
one word describing our technology needs, it’s
reliability. No gamer likes Internet lag during a
streaming tournament, andWilcon is making sure
nothing interferes with our bandwidth.”
This first location for eSports Arena may be
joined by others; it has expansion plans targeting
Northern California and Austin, Texas, potentially
happening in 2016.
Los Angeles-basedWilcon, with 3,000 miles of
fiber and access to 55 data centers across Southern
California, has seen strong growth in Orange
County, most recently partnering with Chapman
University to create a fiber-optic highway among
the University’s multiple campuses. Wilcon’s collab-
oration with eSports Arena continues the trend as
the company focuses on delivering its data services
to businesses in the Southland.
The deal is timely. eSports, or organized, multi-
player video gaming competitions, are rapidly
expanding in popularity on a global scale. eSports
video, live and on-demand programming that
presents organized gaming competitions, is also
on the rise. The market also includes content
directly related to those events, such as highlights
and pre-game shows.
According to data provided by NewZoo, global
eSports viewership stands at more than 226
million people, with the total expected to climb
to 323 million by 2018. A cross platform growth
report from IHS calculates that viewers watched
2.4 billion hours of eSports video in 2013, almost
double the figure for 2012. The analyst predicts
this figure will rise to 6.6 billion in 2018, with
online video viewership key to growth.
“Several factors are contributing to the surge
in eSports viewing,” IHS noted in the report.
“These include the fact that key game titles
have reached maturity, and game publishers are
taking a major role in promoting eSports compe-
titions. Furthermore, eSports viewing has been
boosted by the emergence of online video plat-
forms that are capable of handling large-scale
live audiences.” o