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Verizon Puts DAS Network Into Miami’s New Ballpark

April 4, 2012 by

An example of a Distributed Antenna System (DAS) antenna atop a light pole. Credit: Sidecut Reports.

Verizon Wireless announced it has installed a Distributed Antenna System (DAS) inside the new Marlins Park in Miami, to better serve fans who want to use their Verizon phones and tablets at the games.

Though Verizon also notes that its new 4G LTE wireless network is up and running in the Miami area, big crowds with cellphones can easily swamp the regular cellular network in and around stadiums. One of the steps providers like Verizon and AT&T are now taking is using DAS deployments to install a number of small cellular antennas inside and outside arenas, to provide more connection points.

While today’s press release doesn’t try as hard as previous ones, it is still interesting that Verizon tries to make good news about the fact that their previous network installation simply can’t handle the new demands of the always-connected fan. Still, any capacity increases are good news for the fans who have in the past been frustrated by the lack of connectivity at the ballpark.

Here’s a look at the new ballpark, with its fish tanks and retractable roof.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, AT&T, Baseball, iPad, iPhone, Major League Baseball, Wi-Fi Tagged With: , , , , ,

Mobile Sports Report TechWatch: Microsoft to Conquer China?

March 26, 2012 by


RIM takes steps to expand app library
Research in Motion, struggling to remain relevant in the smartphone space has started seeding software developers with an early version of its next generation BlackBerry 10 device. The move is designed to help jump start the software app space, an area that the company has lagged its major platform operating system rivals Apple iOS and Google’s Android.

The company plans to provide developers that attend its annual BlackBerry World conference that will be held in Orlando, Fla. in May with the prototype, called the BlackBerry 10 Dev Alpha. The company expects to deliver the final version of the BlackBerry 10 late this year.

The company also has helped refund the BlackBerry Partners Fund II that is being run by Relay Ventures, but that fund will also look to fund app developers on rival platforms, something that it did not do in the first round of funding.

Mobile security increasingly in legislators’ cross-hairs
Going hand in glove with the increasing news about apps and ads stealing personal data are legislators seeking to get involved. A pair of congressmen has sent letters to 34 social apps develops for Apple’s iOS platform asking about their information collection and use practices

The companies included Apple, Twitter, Foursquare, Hipster, Linkedin, Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram and the letters were sent by Energy and Commerce Committee Ranking Member Henry A. Waxman and Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade Subcommittee Ranking Member G. K. Butterfield.

This request is separate from the one launched a week ago from U.S. Senator Charles Schumer who has asked the FTC to look into the manner Google and Apple’s operating systems run and f they violate users privacy.

In a somewhat related note Pinterest has changed and updated its terms of service, acceptable use and its privacy rules-in part to help prevent copyright material from being pasted onto pinboards.

iPad eats data plans due to streaming video
This is no real surprise to anyone that has used their smartphone or a tablet to watch live streaming video over a cellular network- data plan limits are just demolished often resulting in costly bills and the need for additional capacity.

One of the selling points of the latest iPad was its ability to connect to high speed LTE networks, and with that comes the ability to watch sports and news programs live over the network in great clarity due to the device’s high resolution screen capabilities.

One study has found that the downloading of a single HD movie download could cost as much as $50, and could cause throttling to ensue from the carrier. Of course all a user needs to do to avoid this issue is ensure that they are using a Wi-Fi connection rather than a cellular one.


Boombox the fasted adopted technology?
An interesting little factoid over at The Atlantic, which they culled from the ever popular Journal of Management and Marketing Research shows that among consumer electronics technologies that have been introduced in the last 50 years, the fastest to see wide spread adoption after 7 years on the market was the boombox with an over 60% market penetration. Boy that is a bet I would have lost. The next four are CD Player, DVD Player, VCR and portable CD Player.

Use your smartphone primarily as a camera? HTC wants you.
HTC has just shown a new smartphone, the HTC X One, a model that can take as manay as 4 four digital photos a second. The phone, powered by a quad-core processor and featuring a 4.7-inch screen can also snap photos while the user is viewing video.

The iPhone 5 is coming!
And already the rumors are flying! We will try and avoid doing weekly updates on the rumors, but I do wonder if Apple will follow the example it set with the latest iPad, simply calling it an iPad rather than iPad 3. Will the next iPhone be simply known as iPhone? Could be.

Microsoft to conquer China first
I guess that Microsoft is not taking Vizzini’s advice about never get involved in a land war in Asia. The company’s executives are claiming that its Windows Phone operating system will enable it to pass Apple’s iPhone in market share in China.

With low cost options available from its partners that come in significantly lower than Apple’s offerings the company said that it will first surpass Apple and then will have its sights set on the Android space, which it believes it will also surpass, at some unnamed point in the future.

The importance of the Chinese market should not be underestimated since it is now the world’s largest market for smartphones even though its market penetration is significantly lower than in the United States.

Will American’s really lose $30 billion worth of phones this year?
They will if you believe a piece in Silicon Angle. That is a lot of phones. I have no idea how accurate that info is, but I will say I have found an iPhone 4 and a phone from Nokia in the last two weeks.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, Android, Apple, Apps, AT&T, FTC, HTC, iPad, iPhone, Microsoft, Smartphone, Tablets Tagged With: , , , ,

Verizon Updates IndyCar App

March 23, 2012 by

Verizon Wireless announced an update to its exclusive IndyCar Mobile app, which gives Verizon subscribers with Apple iOs devices or Android devices the ability to now watch races live from the driver’s viewpoint, or to see a live view of the track and where racers are, among other features.

The new app has a long list of features, but here are the ones we like best: the ability to “see the real-time position of every car across the track during every race,” and to “watch the race from the driver’s seat and see the intensity first hand.” The driver’s view screen could be a great “second screen” app to fans watching the races live on TV.

Free to Verizon subscribers with qualifying high-end phones or tablets, the IndyCar Mobile 3.0 app is available for download now, in advance of the IndyCar season opening race Sunday in St. Petersburg, Fla. As usual, any data downloads you incur will count against your monthly data package. To see the official press release go here, or you can get more info from the Verizon promotion page. Official download instructions are:

To download the latest version of INDYCAR Mobile, customers with an active data plan on their Android or iOS devices can dial “**INDY (**4639).” Customers with Android tablets such as the Motorola XOOM™, DROID XYBOARD tablets by Motorola or the Samsung Galaxy Tab™ 10.1 or 7.7 can search for “Indycar” in the Google Play Store (formerly known as Android Market™).

Filed Under: 4G LTE, Indy 500, Verizon Wireless Tagged With: , , , , ,

Tablet or iPad + Wi-Fi = Mobile Sports Nirvana

March 8, 2012 by

One of the interesting features of the new Apple iPad it its inclusion of a 4G LTE communications chip, which will let the device connect directly with the high-speed wireless networks now being built by Verizon Wireless and AT&T in the U.S. While that’s great news for tablet users who want more power on the go, for mobile sports fans a Wi-Fi connection is going to remain the wireless link of choice going forward.

Why? Because data rates for 4G LTE are still too high to make cellular-only usage an option, especially if you want to give the tablet a regular full-game workout. There’s no set way yet to measure exactly how much cellular data you use when you are viewing live video because the answer depends on a lot of variables, including video resolution rate, your distance from the nearest cell tower, and the strength of the signal. But the bottom line for sports fans is that if you want to use the tablet exclusively for sports consumption, the smart move is to find a Wi-Fi signal whenever you can.

And since more stadiums are now putting Wi-Fi inside, bringing your tablet or iPad to the game is going to become as much a no-brainer as “buying peanuts on the outside,” to coin a phrase you hear outside Wrigley. Within the next few years we are guessing that most teams will start to implement some kind of “stadium app,” which delivers custom content and in-stadium-only goodies like multiple camera angles or replays. The old days of people wringing their hands over whether or not devices should be at games are over. The new future is folks bringing a tablet or iPad and taking it out to watch an occasional memorable replay, or to look up stats. Or to order a cold one, and have it waiting at an express window.

On the couch, the tablet is going to become as ubiquitous as the remote — hell, it might even replace the remote at some point in the future when cable providers like Comcast get their act together. Though the live streaming of the Super Bowl this year wasn’t a tremendous experience, we are betting that this year’s Masters coverage online will really move the ball forward when it comes to having a complementary viewing option. And the tablet format — big enough screen to be exciting, small enough to carry around easily — is just going to keep getting bigger, with or without a 4G LTE connection.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, Apple, AT&T, Super Bowl, Tablets, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi Video Streaming Tagged With: , , , , ,

Apple Delivers Latest iPad — 4G LTE Connectivity and Tremendous Resolutions are Hallmarks

March 7, 2012 by

Apple has taken the wraps off of its latest iPad, chock full of new features from a high end display to faster 4G connectivity as the company seeks to maintain its huge lead in the tablet market, a space that had languished for years until Apple’s entrance two years ago.

With typical panache Apple did not give the latest offering in its iPad family a name such as iPad 3 or iPad HD as had been expected but rather called it the iPad all day as the company laid out the newest features in its latest offering.

The iPad is powered by an A5X quad core processor, similar to what powered the iPad 2 and the iPhone but which has been modified to better run high end graphics. It will need that graphics power with the Retina display that enables 2048 x 1536 pixel resolution. To give you an idea of how this compares to earlier models, this is 4x the number of pixels in the iPad 2.

It includes a 5MP iSight camera that has the ability to capture 1080HD video and the iPad can play back 1080p video. There is also a second, much lower end rear facing camera that has 0 .3MP capability for video chat.

Two of Apple’s carrier partners, AT&T and Verizon will be selling 4G LTE versions of the iPad but no word yet if its third iPhone partner, Sprint will sell one when its network is up to that level. The coverage now available includes support for HSPA+ and DC-HSDPA, so that both CDMA and GSM iPad users have the ability to easily roam internationally.

Apple did not port Siri, its voice technology so popular on its iPhones to the iPad but the device does support diction and note taking verbally. Apple claims that a user should be able to get 10 hours of battery life.

The new iPad Wi-Fi models will be available in black or white on Friday, March 16 for $499 for the 16GB model, $599 for the 32GB model and $699 for the 64GB model. iPad Wi-Fi + 4G for either AT&T or Verizon will be available for $629 for the 16GB model, $729 for the 32GB model and $829 for the 64GB model. In addition Apple has cut ithe price of its existing iPad 2, which will now start $399.

As Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO took center stage at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco he received a very different reception that the late Steve Jobs did just about two years ago when he debuted the original iPad.

Hard to remember now the cynicism and disdain that the original was greeted with. Remember all of the bad iPad jokes? People claiming that they could see no real use for them? Now flash forward a bit more than two years and market researchers are claiming there is a pent up demand for this product.

Apple now refers to this as the post-PC world and well they should. Cook said that the company sold 172 million post-PC products which accounted for 76% of the company’s revenue.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, Apple, Apps, AT&T, iPad, iPhone, Sprint, Tablets, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi Tagged With: ,

Sprint brings Streaming TV to iPhone –Including Live Sports!

February 29, 2012 by

Apple iPhone users have finally caught up with smartphone users powered by Android and Windows phone users – they can now get a wide package of streaming TV offers that include both free and premium channels from Sprint on their phones, if they are Sprint users of course.

The basic program is free with most data plans and additional packages will range from $4.99 to $9.99 a month and come in wide range of options tailored for everybody from news junkies, sports and comedy fans and also has 20 stations for the Spanish speaking market.

The basic Sprint TV has 15 channels including live sports and news as well as daytime, primetime and kids entertainment channels. Included are ESPN Mobile TV ABC and NBC News, Disney Channel, Entertainment Tonight, Access Hollywood, The Weather Channel and a variety of shows such as CSI, NCIS, The Office, and 30 Rock.

On top of the basic services are a number of premium offerings with Sprint TV Xtra, that includes a number of cable and news programming such as FOX Sports, FOX News, ABC Family, MTV, Discovery Channel, , Nickelodeon and more, all for just $9.99 monthly.

It is servicing the business market with a $5.99 monthly package that includes live and on-demand business and financial news and a $7.99 Spanish language package that has 20 channels including programming from Univision, Telemundo, ESPN Deportes, Azteca America and others. There are a number of additional packages available as well.

Now iPhone users have an additional option for live sports and news streaming to their phones, previously they only had the option of AT&T’s U-Verse app, which comes with a basic fee. There are also carrier specific sports deals available.

The video can be streamed over Wi-Fi or via cellular connections.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, Android, Apple, Apps, AT&T, ESPN, Fox Sports, iPhone, Live sports via mobile, Smartphone, Sprint Tagged With: , , , ,
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